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PROFESSOR   LADD'S   WORKS. 


PSYCHOLOGY ;  Descriptive  and  Explanatory.  A  Treatise  of 
the  Phenomena,  Laws,  and  Development  of  Human  Mental 
Life.      8vo,   $4.50. 

INTRODUCTION  TO  PHILOSOPHY.  An  Inquiry  after  a  Ra- 
tional System  of  Scientific  Principles  in  their  Relation  to 
Ultimate  Reality.     8vo,  $3.00. 

OUTLINES  OF  PHYSIOLOGICAL  PSYCHOLOGY.  A  Text- 
book on  Mental  Science  for  Academies  and  Colleges,  liljs- 
trated.      8vo,   $2.00. 

ELEMENTS  OF  PHYSIOLOGICAL  PSYCHOLOGY.  A  Treatise 
of  the  Activities  and  Nature  of  the  Mind,  from  the  Physical 
and  Experimental  Point  of  View.  With  numerous  illustra- 
tions.     8vo,   $4.50. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SACRED  SCRIPTURE.  A  Critical.  His- 
torical, and  Dogmatic  Inquiry  into  the  Origin  and  Nature  of 
the  Old  and   New  Testaments.      2   vols.,   8vo,   $7.00. 

THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  CHURCH   POLITY.     Crown  8vo,  $2.50. 

WHAT  IS  THE  BIBLE?  An  Inquiry  of  the  Origin  and  Nature 
of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  in  the  light  of  Modern 
Biblical   Study.     12mo,   $2.00. 


PSYCHOLOGY 


Desoriptiye   and    Explajstatoky 


A    TREATISE   OF  THE  PHENOBIENA,    LAWS,    AND 
DEVELOPMENT  OF  HUMAN  MENTAL  LIFE 


GEORGE    TRUMBULL    LADD 

PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IN   YALE  UNIVERSITY 


'\i 


NEW  YOEK 

CHARLES     SOIIIBNEK'S    80NS 

1894 


IfiRARY 

EDUC. 

PSYCH. 

LIBRARY 


COPYKIUHT,    1^94,    BY 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 


o^ 


mow  DIRECTORV 

TU^Q  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMP 

NEW   YORK 


MY   PUPILS 

FHOM     WHOSK    (JUKUIES    AN'I)    OUSEUVATIONS 

I'.()TH   NAIVE   ANT)    WKLL   CONSIDERED 

I    HAVE   DEUIVEP   MOKE   INSIGHT    INTO  THE   NATX'UE   OF   THE    HUMAN    MIND 

THAN    FROM    HEADING   MANY    BOOKS 

THIS    VOLUME 

IS    UESPECTFULJA-    ANI>    AKWECTIONATELY    DEDICATED 


"  Greift  nur  liineiu  iii's  voUe  Mensoheulebeii !    Eiu  Jeder  lebt. 
Niclit  Vieleu  ist's  bekaiint,  mid  wo  ilir's  paokt,  da  ist's  interressant." 

—Goethe 


PREFACE 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  several  brilliant,  learned,  and 
volnmiuoiis  works  on  the  science  of  Psycholog-y  liave  recently 
appeared  in  English,  there  is  not  only  room,  but  also  a  real  de- 
mand, for  still  other  attempts  at  improved  treatment  of  the  same 
subject.  For  this  science  has,  during  some  time  past,  worthily 
rivalled  and  even  excelled  most  other  forms  of  scientific  in- 
quiry, both  as  respects  the  quality  and  number  of  its  devoted 
workmen,  and  also  as  respects  the  rapidity  of  its  advances  and 
the  number  and  startling  character  of  its  discoveries.  There 
are  special  reasons,  moreover,  why  the  field  of  inquiry  into  the 
phenomena  of  human  mental  life  can  never  be  closed  to  new- 
comers, for  a  hearing  of  their  claims  to  improved  results  as  com- 
pared with  their  predecessors,  even  for  a  brief  space  of  time. 
In  psychology  the  individual  point  of  view  and  the  particular 
method  of  investigation  and  of  treatment  chosen,  as  well  as  the 
mental  characteristics  of  the  investigator,  determine  the  char- 
acter of  the  results  as  in  no  other  one  of  the  sciences. 

What  has  just  been  said  should  not,  however,  be  understood 
as  a  timid  apology  for  appearing  at  the  present  moment  with 
another  new  treatise  covering  a  field  of  investigation  and  publi- 
cation so  recently  wrought  over.  The  book  which  is  here  given 
to  the  public  x>resents  the  results,  in  much  condensed  form,  of 
many  years  of  observation,  reading,  and  experiment.  The  few 
foot-notes  and  confessedly  meagre  bibliography  at  the  end  of 
the  chapters  afford  no  adequate  recognition  of  the  help  received 
from  the  hundreds,  not  only  of  larger  works,  but  also  and  chiefly 
of  magazine  articles  and  of  minor  monographs,  which  have  been 
consulted  in  its  preparation.  Every  expert  student  of  jisychol- 
ogy  knows  that  in  this  latter  form  of  literature  (most  of  which 
is  inaccessible  to  the  general  reader,  and  much  of  which  is  not 
to  be  found  even  in  oiir  largest  libraries)  the  most  valuable  ma- 


Vlll  PREFACE 

terial  for  bis  science  is  to  be  found.  For  my  riglit  to  use  witli 
both  coutidence  and  discretion  the  material  derived  from  mod- 
ern pliysiolog-ical  and  experimental  psychology,  my  works  pre- 
viously published  ("  Elements  of  Physiolog-ical  Psychology " 
and  "  Outlines  of  Physiological  Psychology  ")  may  be  left  to 
testify.  On  this  point  I  will  only  add  that  the  present  book 
contains  no  little  that  is  new  of  this  sort,  drawn  both  from  my 
private  notes  and  from  experimental  sources  not  accessible  in 
published  form.  As  the  dedication  aims  to  show,  it  has  been 
my  chief  ambition  and  my  constant  practice  to  bring  my  "  sci- 
ence "  of  mental  phenomena  to  the  testing  of  actual  and  con- 
crete human  life.  This  has  been,  indeed,  a  daily  and  almost 
hourly  pleasure  rather  than  a  task  ;  so  that  for  many  of  the  fol- 
lowing conclusions  I  must  api^eal,  not  only  to  introspective  and 
reflective  self -consciousness,  and  to  the  mental  i^rocesses  of  pu- 
pils and  colleagues,  but  also  to  the  mental  life  of  the  common 
people  and  to  the  profounder  voices  of  art  and  of  literature. 
The  cry  which  must  be  ever  ringing  in  the  ears  of  the  genuine 
ps}'cliologist  is  this :  "  Back,  from  books  and  laboratories,  to 
actual  and  concrete  human  life." 

Briefly  characterized,  then,  this  book  designs  to  give  a  clear, 
accurate,  and  comprehensive  picture  of  the  mental  life  of  the 
individual  man  ;  and  also  to  explain  this  life  as  it  appears  in  the 
light  of  all  the  resources  of  modern  psychological  science,  and 
with  the  idea  of  "  developnie?it,"  as  essentially  characteristic  of 
this,  as  it  is  of  all  life,  constantly  kept  in  mind. 

"While  gratefully  acknowledging  my  indebtedness  to  each  of 
the  large  band  of  predecessors  in  this  our  common  work — as  well 
to  those  I  have  named  as  to  the  many  more  unnamed — I  can 
truthfully  acknowledge  no  special  obligations  to  any  individu- 
als among  this  number.  It  will  not  require  a  wide  acquaintance 
with  psychological  literature  for  the  reader  to  discover  that  the 
jioints  of  view,  the  order  of  treatment,  the  discussion  of  the  par- 
ticular topics,  are  all  independent  and  thoroughly  the  author's 
own.  Indeed,  it  is  my  belief  that  there  is  not  a  page,  and  scarce- 
ly a  line,  of  tliis  treatise  which  does  not  show  that  all  its  material 
has  been  wrought  anew  into  a  distinct  and  characteristic  organ- 
ism of  truth.  Attention  is  particularly  called,  however,  to  the 
divisions  of  the  book,  which  abandon  even  the  appearance  of  re- 


PREFACE  IX 

taining  the  old  and  vicious  theory  of  faculties  ;  to  the  consistent 
tenure  of  the  view  that  the  formation  and  development  of  faculty 
is  itst'lf  the  chief  thing-  which  scicntitic  psychology  has  to  ex- 
plain ;  to  the  treatment,  in  particular,  of  the  affective  phenomena 
—the  nature,  classes,  and  tone  as  pleasure-pain,  of  the  feelings, 
and  the  growth  of  the  emotions  and  sentiments  ;  to  the  thecny  of 
])erception  and  of  the  nature  and  growth  of  knowledge  w  Inch  is 
advocated  ;  to  the  discussions  where  psychology  comes  into 
critical  contact  with  logic;  and,  above  all,  to  the  view  taken 
of  the  moral  sentiments  and  of  the  nature  and  evolution  of 
will. 

I  wish  to  add  a  single  word  to  those  teachers  of  psychology 
who  may  do  me  the  honor  to  make  use  of  my  book  for  the  in- 
struction of  their  classes.  The  presentation  here  made  is  ob- 
viously not  designed  merely  for  use  as  a  text-book.  At  the  same 
time  it  is  the  product  of  one  who  has  taught  a  larger  number  of 
pupils,  and  it  embodies  much  experience  gained  from  the  work 
of  the  class-room.  I  only  express  the  assured  results  of  this  ex- 
perience when  I  say  that,  for  persons  who  have  reached  the 
maturity  which  most  students  have  attained  when  they  begin 
psychology,  "  primers,"  which  talk  down  to  them  and  have  ev- 
erything put  into  exact  verbal  form  for  them  conveniently  to 
commit  to  memorj",  are  by  no  means  the  best  and  most  improv- 
ing text-books.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that,  if  it  had  been  my 
intention  to  adapt  this  treatise  solely  to  class-room  use,  I  should 
not  greatly  have  changed  it,  either  as  respects  amount  and  kind 
of  material  or  the  style  of  its  j^resentation.  Only  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that,  in  no  other  science  as  in  psychology,  is  it  so  nec- 
essary for  the  teacher  really  to  teach,  and  not  merely  to  give  out 
tasks  and  to  hear  recitations. 

In  this  connection  I  gratefully  acknowledge  the  valuable  as- 
sistance of  my  colleague,  Professor  George  M.  Duncan,  who  has 
read  the  entire  volume  and  has  made  several  helpful  sugges- 
tions, chiefly  looking  toward  increased  clearness  and  consistency 
of  statement  ;  and,  therefore,  of  course,  its  better  adaptation  to 
the  teacher's  uses. 

In  many  places  in  this  l)Ook  I  have  brought  the  subject  up  to 
the  borders — so  subtile  and  almost  indistinguishable — where 
psychology  touches  the  lu'oader,  all-embracing  domain  of  phi- 


X  PREFACE 

losophy.  But  I  believe  I  have  succeeded  (altliougli  I  have  no- 
where decried  "  metaph\'sics  in  psychology,"  or  advocated 
"  psychology  without  a  soul  ■))  not  only  in  promising-  to  reserve 
the  philosophical  problems  for  another  volume,  but  in  actually 
keeping  m}*  promise. 

Geoege  Teumbull  Ladd. 
Yale  Uni\'eusity, 

New  Haven,  Conn.,  1894. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

INTKODUCTOEY 

CHAPTER   I. 

PAGE 

Dkpinition  and  Probi-em  op  Psychology, 1-18 

CHAPTER   II. 
Method,  Sources,  and  Dn'isiox  of  Psy'chology,      ....        14-2(5 

part  firet 

MOST  GENERAL  FOEMS  OF  MENTAL  LIFE 

CHAPTER   III. 
Consciousness  and  Self-Consciousness, 29-48 

CHAPTER   IV. 
The  So-called  "Mental  Faculties." 49-60 

CHAPTER   V. 
Primary  Attention, 61-85 

part  Sccon^ 

THE  ELEMENTS   OF  MENTAL   LIFE 

CHAPTER   VI. 

Sens.\tion  :  Its  Nature  and  Classes, '       .       89-119 

CHAPTER   VII. 

Sensation:  Its  Quality  and  Quantity 120-140 


Xll  TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   VIII. 

PAGE 

Sensation-Complexes  and  Local  Signs, 141-lGl 

CHAPTER   IX.  • 

Feeling  :  Its  Nature  and  Classes 162-187 

CHAPTER   X. 

Feeling,  as  Pleasure-Pain, 188-210 

CHAPTER   XI. 
Conation  and  Movement, 211-2;53 

CHAPTER   XII. 

The  Representative  Image  oii  "  Idea," 234-252 

CHAPTER   XIII 
The  Processes  of  Ideation, 253-287 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Primary  Intellection, 288-313 


part  ^biib 

THE  DEVELOPMENT   OF  MENTAL  LIFE 

CHAPTER   XV. 
Perception  ijy  the  Senses, 317-o47 

CHAPTER   XVI. 
Perception  uy  the  Senses  {Continued), 348-375 

CHAPTER   XVn. 
Memory, ^^^^•—-370-407 

CHAPTER   XVIIL 
Imagination, 408-427 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
Thought  and  Language, 428-461 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS  Xlll 

CHAPTER   XX. 

PAOE 

Reasoning, 462-48(i 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
Space,  Time,  and  Causation, 487-507 

CHAPTER   XXII. 
The  Knowledge  op  Things  and  the  Knowledge  of  Self,  .        .    508-533 

CHAPTER   XXIII. 
The  Emotions  and  Passions 534-560 

CHAPTER   XXIV. 
The  Sentiments, 561-589 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
Impulse,  Instinct,  and  Desire, 590-608 

CHAPTER   XXVI. 
Will  and  Character, 609-643 

CHAPTER   XXVII. 
Types  and  Principles  op  Mental  Development,  ....    644-669 

Index, 671-676 


PSYCHOLOGY:    DESCRIPTIVE 
AND   EXPLANATORY 

INTRODUCTORY 

CHAPTER  I. 
DEFINITION  AND  PKOBLEM  OF  PSYCHOLOGY 

The  difficulties  of  defining  the  science  which  it  is  now  cus- 
tomary to  call  "  psj'chology "  are,  in  part,  common  to  all 
branches  of  scientific  inquiry.  In  general,  satisfactory  defini- 
tion is  one  of  the  latest  results  of  the  growth  of  any  science  ; 
and  since  every  genuine  science  is  in  a  constant  process  of 
growth,  the  conception  to  which  its  name  answers  is  subject  to 
change  in  the  thought  both  of  the  individual  student  and  of  the 
race.  The  more  complete  and  accurate  conception  which  the 
definition  is  designed  to  embody  must  be  established  and  de- 
fended in  the  course  of  the  detailed  investigations.  With  the 
understanding,  then,  that  the  statement  is  only  jirovisional,  we 
define  psychology  as  the  science  tvkich  describes  and  explains  the 
phenomena  of  conscioiisness,  as  such. 

This  definition,  like  every  other,  involves  certain  assump- 
tions both  of  fact  and  of  principle ;  it  also  involves  certain 
subordinate  conceptions,  some  of  which  require  further  defini- 
tion, and  some  of  which,  perhaps,  cannot  be  defined.  The  task 
of  justifying  the  assumptions,  of  defining  the  subordinate 
terms,  and  of  tracing  the  vaguer  aspects  of  thought  to  their 
ultimate  factors,  must  also  be  left  to  the  development  of  the 
science  itself.  A  few  words  here,  however — even  if  they  must 
be  of  a  somewhat  controversial  character — will  be  helpful,  and 
are  indeed  necessary.  Our  definition  assumes  not  only  that 
such  a  science  as  psychology  is  remotely  possible,  but  even  that 
it  actually  exists.  It  also  assumes  that  a  class  of  phenomena, 
called  "  phenomena  of  consciousness  "  (or  by  other  equivalent 
terms),  may  be  distingiiished  from  other  classes  of  phenomena 


2  DEFINITION    AND    PROBLEM    OF    PSYCHOLOGY 

however  closely  related,  and  may  be  made  the  data  of  scientific 
inquiry.  It  assumes  that  these  phenomena  may  be  described 
and  so  classified  ;  it  also  assumes  that  they  may  be— however 
partially — explained.  That  is  to  say,  the  conditions  under 
Avhieh  the  i3henomena  occur,  their  connection,  under  laAv,  Avith  one 
another  as  psychic  facts  and  with  other  non-psychic  facts,  may 
be  known ;  the  more  complex  may  be  analyzed  into  the  more 
simple,  and  the  principles  of  the  combination  of  the  simple  into 
the  complex  may  be  discovered ;  the  history  of  the  evolution  of 
these  phenomena  may  be  written.  All  these  assumptions  have 
been  disputed.  The  definition,  being-  jDreliminary,  onl}'-  settles 
such  dispute  for  us  until,  in  the  course  of  the  unfolding-  of  the 
science,  the  disputed  matters  can  be  thoroug-hly  discussed. 

This  definition  of  psycholog-y  also  refers  us,  in  our  inquiry 
concerning  the  particular  subjects  of  investig-ation,  to  the  "  phe- 
nomena of  consciousness,  as  such."  But  what  is  "conscious- 
ness "  ?  and  how,  without  having-  this  term  carefully  defined, 
shall  we  know  Avhat  it  is  of  Avhich  psycholog-y  specifically  treats  ? 
Strictly  speaking — as  we  shall  soon  see — the  term  "  conscious- 
ness "  cannot  be  defined ;  because  the  conception  of  conscious- 
ness cannot  be  analyzed.  The  impossibility  of  performing-  such 
analysis  is  connected  with  the  most  fundamental  and  ultimate 
nature  of  the  phenomena  of  consciousness  themselves.  And  yet 
every  one  may  know  sufficiently  well  for  the  purpose  of  psy- 
chological study,  and,  indeed,  with  a  peculiar  immediacy  and 
certainty  of  knowledge,  what  is  meant  by  a  "  phenomenon  of 
consciousness,  as  such."  Perceptions — whether  full  and  clear 
or  meagre  and  obscure,  whether  coming  by  the  eye  or  by  the 
hand,  and  whether  of  our  own  bodies  or  of  the  remotest  star — 
as  peixepfions,  or  facts  of  mental  life  ;  thoughts — whether  logi- 
cal or  illogical,  whether  of  business  or  of  philosophy,  as  thoiighis, 
or  facts  of  mental  life  ;  feelings — ^whether  painful  or  pleasurable, 
and  Avhatever  about — as  feelings,  or  facts  of  mental  life  ;  desires 
and  volitions — whether  weak  or  strong,  vague  and  aimless  or 
definite  and  purposeful — as  desires  and  voJifions,  or  facts  of  men- 
tal life  ; — such  are  the  phenomena  of  consciousness. 

I  1.  It  has  been  denied  that  psychology  is  a  science,  and  this  not  only  by 
unfriendly  critics,  who  dwell  upon  its  long-continned  stage  of  stagnation, 
but  also  by  ardent  stndents  of  psychology  from  its  most  modern  points  of 
view.  Snch  denial  arises  either  from  ignorance  concerning  the  achievements 
of  the  last  fifty  years  of  psychological  research,  or  from  a  too  narrow  con- 
ception of  science  in  general ;  or  else  it  is  framed  under  the  influence  of  some 
theory  as  to  what  kind  of  science  psychology  in  particular  ought  to  become. 

It  is  simple  matter  of  fact  that  no  other  form  of  investigation  has,  during 


rSYCIIOLOGY    AjST   ACKNOWLEDGED    SCIENCE  8 

the  last  half  century,  made  greater  and  swifter  advance  than  psychology  ;  no 
other  has  accumulated  a  larger  collection  of  available  data  or  done  more 
toward  pointing  out,  both  experimentally  and  speculatively,  the  regular  con- 
nections between  its  observed  facts.  Moreover,  we  cannot  ajjprove  of  that 
use  of  the  word  "  science"  which,  if  consistently  carried  out,  would  exclude 
from  this  category  not  only  luuuan  psychology,  but  also  all  the  results  of 
research  into  the  principles  of  politics,  economics,  philology,  into  history, 
ethics,  ethnology,  and  religion.  Nor  is  the  difference,  as  respects  certainty, 
upon  matters  of  fact  and  matters  of  so-called  law,  between  those  sciences 
which  sometimes  arrogate  the  exclusive  use  of  this  proud  title  and  those 
which  are  thus  arrogantly  excluded  from  claim  to  the  title,  by  any  means  so 
great  as  is  often  supposed. 

Most  unseemly  of  all  positions  is  the  refusal  of  the  term  "  science"  to 
psychology,  because  it  has  as  yet  discovered  no  law  corresponding  to  the 
Newtonian  principle  of  gravitation  or  to  the  principle  of  chemical  equiva- 
lents. For  who  knows,  or  can  rightly  assume,  that  there  is  in  reality  any 
such  law  to  be  discovered  ;  that  the  infinitely  varied  and  concretely  indi- 
vidualized facts  of  human  mental  life  are  ever  really  to  be  explained  after  the 
analogy  of  planets  and  atoms  ?  To  write  voluminous  treatises  on  psychol- 
ogy as  a  so-called  natural  science,  and  yet  deny  that  there  is  a  science  of 
psychology  because  the  phenomena  cannot  be  reduced  to  an  order  like  that 
of  certain  physical  phenomena,  is  to  undermine  the  results  and  value  of  one's 
work  by  a  premature  hypothesis. 

The  definition  (and  indeed  the  appearance  of  this  treatise  on  psychology 
as  well  as  that  of  every  other  similar  treatise)  assumes  that  psychology  is  a 
science.  The  assumption  can  be  completely  verified  only  in  the  course  of 
the  investigation  itself. 

§  2.  It  has  also  been  denied  that  we  can  define  p.sychology,  because  we  can- 
not clearly  mark  oflf  its  appropriate  field.  Thus  Dr.  Ward  (art.  Psychology, 
in  Encyc.  Brit.,  p.  37)  holds  that  our  inability  to  draw  the  distinction,  at  the 
outset,  between  internal  experience  and  external  expei'ience — to  distinguish 
"  what  takes  place  in  the  mind  "  from  "  what  takes  place  without  " — makes 
it  impossible  to  define  psychology  as  we  do  the  sciences  of  matter.  On 
the  contrary,  no  distinction  seems,  "  at  the  outset,"  to  be  more  clearly  and 
promptly  made  than  this  by  the  reflective  mind  of  all  mankind.'  It  is  only 
after  the  professional  stiident  has  introduced  certain  metaphysical  discus- 
sions, which  ought  to  Jje  left  to  the  later  stages  of  jisychology  or  to  philos- 
ophy, that  this  seemingly  obvioiis  distinction  becomes  debatable  and  con- 
fused. The  facU  of  ordinary  human  consciousness,  faitlifulhi  described,  are 
the  data  to  which  scientific  psi/chology  must  return  again  and  again,  and  in 
b el lalf  of  the  complete  explanation  of  which,  it  must  summon  all  the  resources  of 
modern  investigation.  The  distinction  between  external  facts  and  facts  of 
consciousness,  as  actually  made  by  every  man,  furnishes  not  only  "at  the 
outset,"  but  all  the  way  through,  the  one  peculiar  and  abiding  standpoint  of 
psychology,  as  descriptive  and  explanatory  science. 

1  As  Natorp  has  well  said  :  '■  In  all  strife  (as  between  Monism  and  Dualism,  etc.)  this,  at  least, 
remains  firmly  established  :  that  in  consciousness  the  limits  of  the  psychical  and  the  physical  allow 
of  being  definitely  marked — at  any  rate,  so  far  as  the  '  phenomenon'  of  things  is  concerned,  however 
the  case  may  stand  as  regards  their  ultimate  essence."    (Einleitung  in  d.  Psychologie,  p.  10.) 


4  DEFIXITIOX    AND   PROBLEM   OF   PSYCHOLOGY 

It  miglit  fui'ther  be  claimed,  in  agreement  with  M.  Eabier,'  that  the  real 
difficulty  is  not  so  much  to  find  psychological  objects  for  investigation  as  to 
find  true  physical  and  physiological  objects.  It  would  seem,  accordingly, 
that  there  is  danger  lest  all  the  other  sciences  should  be  submerged  in  the 
one  iiniversal  science,  psychology.  But  why  trouble  ourselves  at  present 
about  the  possibility  of  making  a  distinction  so  obvious  ?  Facts  of  conscious- 
ness exist  in  abundance,  as  the  data  for  psychological  investigation ;  they  are 
the  facts  which  constitute  your  experience  and  mine.  But  psychology  studies 
these  phenomena  as  such;  it  investigates  the  facts  in  themselves  and  for 
themselves. 

§  3.  Various  terms  have  been  proposed  to  express,  in  the  most  general 
way,  those  data  whose  descrijition  and  explanation  constitutes  the  science  of 
psychology.  The  term  "phenomena  of  conscioiasness  "  brings  psychology 
into  relation  to  the  other  sciences,  all  of  which  find  their  sjihere  as  particular 
sciences  in  the  descrijition  and  explanation  of  some  characteristic  group  of 
phenomena.  The  phenomena  which  furnish  the  data  of  psychology  are  char- 
acterized by  the  collective  term  "of  consciousness."  "Facts  of  conscious- 
ness," "  facts  of  mental  life,"  "  mental  or  psychic  facts  "  are  kindred  terms. 
The  word  "  psychoses"  has  been  proposed  as  a  most  general  designation  for 
all  concrete  psychic  facts.  The  phrase  "  states  of  consciousness  "  suggests 
that  relative  stability  and  complexity,  due  to  more  or  less  of  mental  develop- 
ment, which  the  immediate  data  for  our  psychological  investigation  in  gen- 
eral have.  We  may  properly  consult  convenience  in  giving  variety  to  our 
discussion  by  adopting  any  of  these  diiferent  but  almost  equally  approjiriate 
terms. 

It  is  important  to  notice  also  that  the  definition  assumes  :  not  only  facts 
of  consciousness  exist  and,  as  such,  may  be  made  the  data  of  scientific  in- 
vestigation; but,  in  becoming  such  data,  facts  of  consciousness  are  made 
objects  of  knoxoledge.  The  phenomena  of  psychic  life  exist,  and  they  may  be 
know7i  as  facts.  These  states  of  consciousness,  as  they  primarily  awaken 
our  interest  and  so  form  the  basis  of  psychological  investigation,  are  what 
we  are  accustomed  to  call  our  "  knowledge  " — whether  of  our  own  so-called 
inner  experience  or,  inferentially,  of  the  inner  experience  of  others.  From 
this  conclusion  several  important  results  follow,  the  fuller  meaning  and 
effect  of  which  can  be  seen  only  later  on.  Hence  the  impossibility  of  ob- 
serving states  of  consciousness,  after  they  are  converted  by  deliberate  and 
reflective  attention  into  objects  of  knowledge,  which  shall  accurately  repro- 
duce states  of  consciousness  not  thus  fully  converted  into  objects  of  knowl- 
edge. And  to  this  fact,  namely,  that  all  states  of  consciousness,  in  order  to 
liecome  data  for  scientific  investigation,  must  be  converted,  as  it  were,  into 
objects  of  knowing  consciousness — do  we  attribute  in  large  measure  what 
Professor  James  has  referred  to  as  "  fallacies  of  the  psycholygist." 

The  definition  of  psycliolog-y  as  a  "  Science  "  also  assumes  that 
some  kind  of  system  actually  exists  among-  the  occurrences  which 
we  call  "  phenomena  of  consciousness."  The  facts  upon  which, 
as  data,  our  scientific  investigation  concentrates  itself,  have  in 

'  Lef  onfl  de  Philoeophie,  I.  Psychologie,  p.  28, 


rSYCHOLOGY   AS   SCIENCE   OF    MIND  6 

reality  connections  with  one  another  of  a  reguhir  sort ;  they  have 
also  commou  connections  of  the  same  sort — it  may  be — with 
other  groups  of  facts  that,  in  their  turn,  furnish  data  to  other 
[)articular  sciences.  Otherwise  i)sycliic  facts  could  not  be  stud- 
ied with  even  the  hope  of  reducin*;'  them  to  terms  of  science. 
For  "facts"  isolated  and  unconnected  among  themselves,  cannot 
become  data  of  science. 

Now,  in  the  universal  estimate,  whether  popular  or  scientific, 
the  character  of  the  connection  which  exists  among-  jDsychic  facts 
is  somewhat  peculiar.  At  the  outset  of  our  investigation  we  wish 
to  assume  this  connection  in  a  manner  as  free  as  possible  from 
all  debatable  metai:)hysieal  tenets.  In  some  manner,  however, 
we  are  obliged  to  assume  it  in  order  to  study  ps3-chology  at  all. 
For  this  universal  estimate  assigns  all  psychic  facts  to  some 
psychical  individual,  some  so-called  "Mind"  or  "Self."  In- 
deed, the  character  of  the  consciousness  from  which  this  esti- 
mate springs  is  such  that  nothing  seems  more  absurd,  more 
inconceivable,  than  the  assumption  of  psychic  facts  which  be- 
long to  no  one.  The  phenomena  of  human  consciousness,  in 
general,  can  be  observed  and  studied  only  on  the  popular  as- 
sumption that  they  always  appear  as  phenomena  (//'  some  so- 
called  human  being.  From  this  undoubted  truth  follow  several 
important  conclusions.  Psychic  facts  inevitably  break  up,  as  it 
were,  into  as  many  groups  as  there  are  individual  psychical 
beings.  All  phenomena  of  consciousness  are  facts,  either  of 
your  mental  life,  or  of  mine,  or  of  some  other  so-called  "  person," 
in  the  popular  sense  of  this  word. 

Moreover,  the  connection  existing  among  the  facts  within 
each  one  of  these  subordinate  groups  is  distinctly  peculiar — is, 
indeed,  unitiue.  This  connection  may — na}^,  must — be  thought  of 
in  two  directions.  The  phenomena  of  7ni/  consciousness  belong 
to  me ;  the  phenomena  of  your  consciousness  belong  to  you  ; 
and  so  on,  through  all  the  infinite  number  of  groups  of  such 
phenomena.  To  say  this  is  to  affirm  some  sort  of  peculiar  con- 
nection between  all  the  phenomena  of  one  group  and  whatever  is 
meant  by  the  word  "  me,"  and  a  similar  peculiar  connection  be- 
tween all  the  phenomena  of  another  group  and  whatever  is  meant 
by  the  word  "  you."  Furthermore,  the  facts  of  my  psychic  life, 
as  at  present  existent  and  made  objects  of  knowledge  for  myself 
or  for  some  other  observer,  are  connected  in  a  peculiar  way  with 
the  past  facts  of  this  same  life.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  you 
and  of  every  other  psychical  individual.  We  have,  then,  as- 
sumed by  the  A'ery  definition  of  psychology  that  psychic  facts 
may  be  studied  in  their  connections,  and  as  belonging  to  the  de- 


6  DEFINITION    AND    PROBLEM   OF   PSYCHOLOGY 

velopment  of  the  psychical  or  mental  life  of  iudividuals.  In- 
deed, it  Avould  not  be  improper  from  this  point  of  view,  to  define 
psycholog-y  as  tlie  science  of  the  inciimdual  psychical  or  mental  life. 
But  the  study  of  the  phenomena  of  consciousness  as  they  oc- 
cur in  their  orderly  connection  with  one  another,  and  so  consti- 
tute the  mental  life  of  this  or  that  individual,  would  not  alone 
give  us  a  science  of  psychology.  The  phenomena  of  my  con- 
sciousness must  be  investigated,  as  objects  of  knowledge,  with  a 
view  to  compare  them  with  the  phenomena  of  your  conscious- 
ness ;  and  both  these,  with  a  view  to  comparison  with  as  many 
more  similar  groups  and  series  of  psychic  facts  as  may  become 
objects  of  knowledge.  In  other  words,  psychology  compares, 
generalizes,  etc.,  and  strives  thus  to  reach  a  description  and  ex- 
planation of  all  phenomena  of  consciousness,  as  such.  It  strives 
to  found  a  science,  not  simply  of  my  mental  life,  and  of  your 
mental  life,  but  of  all  mental  life.  Yet  here  we  must  restrict  the 
endeavor  of  the  present  treatise.  Although  data  of  animal  and 
comparative  psychology  may  be  employed,  such  data  will  be 
used  only  so  far  as  they  throw  indirect  light  upon  human  mental 
life.  It  is  the  psj^chology  that  makes  the  facts  of  liuraan  mental 
life  its  objects  of  knowledge,  its  immediate  data  of  scientific  study, 
which  we  are  about  to  pursue. 

§  4.  It  is  not  intended  to  discuss  the  question  whether  such  a  thing  is 
])ossible  as  a  science  of  "psychology  without  a  soul,"  in  the  sense  in  which 
M.  Ribot  and  others  would  have  us  pursue  such  a  science.  But  the  meaning 
of  the  words  "  me"  and  "  you  "  and  "  him,"  and  the  processes  by  which  the 
conceptions  corresponding  to  these  words  are  formed,  it  does  belong  to 
psychology  as  descriptive  and  explanatory  science  to  consider.  And  if  we 
find  any  assumption  of  a  so-called  "real  and  unitary  being  "  entering  into 
these  complex  conceptions,  this  assumption,  too,  must  be  noticed,  and,  if  jios- 
sible,  explained.  Such  an  assumption  is  itself  a  psychic  fact  of  grave  im- 
portance in  determining  the  laws  and  forms  of  mental  life.  Nor  can  we 
wholly  agree  with  those  who  regard  hypothesis  as  necessarily  useless,  or 
even  misleading,  for  purposes  of  scientific  explanation.  On  the  contrary, 
we  regard  this  hypothesis  as  callable  of  use  in  such  a  way  as  to  assist,  rather 
than  to  hinder,  psychological  science.  At  the  same  time  it  is  projDosed  to 
remain  faithful,  as  far  as  possible,  to  the  conception  of  psychology  as  a  sci- 
ence, and  tlierefore  to  exclude  metaphysical  discussions  regarding  the  real 
existence  of  mind,  its  unitary  being,  place  in  the  world  of  physical  things, 
real  connection  with  the  body,  its  immortality,  etc'     This  exclusion  of  meta- 

'  Onr  success  in  carrying  out  this  endeavor  will  be  tested  by  the  method  and  results  of  the  whole 
book.  We  lire  hopeful,  however,  of  succeeding  better  than— for  one  exiimple  among  many — Uilff- 
ding  has  done,  who,  after  abjuring  metaphysics  in  the  form  of  both  materialism  and  spiritualism,  as 
forming  no  part  of  empirical  psychology,  proceeds  at  once  to  a  rather  long  and  unsatisfactory 
argument  in  Hupi)ort  of  monism— and  this  at  the  very  beginning  of  his  treatise  (Outlines  of  Psychol- 
ogy, chap.  i.  and  ii.). 


GENERAL    AIM   OF   PSYCHOLOGY  7 

physics,  however,  cannot  i)ossil)ly  be  exteucled  sq  far  as  to  cover  the  assump- 
tions involved  in  the  ordinary  language  of  consciousness.  "  As  of  old,  I  am 
I,  thou  art  thou  " — this  is  not  simply  the  utterance  of  poetic  fancy;  it  ex- 
presses both  the  universal  distinction  and  the  universal  process  of  generaliza- 
tion and  unifying,  the  metaphysical  assumption,  on  the  basis  of  which  alone 
the  very  beginnings  of  psychological  science  are  possible. 

§  5.  Following  the  derivation  of  the  word  {\l/vx''i,  "  soul,"  and  Xayoi-,  "  rea- 
soned account"),  it  was  formerly  customary  to  say,  "  Psychology  is  the  sci- 
ence of  the  soul  ;  "  or  (since  the  word  "  soul"  may  be  felt  to  be  fraught  with 
religious  and  tlioological  prejudices)  "Psychology is  the  science  of  the  mind." 
Thus  Sully  and  Hoft'ding  have,  in  this  regard,  followed  the  "  old  psychol- 
ogy." Nor  should  we  feel  any  insuperable  objections  to  this  definition,  if  it 
were  certain  to  be  kept  in  mind,  as  Lotze  says  in  his  "  Outlines  of  Psychol- 
ogy," always  at  the  beginning  to  use  the  designation  "soul,"  or  "mind," 
"  with  the  proviso  of  future  proof."  The  word  "  mind,"  and  even  the  word 
"  soul,"  we  shall  feel  at  liberty  to  employ  from  the  beginning  of  our  scien- 
tific investigation  onward.  But  these  words  will  at  first  mean  for  us  only 
what  everybody  means  whose  mental  life  has  developed  sufficiently  to  make 
the  distinction  of  vieum  and  tuum  as  resjjects  facts  of  consciousness ;  and 
from  the  standpoint  of  ordinary  adult  intelligence,  to  distinguish  "  I  "  and 
"you"  and  "he"  from  one  another,  and  from  the  things  which,  when 
speaking  without  figure  of  speech,  we  call  "it."  "What  is  further  meant  by 
these  and  other  kindred  words  it  is  the  task  of 'psychology  to  investigate. 

The  Problem  of  Ps3"cliolog'y  must  be  understood  in  accordance 
with  tlie  conception  of  the  nature  of  psycholog-y  which  we  have 
just  accepted.  Allowing  ourselves  a  certain  kelpful  repetition,  we 
may  say  :  The  problem  of  psychology  is  to  describe  and  explain 
the  phenomena  of  consciousness — the  facts  of  psychic  or  mental 
life,  as  psychic,  and  known  as  psychic,  i.e.,  as  objects  of  knowl- 
edge. Using  a  somewhat  different  form  of  expression,  it  may  be 
said  :  The  problem  of  psychology  is  to  understand  the  mental 
life,  its  phenomena,  conditions,  and  laws.  It  is  science  which  is 
aimed  at ;— science,  as  distinguished  from  popular  impression  and 
opinion,  or  from  merely  artistic  and  poetical  representation, 
however  interesting  and  true.  Such  scientific  treatment  of 
psychic  facts  involves  both  description  and  explanation.  To  at- 
tempt explanation,  Avithout  accurate  observation  and  careful  de- 
scription of  the  facts,  is  to  doom  one's  self  to  faulty  generaliza- 
tions. Here,  as  everywhere,  the  frequent  return  from  theory  and 
statement  of  so-called  "  law  "  to  the  face-to-face  experience  with 
actual  life  is  essential.  The  constant  cry  of  the  genuine  and 
skilful  psychologist  is  this :  "  Let  us  go  back  now  and  look 
the  facts  in  the  face."  But  to  rest  satisfied  with  mere  descrip- 
tion is  to  stop  short  of  science.  For  purposes  of  description  the 
delineations  of  psychic  life  in  which  history,  literature,  and  art 


8  DEFINITION   AND   PROBLEM    OF   PSYCHOLOGY 

abound  are  indeed  invaluable.  But  tlie  narrative,  or  the  dra- 
matic and  artistic  descriijtion  of  life  is,  as  j^et,  only  material 
for  science  ;  the  expert  and  trained  psychologist,  by  use  of 
methods  and  conclusions  belonging  to  modern  psychological 
research,  must  explain  facts,  discover  laws,  trace  the  genesis 
and  development  of  this  life,  and  so  construct  the  science  of 
psychology. 

The  explanations  which  scientific  psychologj'^  offers  for  the 
phenomena  of  consciousness  are  chiefly  of  two  kinds.  These  are, 
first,  the  analysis  of  complex  states  of  consciousness  into  their 
simxjler  factors,  or  elements,  and  the  discovery  of  the  laws  of  the 
combination  of  these  factors  ;  and,  second,  the  tracing  of  the 
genesis  and  growth  of  mental  life.  This  second  kind  of  "  expla- 
nation "  may,  in  its  turn,  be  subdivided  :  (1)  The  genesis  of  the 
individual  states  of  consciousness,  as  they  arise  and  succeed  each 
other  in  time,  demands  explanation.  Psychology  endeavors  to 
set  forth  in  definite  terms  on  what  conditions  of  physical  en- 
vironment, and  under  what  relations  to  preceding  psychic  con- 
ditions, each  state  of  consciousness  occurs.  It  necessarily  re- 
gards the  states  of  consciousness  as  associated,  and  considers  all 
present  states  as  dependent,  under  law,  upon  preceding  states. 
But  (2)  psychology  also  endeavors  to  give  a  systematic  exhibition 
of  the  general  laws  which  control  the  evolution  of  the  indi- 
vidual man's  mental  life.  If  we  employ  these  words  in  a  cau- 
tious, provisional  w«y,  we  may  say  it  investigates  "  the  becoming 
of  the  soul,"  the  genesis  and  growth  of  mind  in  individual  man. 

It  is  obvious,  then,  that  all  states  of  consciousness,  regarded 
as  possible  objects  of  knowledge,  ofl^er — nay,  themselves  are — 
problems  for  the  jisychologist.  The  crowd  staring  at  a  spectacle, 
the  astronomer  gazing  through  the  telescope  at  a  star,  and  the 
bacteriologist  peering  at  a  microbe  through  his  microscope,  are 
in  states  of  so-called  perceptive  consciousness.  But  perception, 
as  a  state  of  consciousness — perception  as  such — is  a  psycho- 
logical problem.  It  is  rather  a  vast  and  complicated  network 
of  problems.  The  lover  of  music  while  listening  to  the  compo- 
sition of  a  great  master,  the  admirer  of  nature  in  the  presence  of' 
Mount  Blanc  or  of  Fuji,  the  unamestlietized  suflerer  under  the 
surgeon's  knife,  are  in  states  of  feeling  consciousness.  And 
feelings,  as  such,  offer  many  jiroblems  to  ps^'chology.  Each 
state  of  consciousness  teems  with  interesting  problems.  But 
the  one  prohlem  ove?'  all  is  to  understand  the  real  nature  of  that 
mental  life  of  which  all  states  of  consciousness  are  memhers  and. 
parts,  and  the  conditions  and  laws  which  control  its  genesis  and  de- 
celopment. 


DIFFERENT   VIEWS   OF   ITS    PIIOBLK.M  9 

§6.  Different  statements  have  been  given  by  diU'ercnt  writers  to  the 
problem  wliich  psychology  pursues.  Thus  Beneko  holds  that  it  is  the  busi- 
ness of  the  psychologist  to  give,  for  every  form  of  manifestation  whicli  oceuis 
in  the  developed,  soul,  "definite  and  sliarji  demonstration  through  what  pro- 
cesses, and  by  combination  of  what  factors,  it  originates."  '  Another  writer 
declares,''  in  a  more  ambitious  way,  that  the  one  quite  definite  purpose  of  a 
scientific  psychology  is  "  the  reduction  of  all  the  processes  of  the  soul  to  one 
simple  psycho-2)hysical  clement."  [But  this  way  of  stating  the  problem  of 
p.sychology  plainly  implies  the  very  doubtful  double  hypothesis  that  all 
psychic  proces.ses  may  be  reduced  to  one,  and  that  this  fundamental  process 
is  a  so-called  "psycho-physical"  process.]  And  Herbart '  conceived  the 
aim  of  psychology  to  be  the  "  demonstration  of  the  connection  of  that  which 
admits  of  being  perceived  in  consciousness  (facts  of  consciousness),  by 
means  of  that  which  does  not  attain  such  perception — in  accordance  with 
general  laws."  While  the  most  distinguished  modern  jisychologist  from  the 
Herbartian  point  of  view  ■*  affirms  :  ' '  Psychology  is  that  science  which  has 
for  its  problem  the  explanation  of  the  general  classes  of  p.sychical  iihenom- 
eua,  by  means  both  of  mental  representations  as  empirically  given,  and  also 
of  the  speculative  concept  of  mental  representation  in  general,  according 
to  the  universal  laws  of  mental  life." 

We  consider  it  much  safer  and  more  scientific,  however,  to  conceive  of  the 
problem  of  psychology,  when  entering  upon  its  pursuit,  so  as  to  exclude  the 
admixture  of  doubtful  theories  often  devised  in  answer  to  the  problem. 

^  7.  Our  view  of  the  problem  of  psychology  assumes  that  a  description 
of  the  phenomena  of  consciousness  is  possible  which  shall  be  sufficiently  ac- 
curate and  compreheu.sive  to  serve  as  a  basis  for  an  inductive  science.  But 
in  order  that  these  phenomena,  or  facts,  may  be  employed  as  data  for  a 
scientific  treatment,  they  must — as  has  already  been  said — become  ol)jects  of 
knowledge.  Now,  it  is  admitted  by  all  that  mental  phenomena  can  become 
objects  of  immediate  knowledge  only  by  means  of  so-called  introspection  or 
self-consciousness.  I  can  stand,  as  it  were,  face  to  face  with  the  phenomena 
only  of  my  own  mental  life,  you  of  yours,  and  so  on. 

It  is  moreover  implied  in  this  statement  of  the  problem  of  psychology  that 
psychic  facts  are,  as  objects  of  immediate  knowledge,  more  or  less  comi)lex  ; 
and,  at  the  same  time,  that  they  may  be  analyzed  into  their  so-called  compo- 
nent factors  and  the  laws  of  the  combination  of  these  factors  discovered.  As 
M.  Paulhan  has  said  :  "  Every  psychic  fact  is  a  system — a  synthesis  of  facts 
more  or  less  perfectly  coordinated."  Such  a  system  admits,  in  the  hands  of 
p.sychological  science,  of  being  analyzed.  Here  Helndioltz's  analysis  of  the 
single  note  of  our  ordinary  musical  experience  is  often  taken  as  a  typical 
example. 

The  fuller  exjilanation  and  justification  of  these  assumptions,  too,  must  be 
left  to  subsequent  examination.  We  are  reminded  again  that  our  definition 
is  iKvessarily  preliminary.  But  here  again,  also,  we  may  safely  trust,  for 
the  present,  the  universal  belief  as  expressive  of  universal  experience.     All 

'  Pragmatische  Psycholog'e,  p.  42.    Berlin,  1850. 

2  Horwicz  :  Psychologische  Analysoii.  p.  iv.  f.     Halle,  1872. 

3  Psychologic  als  Wisscuschaft,  1.,  p.  27.     Ki'migsberij,  1S24. 

*  Volkmaim  vou  Volkinar  :  Lehrbuch  d.  Psychologie.l.,  p.  3-1-.    Cothcu,  1884. 


10  DEFINITION   AND   PIIOBLEM    OF   PSYCHOLOGY 

believe  that,  in  some  sort,  one  may  immediately  and  certainly  know  wliat 
one's  own  feelings,  desires,  thoughts,  purposes,  really  are  ;  and  that  some 
of  these  states,  called  by  a  common  term,  are  more  complex  and  highly 
developed  than  are  others. 

§8.  Finally,  it  is  assumed  that  the  facts  of  consciousness  may  be  suc- 
cessfully studied — nay,  that  they  must  be  so  studied,  if  we  are  to  have  any 
worthy  scientific  system — in  the  light  of  the  conception  of  development.  But 
what  develops  ?  The  most  obvious  answer  certainly  is  :  The  soul  or  mind 
of  the  individual  man  develops.  In  this  answer,  however,  we  surely  detect 
metaphysics  creeping  in,  with  its  subtle  and  ever-present  assumptions. 
The  truth  is,  in  our  judgment,  that  no  doctrine  of  evolution  is  possible 
without  a  host  of  metaphysical  assumptions.  Yet  all  we  care  to  have 
admitted,  at  the  outset,  may  be  summed  up  in  this  statement :  The  facts  of 
consciousness  which  "  belong  "  to  every  psychic  individual  may  be  arranged 
and  explained  on  the  hypothesis  that  the  later  depend  on  the  earlier,  the 
more  complex  on  the  more  simple,  the  particular  on  those  belonging  to  the 
species,  etc.  In  brief,  it  is  jiossible  to  describe,  as  conforming  to  certain 
conceptions  of  law  and  order,  the  history  of  a  human  mental  life. 

The  true  conception  of  psj^cliolog-y  may  be  furtlier  expanded 
by  considering-,  briefly,  tlie  Relations  in  wliieli  this  science  stands 
to  several  other  closely  allied  Forms  of  human  Knowledge. 
Here  it  is  necessary  to  notice,  especially,  only  its  relation  (1)  to 
certain  allied  particular  sciences,  and  (2)  to  that  form  of  inquiry 
and  ojiinion  which  we  call  philosophy. 

The  really  notable  thing-  about  the  relation  of  psycholog-y  to 
the  physical  sciences  in  general  is  that  it  differs  from  them 
l)y  dealing:  with  a  quite  different  order  of  facts,  and  that  it  is  the 
threshold  or  g-ate  of  entrance  to  the  study  of  another  main 
g-roup  of  sciences — namely,  the  so-called  psychological  sciences. 
It  has  often  been  claimed — -and  especially  of  late — that  because 
the  phenomena  of  consciousness  are  peculiarly  related  to  cer- 
tain forms  of  physical  development,  therefore  such  phenomena 
ought  to  be  subjected  to  treatment  similar  to  that  given  to 
these  forms  of  development.  It  has  even  been  projaosed  to 
make  psychology  a  dependent  branch  of  biology,  or  to  reduce 
psychology  to  terms  of  general  nerve-physiology  or  of  cere- 
bral physiology.  But  so  far  as  empirical  psychology  is  con- 
tierned,  the  data  with  which  it  deals  stand  in  no  fundamentally 
different  relation  to  the  science  of  living  organisms,  or  of  the 
nerves  and  brain,  from  that  in  Avhich  they  stand  to  physics  in 
the  form  of  optics  or  of  acoustics.  Both  ])hysies  and  phj^siol- 
ogy  expound  to  us  certain  connections  of  psychic  facts  Avith 
other  facts,  certain  conditions  on  which  phenomena  of  con- 
sciousness arise  and  change.  Both  are,  thereftn-o,  to  bo  onii^loyed 
in  explaining  the  genesis  and  growth  of  mental  life.     But  bio- 


RKLATION   TO   PARTICULAR   SCIENCES  11 

logical  facts,  as  such,  and  physiolo<;ical  facts,  as  such,  are  no 
more  like  the  phenomena  of  consciousness,  as  such,  than  are 
other  physical  facts.  Nor  can  biology  and  physiolog-y  put  forth 
any  more  defensible  claim  to  absorb  psychology  than  can 
optics  and  acoustics.  The  "explanation"  of  psychic  facts  by 
reference  to  the  relations  which  they  sustain  io  known  Inologicid 
or  physiological  facts  is  indeed  a  most  promising  and  fruitful 
branch  of  psychological  method ;  but  this  does  not  in  the  least 
diminish  the  claim  of  psychology  to  an  independent  position 
among  the  particular  sciences.  In  one  sense  of  the  words,  there 
are  no  "independent"  sciences,  because  there  are  no  isolated  or 
independent  realities.  In  another  sense  of  the  words,  psychology 
is  by  far  the  most  independent  and  stable  of  the  sciences.  And 
if  all  the  sciences  were  ever  to  be  absorbed  in  any  one,  psychol- 
ogy is  best  fitted  to  be  that  universal  science.  For  what  are  the 
other  sciences  but  orderly  or  half-disordered  systems  of  concep- 
tions ?  And  are  not  all  conceptions  facts  of  human  consciousness  ? 
On  the  other  hand,  jisychology  is  undoubtedly  the  necessary 
preliminary  discipline,  or  "  propaedeutic,"  to  all  the  sciences  of 
man.  The  sciences,  of  economics,  politics,  sociology,  and  even 
of  history,  hermeneutics,  and  aesthetics  (so  far  as  we  can  speak 
of  such  sciences),  involve  the  immediate  facts  and  laws  of  hiiman 
mental  life.  The  subjects  with  which  these  sciences  deal  can- 
not be  in  the  highest  degree  scientifically  understood,  without 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  psychology, 

\  9.  We  take  this  occasion  to  protest  eamestly,  but  briefly  and  once  for 
all,  against  the  assumption  that,  because  the  so-called  "old  psychology" 
was  for  a  long  time  stationary,  while  modern  biological  and  physiological 
science  have  contributed  much  by  way  of  stimulus,  method,  and  results  to 
psychology,  therefore  the  latter  is  not  to  be  classed  among  the  sciences,  on 
an  equality  as  respects  independence  with  the  others.  Nor  do  we  find  less 
unwarrantable  the  claim  that  the  only  fruitful  method  of  studying  psychio 
facts  is  physiological  or  biological  ;  or  that  the  only  truly  scientific  expla- 
nation of  such  facts  must  be  sought  for  in  physiological  facts.  These 
claims  are  not,  indeed,  necessarily  connected  with  the  projiosal  to  study 
psychology  as  a  '^natural  science."  If  they  were  so  connected,  it  would 
be  a  sufficient  reason  for  denying  that  psychology  is  a  "  natural  science." 
This  expressive  term  simply  embodies  the  obvious  tinith  that  phenomena  of 
consciousness  occur  in  such  connections  as  admit  of  being  examined  and 
partially,  at  least,  reduced  to  general  terms,  within  the  realm  of  "nature" 
— in  the  larger  and  equally  a^ipropriate  iise  of  this  word.  Moreover,  it 
seems  to  us  a  i^rocedure  highly  prejudicial  to  the  interests  of  scientific  psy- 
chology when  philosophers  so  thoughtful  as  Mr.  Hodgson,  and  psycholo- 
gists so  brilliant  and  suggestive  as  Prof.  James,'  virtually  assert  that  there 

'  See  The  Priuciples  of  Psychology,  I.,  chap,  i.,  vi.,  vii.,  anA  jjassim  in  both  vols.  New  York, 
1S90.    Also  articles  in  the  Philosophical  Review,  i.,  1,  pp.  24-53,  and  i.,  2,  pp.  146-153. 


12  DEFINITION   AND   PROBLEM   OF   PSYCHOLOGY 

can  be  no  science  of  psvcliology  except  a  cerebral  psychology.  At  the 
same  time,  we  have  ourselves  diligently  cultivated,  and  gratefully  acknowl- 
edge our  indebtedness  to,  that  branch  of  psychological  investigation  which 
is  called  i:)hysiological. 

The  Relations  of  Psycliolog-y  to  Philosophy  are  so  close  aud 
peculiar  that  it  is  impossible  strictly  to  separate  the  two,  whether 
iu  theory  or  in  actual  execution,  while  treating  Avith  scientihc 
system  the  phenomena  of  consciousness.  As  Wundt  ^  has  well 
said  :  the  partition  of  sovereignty  between  the  two  is  an  abstract 
scheme,  which,  in  the  presence  of  actuality,  alw^ays  appears  un- 
satisfactory. 

All  the  principal  problems  into  which  the  attempt  to  explain 
jjsychic  facts  leads  the  investigator,  themselves  lead  to  the 
greater  and  profounder  i^roblems  of  philosophy.  Psychology 
is  then  the  special  x^i'op^edeutic  to  philosophy.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  have  already  seen  how^  difficult  it  is  to  keejD  even  a 
provisional  conception  of  psychology  clear  from  what  some 
would  consider  unwarrantable  metaphysical  assumptions.  Phi- 
losophy, then,  in  the  form  of  opinions  and  assumptions,  almost 
necessarily  underlies  much  of  our  psychological  discussion. 
For  example,  scientific  psychology  is  forced  to  recognize  a 
certain  conceiDtion  to  which  the  word  "  ego "  corresponds,  as 
entangled,  so  to  speak,  in  the  facts  of  consciousness.  It  is  com- 
pelled to  analyze  this  conception,  and  to  describe  its  genesis 
and  growth.  But  such  work  is  difficult  to  keep  distinct  from 
metaphysical  discussion  as  to  the  unitary  nature  and  real  being 
of  the  soul,  considered  as  the  trulj^  existent  subject  (or  TrCKjcr) 
of  the  states  of  consciousness.  Where,  in  the  pursuit  of  this 
problem,  does  descriptive  and  explanatory  science  end  and  j^hi- 
losophy  begin  ?  It  is  not  easy  to  answer.  Similar  difficulties 
accompany  the  thorough  discussion  of  all  the  important  jirob- 
lems  of  scientific  psycholog}'. 

In  spite,  however,  of  this  unavoidable  temptation  to  mingle 
philosophy  and  psychologj^  we  shall  succeed,  in  the  main,  in 
pursuing  our  chosen  Avay  by  using  the  methods  of  empirical 
science.  We  shall  describe  and  explain  the  processes  and  prod- 
ucts of  mental  life ;  we  shall  even  recognize  the  more  impor- 
tant beliefs  and  assumptions  which  the  jisychic  facts  actually 
imply;  and  then  we  shall  make  our  bow  to  metaphysics,  and 
pass  b}'^  the  discussion  of  the  ultimate  import  of  the  facts,  and 
of  the  validity  and  ideal  value  of  the  beliefs  and  assumptions 
implied  by  the  facts.  Such  discussion  belongs  more  properly 
to  the  Philosophy  of  Mind. 

'  System  der  Philo^^OI)hic.  pp.  5  and  21  f. 


RELATION   TO   PHILOSOPHY  13 

^  10.  The  history  of  psychological  science  might  be  freely  appealed  to, 
iu  order  to  show  how  inseparable  are  the  relations  between  this  science  and 
philosophy.  The  persistent  use  of  the  term  "mental  i^hilosophy,"  the  large 
amount  of  mattei*  in  almost  all  treatises  on  psychology  which  is  more  properly 
classed  under  metaphysics  or  theory  of  knowledge,  the  constant  transgression 
of  the  resolve  not  to  introduce  speculative  jihilosophy  into  the  emi>irical 
iuvo.stigatit>n  of  phenomena  of  consciousness  (a  form  of  transgression  in  which 
tlioso  wlio  most  decry  philosophy  or  metaphysics  are  often  especially  guilty) 
— all  these  facts  are  significant  of  tlie  same  truth. 

Tlie  distinction  between  psychology  and  philosophy  as  drawn  by  Profes- 
sor Seth  and  Professor  Crooiu  Robertson  is  esi^ecially  interesting.  The 
former  '  explains  that  psychology  regards  the  fact  of  intelligence  "  simply 
as  fact,  in  which  case  the  evolutions  of  mind  may  be  traced  and  reduced  to 
laws  in  the  same  way  as  the  phenomena  treated  by  the  other  sciences  (i)sychol- 
ogy,  snus  jyJirase)."  But  "it  is  witli  the  ultimate  synthesis  that  philosophy 
concerns  itself  ;  it  has  to  show  that  the  subject-matter  with  which  we  are  deal- 
ing iu  detail  really  is  the  whole,  consisting  of  articulate  members."  The  lat- 
ter'-' would  have  us  notice  that  psychology  "  is  occupied  with  the  natural  func- 
tion of  InieUeclion  (knowledge  as  mere  subjective  function),  seeking  to  dis- 
cover its  laws  and  distinguishing  its  various  modes.  .  .  .  Philosophy, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  theory  of  Knowledge  (as  that  which  is  known)."  It  will 
be  noticed  that  both  these  authorities  are  distinguishing  the  jDsyohology  of 
intellection  from  the  philosophical  theory  of  knowledge. 

?  11.  The  double  manner  of  dealing  with  the  subjects  of  ethics  and 
logic,  which  has  always  prevailed,  is  another  proof  of  the  necessarily  in- 
timate relations  between  the  emjiirical  science  of  psychology  and  all  i^hilo- 
sophical  discipline.  As  sciences,  based  upon  the  facts  of  consciousness, 
logic  and  ethics  have  no  independent  standing  :  they  are  simply  branches  or 
departments  of  psychology.  But  with  the  scientific  treatment  of  logic  and 
ethics,  even  when  the  point  of  view  is  avowedly  empirical,  the  philosophy  of 
morals  (metaphysics  of  ethics),  and  the  theory  of  being  and  theory  of  knowl- 
edge {Lor/ik,  after  the  Hegelian  pattern),  are  always  nearly  certain  to  be  in- 
termingled in  large  quantities. 

We  may  fitly  close  this  brief  discussion  of  tlie  relations  of  psy- 
clioloo-y  and  i)liilosoj)liy  by  saying-,  with  a  recent  German  author :" 
"  Psychology  as  a  science  has  for  its  object  of  investig-atiou  the 
psychical  phenomena,  through  -which  and  in  which  the  collective 
inner  life  exhibits  itself,  but  not  the  being  of  the  soul^x;-  se,  to  which 
the  phenomena  point  as  something  over  and  above  themselves." 

[Besides  the  books  to  which  referenoe  has  already  been  made,  the  following,  among 
many  others,  may  bo  consulted  :  On  the  Nature  and  Scope  of  Psychology.  Sully  :  The  Hu- 
man Mind,  I.,  chap.  i.  Baldwin:  Handbook  of  Psychology,  I.',  chap.  i.  Rabier  (already 
refeiTed  to)  :  Psychologic,  chap.  i.  and  ii.  Brentano  :  Psychologic  vom  empirischen  Stand- 
]>nnkte,  bk.  i.,  chap,  i.,  and  bk.  ii.,  chap.  i.  Lotze  :  Metaphysics,  bk.  iii.,  chap.  i.  G.  H. 
Lewes  :  The  Study  of  Psychology,  chap.  i.  to  iii.  Especial  attention  is  called  to  the  two 
monographs  of  Natorp  and  Spitta.  Ses  also  Delhneuf :  La  Psychologic  comme  Science 
naturelle.  On  the  relations  of  Psychology  and  Philosophy,  see  the  author's  Introduction 
to  Philosophy,  chap,  iv.] 

'  Art.  on  Philosophy  :  Encyc.  Br't.  i9th  ed.). 

'  Art.  on  Psychology  and  Philosophy  :  Mind,  1883,  p.  166. 

'  Spitta :  Einleitung  in  die  Psycholog'c,  p.  34. 


CHAPTEK  II. 
METHOD,   SOURCES,    AND  DIVISION  OF  PSYCHOLOGY 

No  unnecessary  mystery  should,  certainly,  be  thrown  around 
the  question  of  Method  in  Psycholog-y.  For  in  this  science,  as 
in  every  other,  the  means  of  investig-ation  employed  are  such  as 
experience  has  shown  to  be  fruitful,  both  in  ascertaining  accu- 
rately and  comprehensively  the  facts  which  are  to  serve  as  data 
for  the  science,  and  also  (and  especially)  in  explaining-  their 
origin  and  relations.  To  accomplish  its  purpose,  psychology 
freely  avails  itself  of  all  possible  means  at  its  disposal.  In 
accordance  with  our  provisional  conception  of  psychology'',  we 
might  say,  then,^  that  all  psychological  method  has  these  two 
things  in  view  :  1,  to  certify  the  phenomena  of  consciousness  ;  and 
2,  to  explain  them. 

There  has  been  almost  as  much  debate  over  the  true  method 
of  psychological  science  as  over  any  of  its  more  doubtful  con- 
clusions. This  debate,  however,  has  been  largely  confined  to 
two  questions  :  first,  and  especially,  the  possibility  and  value 
of  so-called  introspection  ;  and,  secondly,  the  usefulness  and 
extent  of  experiment  in  the  study  of  psychic  facts.  If,  then,  a 
reasonable  position  with  reference  to  these  two  debated  ques- 
tions can  be  made  clear,  little  further  discussion  of  psycholog- 
ical method  is  necessary.  Observation  of  the  phenomena  of 
consciousness,  both  direct  observation  and  indirect ;  analysis  of 
these  phenomena,  both  by  consciousness  "  envisaging  "  them  and 
reflecting  upon  them,  and  also  by  the  use  of  all  possible  experi- 
mental means  ;  induction  of  laws,  and  inferential  and  sp'eculative 
construction  of  the  principles  which  control  the  genesis  and 
growth  of  mental  life— such  is  the  mixed  method  which  psy- 
chology more  or  less  successfully  employs. 

In  other  words,  psychological  science  is  (1)  observative  of 
facts,  (2)  analytic,  (8)  inductive,  (4)  genetic.  Tlie  difficulties, 
dangers,  mistakes,  and  triumphs,  of  this  the  true  scientific  method 
it  shares  in  common  with  the  whole  sisterhood  of  sciences.     It 

I  Comp.  Spitta :  Einleitnng  In  die  Psychologie,  p.  40  f .  (zu  vergewissern  and  zu  erkldren,  the 
phenomenaj. 


THE   USE   OF   INTROSPECTION  If) 

has,  however,  certiiiii  special  difficulties  and  dangers  as  well  as 
certain  iieculiar  advantages  and  successes.  These  are  mainly  due 
to  the  nature  of  introspection,  or  reflective  consciousness,  and 
also  to  the  fact  tliat  the  sphere  is  limited  within  which  the  defi- 
nite experimental  methods  of  the  allied  natural  sciences  can  be 
successfully  used. 

I  1.  Debate  as  to  the  propriety  of  founding  a  science  of  the  miud  upon 
the  "  immotliatc  awareness"  of  the  individual,  resj^ec ting  what  goes  on  in  his 
own  naental  life,  is  by  no  means  new.  As  long  ago  as  Aristotle  it  was  held 
that  there  can  be  no  "science"  of  the  individual.  Since,  therefore,  intro- 
spection can  never  furnish  anything  beyond  what  the  individual  seems  to 
himself  to  know  of  his  own  individual  state  of  consciousness — a  particular 
Ijsychic  content  of  some  particitlar  psychical  being — introspection  can  never 
constitute  the  sole  method  of  mental  science.  By  this  method,  it  is  said,  we 
obtain,  at  best,  only  the  new  and  fleeting  psychic  fact  that  I  appear  to  myself, 
here  and  now,  to  be  in  such  a  so-called  state  of  consciousness.  Only  by  mem- 
ory can  I  know  that  I  was  in  another  state  of  consciousness,  which  may  be 
recognized  as  similar,  and  so  made  the  basis  of  a  classification  and  scientific 
explanation  of  even  my  individual  mental  life.  And  as  for  those  psychic  facts 
which  belong  to  other  individuals  than  myself,  every  one  admits  that  it  is 
impossible  to  know  them  by  introspection. 

Such  trains  of  thinking  as  the  foregoing  have  led  certain  writers  not 
only  to  deny  the  possibility  of  founding  a  science  of  jisychology  upon  intro- 
spection only,  but  also  to  deny  that  introspection  can  render  back  to  us 
even  our  own  mental  states  as  true  objects  of  knowledge.  And  so  •we  are 
brought  to  the  palpably  absurd  proposal  that  we  should  abandon  all  effort 
to  certify  the  facts  of  consciousness,  as  facts,  by  the  method  of  considering 
what  they  immediately  are  in  our  own  mental  life.  (So,  virtually,  writers 
like  Comte,  Lange,  Maudsley,  et  al.)  On  the  other  hand,  the  majority  of 
even  modern  treatises  on  psychology  reaflSrm  the  method  of  introspection 
without  very  clearly  fixing  its  limitations  or  appreciating  its  real  value.  One 
writer,  for  example,  declares:  "The  way  to  jisychology  is,  first  of  all,  per- 
ception of  a  soul  by  a  soul."  This  percei:)tion  is  .se^-perception,  which  is, 
therefore,  the  "  chief  and  indispensable  method  of  psychology." 

^  2.  The  risks,  limitations,  possibilities,  and  proper  uses  of  introspection 
in  psychology  can  only  be  made  known  in  connection  with  the  development 
of  the  science  itself.  For  the  discussion  of  psychological  method  is  compli- 
cated with  the  discussion  of  the  nature  of  consciousness  and  self-conscious- 
ness, of  attention,  of  memory,  of  the  genesis  and  growth  of  the  conception 
of  "self,"  of  time-consciousness,  and  of  many  other  subjects.  It  may  be 
premised,  however,  that  many  of  the  difiiculties  ordinarily  raised  are  due, 
largely  or  wholly,  to  "  fallacies  of  the  psychologist."  They  cling  to  what  the 
psychologist  thinks  ahout  the  use  of  introspection  ;  they  do  not  necessarily 
belong  to  the  real  nature  and  actual  use  of  introspection.  Those  writers  wlio 
claim  that  one  can  never  immediately  know  what  one  is  now  thinking,  feeling, 
and  willing,  are  invariably  found  to  hold  conceptions  as  to  the  nature  of 
knowledge,  as  to  the  nature  of  that  time  of  which  we  have  experience  (the 
"now"  of  self-consciousness),  and  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  word  '•  imme- 


16         METHOD,    SOURCES,    AND   DIVISION   OF   PSYCHOLOGY 

diate,"  etc.,  wliicli  are  abstract  and  remote  from  the  actual  life  of  the  mind. 
That  some  knowledge — immediate,  trustworthy  (though  not  necessarily  in- 
fallible), and  capable  of  being  made  into  data  of  a  science — is  attainable  re- 
garding the  phenomena  of  consciousness,  forms  the  presupposition,  not  only 
of  all  study  of  jisychology,  but  also  of  all  human  intercourse.  We  begin, 
therefore,  by  assuming,  in  a  preliminary  way,  the  general  truthfulness  of  the 
universal  impression  concerning  the  nature  and  value  of  introspection  as  a  means 
(f  knowing  the  phenomena  of  consciousness. 

Observation  of  the  phenomena  of  Consciousness  is  of  two 
ereneral  chisses — direct  and  indirect.  Direct  (or  immediate)  ob- 
servation is  that  form  or  phase  of  conscious  mental  life  which  is 
called  "  self -consciousness."  When  such  immediate  observation 
is  emploj^ed,  with  puri^oseful  attention,  for  the  ascertainment  of 
the  psychic  facts  actually  occurring  in  any  individual  mental 
life,  and  for  the  analysis  of  such  facts,  it  becomes  the  so-called 
"  introspective  "  method  in  psychology. 

In  spite  of  all  objections  which  may  be  urged,  and  of  all  diffi- 
culties raised  against  the  use  of  introspection  as  scientific  meth- 
od in  psychology,  the  following  position  may  be  maintained  : 
Direct  observation  of  psychic  facts  is  able  not  only  to  render  these 
facts  to  us  as  true  objects  of  hiou'leclge,  but  also  to  a  certain  extent 
to  assist  in  the  analysis  of  the  complex  life  of  adult  consciousness  into 
its  simpler  component  elements.  Only  on  the  supposition  that 
psychic  facts  tnay  be  made  immediate  objects  of  knowledge  can 
psychological  inquiry  be  instituted  and  psychological  science 
enter  upon  its  work.  The  preliminary  but  necessary  conception 
of  psychology  shows  that  scientific  psj^^chological  inquiry  begins 
by  asking,  What  are  the  facts  called  "phenomena  of  conscious- 
ness ?  "  and  that  these  facts,  in  so  far — and  only  in  so  far — as 
they  can  become  objects  of  knowledge,  furnish  the  data  of  the 
science.  But  "  phenomena  of  consciousness  "  are  "  internal  " 
facts  ;  the  two  phrases  are  intended  to  mean  one  and  the  same 
thing.  These  facts,  as  such  (and  "  as  such  "  they  constitute  the 
data  of  psychology),  are,  by  their  very  nature,  capable  of  being 
known  only  in  and  through  consciousness.  All  other  knowl- 
edge of  them  is  indirect ;  that  is,  it  is  through  objective  signs 
and  by  interpretation  of  such  signs.  But,  here  again,  what  the 
signs  really  signify  is  determined  by  ncAV  facts  of  conscious- 
ness, alike  capable  of  being  immediately  known  only  by  the  ob- 
server of  the  signs  ;  and  interpretation  itself  consists  of  nothing 
Init  certain  facts  in  the  conscious  life  of  the  interpreter,  the  nat- 
Tire  of  which  ho  knows  ns  facts  of  his  own  consciousness,  and 
which  he  believes,  suspects,  or  knows  to  represent  other  facts  of 
another  individual's  consciousness. 


TIIK    USE   OF   INTKOSPECTION^  17 

Moreover,  here,  as  iu  every  other  form  of  science,  truininj?  of 
the  powers  of  observation  is  most  important  in  its  etit'ct  npon 
the  data  of  tlie  science.  Here,  too,  as  elsewhere,  ditlcrent  ob- 
servers show  great  ditierences  iu  natural  tastes  and  ai)titudes,  in 
what  we  are  accustomed  to  call  "  natural  powers."  Some  are 
nnich  given  to  observing-  their  own  mental  states  ;  they  do  this 
with  an  interest  which  may  become  almost  as  purely  objective 
as  that  of  the  observer  of  the  amceba  through  a  microscope. 
Others  are  always  reluctant  and  generally  unskilful  iu  the 
observation  and  description  of  their  own  mental  life.  What  is 
here  especially  important  to  notice  is  this,  that  much  skill  and 
success  may  be  attained  by  intelligent  practice  in  the  analysis 
of  one's  own  mental  states  with  the  instrument  of  introspection. 
For  not  only  can  one  make  the  mental  state  in  which  one  here 
and  now  is  an  object  of  one's  knowledge,  but  one  cau  also  train 
one's  self  to  note  the  genesis  and  growth  of  mental  states ;  and 
by  rapidly  directing  attention  to  the  various  phases,  aspects, 
and  elements,  of  the  complex  and  changing  mental  life,  one  can 
recognize  in  a  limited  way  the  various  "  stuffs,"  so  to  speak,  out 
of  which  the  complex  wholes  are  successively  comi^ounding 
themselves  under  one's  eyes.  To  tell  the  ordinary  observer : 
"  You  cannot  discern  in  detail  before  the  mind's  eye,  your  owai 
mental  conditions,  and  certainh'  know ;  I  here  and  now  think 
about  this,  or  perceive  that  complex  object  of  sense,  or  feel  such 
a  manifold  pleasure  or  pain,  or  form  such  a  complicated  pur- 
pose " — is  to  tell  him,  in  the  interests  of  psychological  theory, 
what  he  rightly  believes  to  be  contradicted  by  the  frequently 
recurring  experience  of  life.  To  tell  the  trained  psj'chologist, 
who  does  not  accept  the  fanciful  denial  by  other  psychologists 
of  that  real  activity  which  we  call  immediate  self- consciousness  : 
"  You  cannot,  by  so-called  introspection,  analj'ze  your  own 
states  of  consciousness,"  is  to  declare  theoretically  im]iossible 
a  scientific  feat  which  he  knows  himself  constantly  to  be  per- 
forming. Such  arguments  resemble  those  by  which  motion  is 
proved  to  be  impossible,  or  the  antinomies  of  space  and  time  are 
established. 

While  admitting  the  possibility,  within  certain  limitations, 
of  obtaining  trustworthy  immediate  knowledge  of  psychic  facts 
by  the  method  of  introspection,  we  by  no  means  deny  the  diffi- 
citlties  and  dangers  which  accompany  its  siiccessful  use.  All 
scientific  method  in  observation  needs  to  be  guarded  in  its  em- 
ployment ;  all  observation  of  phenomena  is  apt  to  encounter 
difiiculties  and  liable  to  engender  mistakes.  Prejudice,  haste, 
admixture  of  undvie  inference  and  expectation  as  to  what  will  be 
2 


18        METHOD,    SOURCES,    AND   DIVISION   OF   PSYCHOLOGY 

observed,  or  oug-lit  to  be  observed,  and  various  other  sources  of 
corruption  and  mistake,  exist  in  connection  with  the  inspection 
of  all  objects  of  knowledg-e.  Moreover,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
psychic  facts  are  peculiarly  difficult  of  direct  analysis  under 
observation.  For  this,  four  principal  reasons  may  be  g-iven  : 
they  are  subtle  and  complex  in  their  composition,  rapid  and 
difficult  to  follow  in  their  changes,  alterable — swifth-  and  largely 
— by  the  very  act  of  attention  which  makes  them  objects  of 
knowledge,  and  characterized  by  a  high  degree  of  individuality. 

§  3.  It  would  be  difficult  to  make  the  absurdity  of  denying  in  toio  the 
scientific  value  of  introspection  any  more  obvious  than  it  is  the  moment  we 
appeal  to  real  life  and  to  individual  experience.  Without  too  great  risk  of 
tedious  repetition,  however,  it  may  be  said  that  certain  of  the  most  force- 
ful arguments  of  those  who  credit  this  denial  would,  if  strictly  interin-eted, 
render  impossible  any  immediate  and  trustworthy  knowledge  of  any  kind  of 
facts.  For  exam^jle,  we  are  told  that  the  mental  life  is  in  a  constant  flux  ; 
and  that,  therefore,  no  one  phase  of  that  life  (no  so-called  "state  of  con- 
sciousness " )  can  exist  without  at  once  being  dissolved  in  the  onflowing  cur- 
rent of  this  life.  Hence,  psychic  facts,  it  is  claimed,  cannot  be  objects  of 
observation  long  enough  to  become  objects  of  knowledge.  But  the  same 
thing  is  as  certainly  true,  if  not  true  to  the  same  extent,  of  objects  of  ex- 
ternal observation.  When  an  observer  watches  an  amoeba  under  the  micro- 
scope, or  the  image  of  the  S2:)ectrum  upon  a  screen,  his  mental  life  is  no  less 
truly  in  a  constant  flux  which  carries  along  with  it  the  object  of  his  ob- 
servation. Indeed,  the  only  defensible  psychological  doctrine,  as  we  shall 
subsequently  see,  holds  that  every  object  (the  amoeba  or  the  image  of  the 
spectrum)  is,  as  an  object,  unceasingly  constructed,  dissolved,  and  recon- 
structed anew,  by  mental  activity,  during  the  entire  process  of  observation. 
The  existence  of  any  external  object,  as  an  object  of  immediate  knowledge 
through  the  senses,  is  momently  dependent  ujion  the  fixation  and  wander- 
ing of  attention,  and  upon  activities  of  memory,  imagination,  and  thought. 
For  memory,  imagination,  and  thought  are  not  faculties  that  can  be  exer- 
cised apart  from  perception  through  the  senses,  and  apart  from  self-con- 
sciousness ;  neither  can  thei-e  be  any  immediate  knowledge  of  objects, 
whether  external  or  internal,  whether  by  perception  or  by  self-consciousness, 
which  does  not  involve  memory,  imagination,  and  thought.  If,  then,  the 
dependence  of  introsijection  upon  the  activity  of  these  other  mediate  and 
fallible  faculties  constitutes  a  reason  why  we  cannot  regard  the  deliverances 
of  introspective  consciousness  as  gi^•ing  immediate  and  trustworthy  knowl- 
edge of  psychic  facts,  the  dependence  of  all  external  observation  uijou  the 
activity  of  the  same  faculties  will  force  us  to  conclude  against  the  possi- 
bility of  immediate  and  trustworthy  knowledge  of  any  of  the  data  of  the 
physical  and  natural  sciences. 

§  4.  The  degree  to  which  the  knowledge  of  complex  mental  states  may  be 
carried  by  trained  introspection  cannot,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  be 
definitely  fixed.  The  changes  which  the  growth  of  this  power  under  train- 
ing brings  about  are  likely  to  bo  plainly  remarked  by  one  who  has  had  intel- 


THE    USE   OF   INTROSPECTION  19 

ligent  expenence  of  thorn.  For  example,  let  a  student  of  psychology  who 
has  a  good  ear  for  musical  sounds  train  himself  to  recognize  the  overtones 
in  the  complex  note  of  ordinary  experience  ;  or  lot  him  analyze,  by  imme- 
diate observation,  his  skin  sensations,  after  ho  has  been  for  some  weeks  ex- 
l^erimenting  after  the  manner  of  Guldscheidor  and  others.  It  will  be  true 
that  he  has  a  richer  experience  of  auditory  or  of  skin  sensations  than  ho 
formerly  had  ;  but  especially  will  it  be  true  (and  this  is  the  important  point 
for  our  ijresent  consideration)  that  ho  immediately  knows  that  he  has  this 
richer  experience,  because  he  can  detect  more  elements  in  the  complex  sen- 
sation-state than  was  previously  jjossiblo.       # 

Daily  experience  also  proves  that  it  is  within  the  i^ower  of  an  observer 
to  make  something  like  an  accurate  analysis  of  his  own  complex  mental 
states  by  means  of  introspection.  Indeed,  all  adult  minds  are  constantly 
doing  this  very  thing.  We  hear  persons  describing,  in  a  way  which  wo  have 
every  reason  to  suppose  fairly  accurate,  how  they  have  felt,  and  what  they 
have  imagined,  remembered,  or  resolved — all  in  some  moment  of  horror,  or 
of  danger,  or  of  joy.  To  be  sure,  this  "  moment  "  is  not  the  mathematical 
point  which  constitutes  the  atom  of  time  where  the  single  state  of  conscious- 
ness can  alone  find  position,  according  to  the  fallacious  theory  of  some 
psychologists.  But  then  there  are,  in  reality,  no  siich  moments  in  the  life 
of  consciousness ;  and,  of  course,  there  are  no  simple,  analyzable  states  of 
consciousness  fully  occupying  such  moments.  But  the  discussion  of  the 
full  bearing  of  this  upon  our  view  of  the  use  of  introspection  must  be 
postponed  imtil  later. 

^5.  The  difficulty  of  introsi^ective  analysis  of  the  so-called  "feelings" 
iias  been  so  emphasized  by  many  writers  as  to  amount  to  a  denial  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  any  immediate  knowledge  of  our  own  states  of  consciousness, 
when  they  are  i^redominatingly  states  of  feeling.  Thus  the  conclusion  is 
enforced  :  I  can  never  know  precisely  how  I  now  feel  as  a  matter  of  im- 
mediate cognition  of  present  psychic  fact ;  I  can  only  have  an  idea  of  how  I 
did  feel  a  moment,  or  an  hour,  or  a  day  ago.  Feeling,  then,  must  be  ideated, 
to  be  known  ;  and  the  particular  form  of  the  idea  under  which  alone  it  can 
be  known  is  the  representative  image.  In  other  words,  I  can  have  an  idea 
of  how  Ifelt  at  some  past  time  ;  but  I  cannot  immediately  know  how  I  now 
feel — especially,  of  course,  if  my  present  feeling  be  a  rather  intense  one. 
Even  so  cautious  a  writer  as  Dr.  Ward  maintains  :  "  Feeling  as  such  is,  so 
to  put  it,  matter  of  being  rather  than  direct  knowledge  ;  and  all  that  we 
know  about  it  we  know  from  its  antecedents  or  consequences  in  presen- 
tation." 

The  number  of  fallacies  involved  at  every  point  in  this  general  position 
will  have  to  be  exposed  in  their  appropriate  places.  They  are  of  the  order 
to  which  reference  has  already  been  made.  They  come  from  substituting 
intellectual  abstractions  for  the  wealth  in  reality  of  concrete  psychic  facts. 
That  the  four  chief  difficulties  of  introspective  analysis,  as  mentioned  above, 
apply  with  peculiar  force  to  so-called  states  of  feeling,  no  one  would  think 
of  disputing.  The  history  of  psychological  science  and  the  language  of  art 
and  of  common  life  prove  this  truth.  But  that  I  cannot  immediately  know 
that  I  am  this  moment  angry  at  such  an  individual  person  or  act ;  or  filled 
with  the  emotion  of  love  toward  such  another  person  or  ideal  object  of  con- 


20        METHOD,    SOURCES,    AND   DIVISION   OF   PSYCHOLOGY 

tcmplatiou  ;  or  in  terror  at  this  particular  animal  or  inanimate  object — this 
is  something  which  it  requires  long  dealing  with  misleading  psychological 
abstractions  to  believe.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  often  in  moments  of  strongest 
and  most  richly  varied  feeling  that,  above  all  other  moments,  we  lire  most ; 
and  also  knoio  most  immediately  and  certainly  that  we  live,  and  what  our 
mental  life  here  and  now  is. 

Observation  of  psychic  facts  for  purposes  of  a  scientific  psy- 
chology^ cannot,  however,  be  confined  to  the  direct  or  introspec- 
tive method.  For — as  has#already  been  pointed  out — this  would 
involve  the  attempt  to  build  science  wholly  on  the  particular,  as 
limited  to  an  individual  mental  life.  In  truth,  we  can  neither 
know  others  except  through  self-knowledge,  nor  know  ourselves 
Avithout  comprehension  and  acute  observation  of  our  fellow- 
men.^ 

As  Gothe  has  significantly  said  : 

"  The  gaiige  that  from  himself  he  takes 
Measures  him  now  too  small,  and  now  too  great. 
Only  in  man,  man  knows  himself." 

Indirect  observation,  or  the  ascertainment  and  certifying  of  the 
phenomena  of  consciousness  through  interpretation  of  the  signs 
which  other  psychical  beings  give  of  their  states  of  conscious- 
ness, is,  therefore,  an  indispensable  method  of  scientific  psychol- 
ogy. Tavo  things  must  at  once  be  noticed  with  reference  to  all 
use  of  this  method  :  First,  all  observable  signs  of  the  states  of 
consciousness  of  other  beings  than  ourselves  necessarily  consist 
of  physical  changes  ;  such  changes  are  primarily  brought  about 
in  the  physical  organism  of  the  conscious  beings,  and  some- 
times, secondarily,  brought  about  in  things  dependent  for  their 
structure  or  changes  upon  the  action  of  this  physical  organism. 
Second,  all  interpretation  of  such  signs  must  be  in  terms  of  the 
observer's  self-consciousness.  He  must  think  or  imagine  how  the 
other  individual  thinks,  feels,  wills,  etc.  The  method  of  indi- 
rect observation  is,  then,  inevitably  connected  with,  and  depend- 
ent upon,  the  method  of  introspection.  AYithout  this  the  lament 
of  Tourguenieff  is  absolutely  true  :  "  The  soul  of  another  is  a 
darksome  forest." 

Psychological  science,  if  it  be  nobly  and)itious  and  faithful 
to  its  high  mission,  will  regard  all  forms  of  the  exhibition  of 
human  mental  life  with  painstaking,  unprejudiced,  and  loving 

■»  So  the  couplet  of  the  German  poet  runs  : 

"  Willst  dii  dich  selbcr  erkcnnen,  so  sich  viie  die  Andcren  cs  treiben  ; 
Willit  du  die  Anderen  verstehn,  blick  in  dein  eigencs  Hcrz.''' 


THE   VAllIOUS   KINDS   OF   SOURCES  21 

inquiry.  Every  sig-n  of  sucli  life,  actually  furnished  or  artisti- 
cally conceived,  becomes  for  the  trained  student  of  psychology 
an  object  of  interest.  He  desires  to  convert  the  state  of  con- 
sciousness which  it  signifies  into  an  object  of  (indirect,  but  veri- 
fiable) knowledg-e  for  himself.  Hence,  all  manifestations  of 
psychic  facts  are  -watched  for  and  scrutinized  by  him  -svith 
sympathetic  and  yet  scientific  spirit.  Psychological  appetite, 
psychological  insight,  psychological  skill  in  interpretation,  arise 
and  develop  in  this  way.  It  is  not  arrogant  to  claim  that  the 
trained  psychologist  understands  not  only  the  child,  the  idiot, 
the  madman,  and  the  hypnotic  subject,  but  also  the  artist,  the 
scientist,  the  statesman,  and  the  thinker,  as  psj'^chical  beings,  far 
better  than  any  of  these  classes  of  persons  understand  each 
other,  or  even  themselves. 

I  6.  It  follows,  from  the  position  jnst  taken,  that,  in  order  to  a  complete 
enumeration  of  the  so-called  sources  of  psychology,  it  would  be  necessary 
to  classify  all  the  jirincipal  forms  of  the  manifestation  of  human  mental  life. 
For  this  achievement  we  should  not  have  room,  even  if  it  were  worth  the  time 
which  it  would  necessarily  demaud.  The  one  rule  for  the  student  of  psychol- 
ogy— a  rule  which  he  carries  about  with  him  when  far  away  from  books  or 
psycho-physical  and  biological  laboratories — is  this  :  Seize  upon  every  mani- 
festation of  the  jisychical  life,  try  to  make  it  an  object  of  knowledge,  and 
try  to  explain  it  in  accord  with  other  facts  and  known  laws  of  psychical  life. 
From  the  infant  to  the  adult  Kant,  from  the  idiot  or  madman  to  Aristotle, 
from  the  meanest  subject  to  the  statesman  or  the  emjjeror — all  things  psychi- 
cal are  yours,  and  are  to  be  converted  if  possible  into  integral  parts  of  your 
IDsychological  theory. 

"We  now  enumerate,  however,  several  of  the  more  important  sources  of 
psychology  which  are  open  to  indirect  observation  : 

(1.)  The  artistic  delineation  of  life,  in  every  form  of  such  delineation,  is 
a  most  valuable  source  of  psychology.  This  includes  the  drama,  poetry,  and 
even  the  art  of  the  painter,  sculptor,  and  musician  ;  it  especially  includes 
the  modern  novel,  or  prose  romantic  composition.  All  true  art  displays  in- 
sight into  life.  But  most  artists,  and  especially  most  novel  writers,  are  apt 
to  succeed  ill  when  they  attempt  to  enter  upon  psychological  analysis  in  a 
scientific  way,  or  even  attempt  artistically  to  present  the  results  of  such 
analysis.  While,  for  the  trained  psychologist,  the  great  artists,  even  if  Tin- 
conscious  of  what,  from  the  psychologist's  standpoint,  they  are  actually  do- 
ing, are  guides  of  the  gi'eatest  value. 

(2.)  Social  phenomena,  and  the  historical  or  theoretical  discussion  of  such 
phenomena,  are  another  source  of  psychological  science.  The  phenomena  of 
savage  life,  and  of  the  mental  life  of  distant  and  strange  peoples,  have  a 
certain  value  of  their  own.  The  institutions,  habits,  customs,  laws,  of  dif- 
ferent tribes  and  nations  manifest  their  prevalent  states  of  consciousness. 
Great  caution  is  needed  here,  and  great  painstaking  really  to  enter,  through 
the  gateways  of  the  phenomena,  into  the  temple  of  the  real  mental  life.    The 


22         METHOD,    SOURCES,    AXD    DIVISION    OF   PSYCHOLOGY 

so-called  "  old  iDsycliology  "  suffered  from  failure  to  use  this  source.  It  was 
too  narrow  aud  individualistic— a  Puritanic  psychology,  or  a  Teutonic  psy- 
chology, or  a  French  psychology,  or  the  description  of  the  mental  life  of  the 
commou-place,  middle-class  Englishman  of  the  writer's  time. 

(3.)  Abnormal  aud  pathological  phenomena  are  also  a  helpful  source  of 
psychological  science.  In  every  science  of  living  beings  the  normal  and 
sound  phenomena,  so  called,  are  fully  understood  only  when  studied  in  con- 
nection with  the  abnormal  aud  pathological.  Hence  the  value  of  studies  in 
insanity,  hypnotism,  criminology,  idiocy,  etc.,  for  the  science  of  psychology. 

(1.)  Observation  of  the  phenomena  of  infant  and  child  life  is  particularly 
necessary  for  the  successful  use  of  the  genetic  method  in  psychology.  Such 
observation  leads,  almost  directly,  to  a  better  analysis  of  our  own  adult  states 
of  consciousness  aud  to  the  detection  of  hitherto  concealed  factors  within  them. 

Under  this  same  class  of  sources  we  may  bring  so  called  "comparative 
IDsychoIogy,"  or  the  study  of  the  phenomena  and  evolution  of  the  conscious 
life  of  the  lower  animals.  But  here,  as  well  as  in  the  study  of  infant  mental 
life  (and  even  much  more  emphatically),  all  conclusions  must  be  very  cai;- 
tiously  and  doubtfully  drawn.  What  really psj/c7«'c  facts  are  signified  by  the 
external  signs,  and  how  far  there  are  any  states  of  adult  consciousness  which 
will  enable  us  even  to  present  ourselves  with  a  meagre  picture  of  the  states  of 
animal  consciousness,  as  such — about  this,  it  is  difficult  or  impossible  to  attain 
certainty.  In  other  words,  we  can  scarcely  be  sure  of  our  jjower  to  convert 
states  of  animal  consciousness  into  objects  of  the  psychologist's  knowledge — 
even  of  knowledge  as  gained  by  indirect  observation  aud  hypothesis.  There 
can  be  no  doubt,  however,  that  those  biologists  who  attem^jt  a  science  of 
the  mental  life  of  the  lower  animals  need  nothing  more  imperatively  than 
what  they  customarily  lack — namely,  a  scientific  knowledge  of  human  psy- 
chology. 

(5. )  Reading  is  another  valuable  indirect  means  of  acquiring  a  knowledge 
of  the  phenomena  of  human  mental  life.  For  psychology,  like  every  other 
science,  grows  at  the  hands  of  many  workmen,  and  there  is  a  "  soul  of 
truth  "  in  all  views,  however  distorted  or  erroneous  they  may  at  first  aiijjear. 

Experiment,  as  a  method  of  observation  and  analysis  of  the 
facts  of  psychic  life,  has  become  in  these  modern  times  a  most 
valuable  and  even  indispensable  means  for  constituting-  and  im- 
proving- the  science  of  psycholog-y.  On  the  use  of  experiment 
in  psychology,  however,  we  can  sympathize  with  the  extremists 
of  neither  extreme.  For,  on  the  one  hand,  it  does  not  seem  that 
experiment  is  likely  to  prove  capable  of  coping  with  some  of  the 
most  profound  and  interesting-  problems  of  psychology.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  clear  that  under  the  appropriate  limitations, 
experiment  may  be  a  valuable  aid  in  disentangling-  the  factors 
and  tracing  the  genesis  and  growth  of  certain  states  of  con- 
sciousness, as  well  as  in  demonstrating  iinder  what  definite 
physical  and  physiological  conditions  the  different  states  arise, 
combine,  and  succeed  each  other  in  the  entire  mental  life.     To 


THE    USE    OF    EXPERIMENTATION  23 

fear  psycho-pliysics  and  so-called  pliysiolog-ical  psycliolog-y,  or 
to  attempt  to  substitute  psy(dio-pliysical  experimentation  for  all 
introspective  study  of  mind,  for  all  survey  of  the  creations  of  art, 
society,  and  politics,  in  the  field  of  mental  evolution,  and  im-  all 
theoretical  construction  on  the  basis  of  leg-itimato  metaph3'sical 
hypothesis,  seems  to  us  alike  unworthy  of  the  scientific  student 
of  mind. 

It  is,  of  course,  neither  easy  nor  safe  to  fix  definite  limits 
within  which  alone  experiment  in  psychology  shall  be  declared 
to  be  possible  or  capable  of  yielding  assured  results.  Two 
jthing-s,  however,  will  always  be  true  of  the  experimental  method 
in  psychology.  First :  experiment  belongs  to  truly  psycho- 
logical method  only  so  far  as  it  is  constantly  accompanied  and 
tested  by  introspective  examination  of  the  phenomena  of  con- 
sciousness. Secondly :  experiment  gives  us  preliminary  infor- 
mation as  to  the  definite  physical  and  physiological  conditions 
under  which  the  psj^chic  facts,  as  such,  arise,  change,  and  pass 
away.  But,  here  again,  without  introspection  and  trust  in  the 
introspective  method,  experiment  gives  us  no  ps3'chical  data  or 
strictly  psychological  laws.  And  much  of  what  has  been  discov- 
ered in  this  way  belongs  to  physics  and  physiology,  and  not  to 
l^sychology  at  all. 

^  7.  The  true  impression  as  to  the  great  value  of  modern  experimental 
methods  in  the  study  of  psychic  facts  can  best  be  gained  by  some  actual 
acquaintance  with  laboratory  work,  or  with  the  literature  produced  by  such 
work  during  the  last  two  decades.  Here  the  successes  in  the  field  of  local- 
ization of  cerebral  function,  in  psycho-physics  i^roper,  in  reaction-time,  etc., 
may  properly  be  instanced.  Let  any  doubter  follow  the  laborious  and  care- 
ful researches  which  have  disentangled  from  confused  and  complex  states 
of  predominating  bodily  sensations  the  elements  to  be  assigned  respectively 
to  skin,  to  joints,  to  muscles,  and  i")erhaps  also  to  primarily  central  physio- 
logical processes.  Or,  taking  up  the  wonderful  new  views  as  to  sensation- 
complexes  which  originate  in  irritation  of  the  skin  alone,  let  him  inves- 
tigate experimentally  sensations  of  heat,  and  sensations  of  cold,  and  light- 
pressure  sensations,  and  dull-contact  sensations,  and  tickle  sensations,  and 
motion-sensations,  and  prickle  sensations,  and  indescribable  new  sensations 
— many  or  all  of  which  are  stirred  and  fused  in  a  single  "  field  of  con- 
sciousness," so  called,  when  any  large  area  of  this  important  sense-organ  has 
its  multitudinous  points  simultaneously  excited. 

^  8.  We  are  cautioned  against  arbitrarily  limiting  the  sphere  of  experi- 
mentation in  psychology,  in  view  of  the  attempts  now  being  made  to  discuss 
by  use  of  this  method  the  phenomena  of  so-called  "free-will,"  or  of  the 
more  complex  associations  of  ideas,  etc.  Even  the  ethical,  fcsthetical.  and 
religious  feelings  are,  we  are  told,  to  be  made  subjects  of  experimental 
observation   and   analysis ;    while,    if  we  are   to   trust   M.  Charcot  and  his 


24      METHOD,  sourcf:s,  and  div;sion  of  psychology 

scliool,  it  has  been  experimentally  demonstrated  that  certain  fundamental 
changes  are  necessary  in  our  conceptions,  not  only  of  mind,  but  also  of 
the  objects  with  which  physics  scientifically  deals.  The  psychology  of  the 
multitude  is  also  being  investigated  by  the  proposed  application  of  simple 
means  of  experiment  to  the  great  body  of  the  children  by  the  help  of  all  the 
school-mistresses  of  the  laud.  All  this  is  certainly  very  hopeful  and  inter- 
esting. 

On  the  other  hand,  certain  barriers,  beyond  which  it  will  be  difficult  or 
impossible  for  experimentation  to  pass,  may  be  stated  with  a  reasonable  con- 
fidence. Only  the  simpler  states  of  consciousness,  in  res^ject  of  their  sensory 
and  motor  factors,  readily  lend  themselves  to  study  by  the  strictly  experi- 
mental method.  The  quantity,  quality,  combination,  time-rate,  and  succes- 
sion of  the  elementary  processes  belonging  to  the  sensory-motor  basis  of  the 
mental  life  furnish  the  subjects  which  are  best  (if  not  exclusively)  adapted  to 
this  method.  How  much  there  is  that  is  beyond  its  reach,  the  unprejudiced 
use  of  this  very  method  reveals.  The  truth  of  our  view  this  entire  treatise 
will  make  abundantly  clear. 

^  9.  The  experimental  method  reveals  nothing  about  i^sychic  facts,  as 
such,  unless  the  subject  of  the  experiment  in  some  way  reveals,  in  terms 
of  consciousness,  what  his  states  of  consciousness  actually  are.  The 
question  which  the  experiment  asks  the  subject  to  determine  always  is  : 
"How  did  you  feel,  or  what  did  you  perceive  or  think,  or  what  did  you 
will,  when  such  a  physical  event  (known  or  unknown  to  him)  occurred  ?  " 
Thus  it  is  an  appeal  direct  to  self-consciousness  and  memory  which  experi- 
mentation always  makes.  If  neither  question  nor  answer  makes  any  refer- 
ence to  states  of  consciousness,  directly  known  by  the  subject  as  such,  then 
the  experimental  inquiry  is  not  jpsychological  at  all. 

The  science  of  psychology,  as  descriptive  and  explanatory  of  states  of  con- 
sciousness, undoubtedly  consists  very  largely  of  knowledge  about  those  physi- 
cal and  physiological  conditions — antecedent  or  concomitant — upon  which 
the  states  depend.  But  we  have  already  made  our  protest  against  the  doctrine 
that  tliese  are  the  only  conditions  which  it  behooves  psychological  science  to 
investigate. 

To  observation,  direct  aud  indirect,  and  to  analysis  by  intro- 
spection, reflection,  and  experiment,  we  add  Induction — as  the 
necessary  method  of  psychological  science.'  In  psychology  the 
function  and  place  of  the  inductive  raiithod  does  not  differ  from 
that  maintained  by  this  method  in  the  other  particidar  sciences. 
The  character  of  induction  and  the  validity  of  it  as  general  scien- 
tific method,  it  belongs  to  special  treatises  on  this  subject  to  set 

1  Volkinaim  dcuics  that,  properly  epeakinfr,  induction  can  be  the  method  of  psycholosrical  sci- 
ence (Lehrbuch  d.  Phycliulo^ic,  I.,  p.  G  f.).  Indeed,  lie  rejects  both  the  deductive  and  the  indnctive 
method,  and  adopts  what  lie  calls  the  * '  genetic  "  method  as  the  only  true  one.  His  ar>;uinent  asrainst 
many  of  the  faults  and  failures  of  the  ordinary  use  of  induction  in  psycholoijy  is  undoubtedly  very 
forceful.  Wliat  is  called  inducfon  too  often  uses  unwarrantable  abstractions— whether  of  so-called 
faculties  or  psychic  factors  and  processes,  such  as  raw  undifferentiated  "  mind-stunf,"  or  uncon- 
scious i)sychic  atoms  and  "  azKrcfrations,"  "  intetrrations,"  "  re-dintegrations,"  aud  what  not — as 
though  they  were  entities  or  activities  in  concrete  mental  life. 


NATURE   OF   THE   GENETIC   METHOD  2.) 

fortli.  There  is  little  or  notliiiif>-,  at  once  special  and  noteworthy, 
concerning  the  application  of  this  method  to  facts  of  mental  life 
which  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  consider.  We  beg-in  the  study 
of  psychology  with  the  general  assumption  that,  by  diligence 
and  skill,  order  may  be  introduced  into  what  appears  at  first 
an  indistinguishable  mixture,  a  chaotic  mass  of  psychic  facts. 
Here,  as  elsewhere — we  say  hopefully — law  must  reign :  and  it 
is  possible  for  us  to  find  it.  We  compare  psychic  facts  here  with 
psychic  facts  there,  psychic  facts  just  brought  to  our  knowledge 
with  psychic  facts  known  of  yore  or  of  yesterday ;  we  classify, 
generalize,  frame  hypotheses,  and  test  the  hypotheses  by  trying 
with  them  better  to  analyze  and  to  explain  new  psychic  facts. 
In  brief,  we  construct  and  verify  generalized  statements  as  to 
the  orderly  modes  of  the  structure — so  to  speak — of  man's  men- 
tal life.  So  often  as  our  so-called  "  laws  "  are  proved  to  be 
wrong,  inadequate,  or  defective  at  any  ijoint,  we  amend,  expand, 
and  improve  them.  And  from  the  simpler  and  less  comprehensive 
generalizations  we  strive  to  rise  to  those  which  are  more  difficult 
to  make  and  to  justify,  because  they  comprehend  so  many  facts 
and  involve  so  many  minor  laws.  Here,  of  course,  the  so-called 
inductive  method  implies — strictly  speaking — deduction  as  w^ell 
as  induction,  and  both  analj^sis  and  synthesis,  after  the  fashion 
of  the  science-making  mind  of  man. 

But  over  all  hovers  the  conception  of  Development.  We  de- 
sire to  treat  the  mental  life  as  a  totality,  where,  as  far  as  possible, 
the  great  principles  of  its  genesis  and  growth  shall  be  made 
known.  Only  thus  can  each  jDarticular  f act  be  better  understood, 
as  seen  in  the  light  of  these  principles  ;  onlj^  thus  can  each  stage 
of  this  life  be  satisfactorily  explained  in  its  necessary  dependence 
upon  the  i^receding  stages.  The  ideal  of  our  science  is,  to  be 
sure,  an  exalted  one.  It  may  be  a  long  time  before  it  can  be  real- 
ized ;  it  may,  indeed,  never  be  realized.  But  none  the  less,  it  is 
the  ideal  alone  fitted  to  stimulate,  encourage,  and  guide  our  scien- 
tific investigations ; — and  not  our  investif-ations  alone,  but  those 
of  the  whole  race  of  men,  in  so  far  as  they  may  be  made  inter- 
ested in  the  science  of  their  own  mental  life.  It  is  in  the  for- 
mation of  such  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  development  of  all 
mental  life  that  the  so-called  "  Genetic  Method  "  is  most  effect- 
ively employed. 

§  10.  To  endeavor  to  confine  the  inductive  method  in  psychology  ■within 
the  same  details  of  treatment  as  those  found  approjjriate  to  the  physical  sci- 
ences is  to  render  it  relatively  nnfruitfnl  from  the  very  outset.  Statistics  and 
the  records  of  lon^^  series  of  psycho-physical  experiment  are  of  undoubted 
value ;  but  the  collection  and  criticism  of  such  data  is  not  the  only  basis  for 


/^ 


-ITT 


26        METHOD,    SOURCES,    AND   DIVISIOIST   OF   PSYCHOLOGY 

valid  induction  in  psychology.     The  rather  must  all  classes  of  psychic  facts, 
however  discovered,  have  their  due  place  and  influence  in  our  induction. 

In  Germany  Herbart  and  his  followers  have  endeavored  to  use  the  genetic 
method  for  the  solution  of  particuhir  psychological  problems,  as  well  as  for 
the  formation  of  a  complete  scientific  picture  of  mental  development.  In 
carrying  out  this  endeavor,  however,  they  have  avowedly  introdixced  meta- 
physical presuppositions  which  we  consider  unwarrantable.  Volkmann,  the 
ripest  product  of  the  Herbartian  school,  adopts  the  genetic  method,  although 
he  claims  that  "  the  dialectical  history  of  the  development  of  the  spirit  is  not 
a  history  of  development  at  all ;  "  and  that  "  the  so-called  stages  of  this  de- 
velopment are  hypostasized  abstractions  " — a  criticism  which  is,  of  course, 
aimed  chiefly  against  Hegel.  Beneke  was  the  first  in  Germany  to  attempt  the 
genetic  method,  discarding  metaphysical  assumptions  and  building  upon  a 
scientific  basis.  The  traditional  old-fashioned  English  ])sychology  has  con- 
fined itself  largely  to  analysis.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  genetic  method 
is  destined  to  achieve  some  brilliant  successes  in  the  near  future  ;  although 
incessant  jjainstaking  is  necessary  to  avoid  being  deceived  by  misleading  fig- 
ures of  speech  brought  over  from  the  fields  of  physical  science.  For  example, 
many  of  the  psychical  entities  of  Mr.  Spencer  are  quite  as  much  "  hypos- 
tasized abstractions  "  as  are  those  made  use  of  in  Hegel's  "Phenomenology." 

The  Divisions  of  the  whole  fiekl  of  psychology  are  generally 
given  as  two :  Empirical  Psychology  and  Rational  Psychology, 
or  the  Philosophy  of  Mind.  The  field  of  empirical  psychology 
is  customarily  divided  according  to  the  three  so-called  Faculties 
of  Intellect,  Feeling,  and  Will.  Since  we  have  decided  to  ex- 
clude, as  far  as  possible,  all  problems  of  so-called  rational  psy- 
chology and  to  treat  of  mental  phenomena  in  terms  of  descriptive 
and  explanatory  science,  and  since  we  regard  the  customary 
discussion  of  the  "Faculties"  of  Mind  as  defective  and  unscien- 
tific, we  shall — in  accordance  with  our  conception  of  psychology 
and  for  purposes  of  the  highest  convenience — divide  the  entire 
subject  as  follows :  I.,  Most  General  Forms  of  Mental  Life ; 
II.,  Elements  of  Mental  Life  ;  III.,  Development  of  Mental  Life. 
The  justification  of  this  division  must  be  left  to  the  entire  subse- 
quent treatment  of  the  topics  concerned. 

[Besides  the  chapters  on  Method  in  the  various  works  on  psychology,  the  following, 
among  others,  are  especially  worth  noting:  J.  S.  Mill:  LoLjic,  bk.  vi.,  especially  chap, 
iv.  Lewes :  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind,  third  series,  I.,  cliap.  iv.  Volkmann  :  Lohrbnch, 
I.,  pp.  .5-84.  Brcntano :  Psychologie,  1.,  chap,  ii.-iv.  Rabior :  Let'ons,  etc.,  chap.  iv. 
W^nndt:  Physiologische  Psychologic  (4th  ed.),  p.  3  f.  Bain:  Logic,  bk.  v.,  chap.  v.  James: 
Principles  of  Psychology,  I.,  chap,  i.,  vi.,  vii.  Sully  :  The  ILinian  Mind,  I.,  chap.  ii.  In- 
teresting and  helpful  monographs  are  Mohr :  Grnndlagc  d.  cminrisohcn  Psychologic. 
Spitta:  Einlcitung  in  d.  Psychologie.    Natorp  :  Einleitung  in  d.  Psychologic.] 


Ipart  ffiret 

MOST  GENERAL  FORMS  OF  MENTAL  LIFE 


Ipart  first 

MOST  GENERAL  FORMS  OF  MENTAL  LIFE 


CHAPTER  III. 
CONSCIOUSNESS  AND  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 


^ 


It  should  be  understood  that  in  psychology  anything-  like  a 
separate  treatment  of  the  principal  topics,  so  that  what  is  said 
under  one  head  shall  not  be  assumed  or  repeated  under  every 
other  head,  is  quite  impossible.  The  real  relation  of  psychic 
facts  and  psychical  faculties  is  such  as  to  forbid  that  any  clear 
and  complete  knowledge  of  those  earliest  treated  should  be  ob- 
tained until  some  knowledge  of  those  whose  treatment  comes 
later  has  been  reached.  No  division  of  the  general  field  can 
avoid  this  difficulty,  for  it  grows  out  of  the  essential  nature  and 
uniform  princi^Dles  of  the  development  of  all  mental  life.  In  the 
three  following  chapters  the  difficulty  will  be  especially  obvious, 
because  these  chapters  treat  of  those  forms,  or  aspects,  which 
belong  to  all  actual  psychic  facts  ;  the  discussions  brought  for- 
ward in  them  are,  therefore,  necessarily  connected  with  each 
other  and  also  with  all  the  details  treated  in  the  two  follo^^^ng 
parts  of  the  book. 

The  term  Consciousness  has  already  been  used  as  synony- 
mous with  all  truly  psychic  facts,  in  so  far  as  such  facts  can  be- 
come objects  of  knowledge,  and  so  be  considered  as  data  for 
scientific  psychology.  This  use  our  preliminary  definition  of 
lisychology  assumed  to  be  justifiable.  But  it  is  necessary  that 
we  should  now  clear  up  further  the  conception  corresponding  to 
this  term,  and  present  some  statements  as  to  the  conditions  of 
consciousness,  the  universal  structure,  so  to  speak,  of  all  states 
of  consciousness,  the  "  circuit  "  of  consciousness,  the  "  flow  "'  of 
consciousness,  and  other  similar  topics. 

The  Meaning  of  the  term  Consciousness,  in  its  widest  and 
vaguest  significance,  does  not  admit — strictly  speaking — of  being 


30  CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

defined.  In  other  words,  the  marks  of  the  concept  of  conscious- 
ness cannot  be  enumerated  without  implying-,  in  each  one  of 
them,  an  understanding-  of  the  fundamental  experience  to  which 
the  concept  itself  corresponds.  Figuratively  speaking,  con- 
sciousness may  be  said  to  be  the  one  universal  solvent,  or  men- 
struum, in  which  the  different  concrete  kinds  of  psychic  acts  and 
facts  are  contained,  whether  in  concealed  or  in  obvious  form.  Is 
there  a  truly  psychical  phenomenon,  an  occurrence  of  real  men- 
tal life,  anywhere  :  then  snch  phenomenon  is  a  phenomenon  of 
consciousness,  an  occurrence  in  consciousness.  On  the  other 
hand,  consciousness  is  no  existence,  or  abstract  form  of  mental 
life,  apart  from  all  actual  psychic  facts.  Definition  in  general — 
the  analysis  which  makes  it  possible  to  fix  the  meaning  of  con- 
cepts, and  the  synthesis  of  the  results  of  analysis — is  possible 
only  by  complex  activity  of  consciousness.  The  meaning  of 
every  concept  is  all  in  the  states  of  consciousness,  reduced  to 
their  lowest  terms,  which  mental  gTOwth  of  the  particular  con- 
cept involves.  We  attempt  then  to  define  the  simplest  of  all  by 
the  more  complex,  the  most  fundamental  by  the  less  fundamen- 
tal, when  we  attempt  to  give  the  meaning  of  the  concept  of  con- 
sciousness. 

We  may,  however,  realize,  as  it  were,  what  consciousness  is 
by  comparing  it  with  the  so-called  "  unconscious."  But  "  the 
unconscious,"  considered  as  the  contradictory  of  consciousness, 
is  synonymous  with  no  psychic  state  or  fact ;  or,  rather,  it  is  the 
denial  of  any  truly  psychic  state  or  fact :  it  is  the  7?.(9?i-psychical, 
in  the  same  meaning  of  the  word  which  makes  the  "  psychical  " 
equivalent  to  a  phenomenon  of  consciousness.  What  we  are 
when  we  are  awake,  as  contrasted  with  what  we  are  when  we 
sink  into  a  profound  and  perfectly  dreamless  sleep,  or  receive 
an  overpowering  blow  upon  the  head — t/iat  it  is  to  be  conscious. 
What  we  are  less  and  less,  as  we  sink  gradually  down  into 
dreamless  sleep,^  or  as  we  swoon  slowly  away:  and  what  we 
are  more  and  more,  as  the  noise  of  the  crowd  outside  tardily 
arouses  us  from  our  after-dinner  nap,  or  as  we  come  out  of  the 
midnight  darkness  of  the  typhoid-fever  crisis — f/xff  it  is  to  be- 
come conscious.  Biit,  of  course,  "  the  unconscious  "  cannot  be 
thought,  since  thought  itself  is  only  an  orderly  movement  and 
sequence  of  states  of  consciousness.  Nor  can  we  define  con- 
sciousness by  contrast  with  the  merely  neg-ative  concept  of  "  the 
unconscious." 

In  this  most  general  meaning  of  the  word,  all  phases,  fac- 
tors, and  forms,  of  mental  states,  or  psychic  facts — all  partial  or 

'  Comp.  StrUmpell :  Qrundriss  d.  Psychologie,  p.  16  f. 


USES   OF  THE   WORD    "CONSCIOUSNESS"  31 

comploto  "  psychoses  " — arc  equally  to  be  spoken  of  as  bclonp:- 
iug-  to,  and  falling-  within,  the  so-called  "  held  of  consciousness." 
The  most  blinding  toothache,  as  well  as  the  serenest  contempla- 
tion of  Deity,  the  obscurest  mass  of  confused  bodily  sensations 
belong-ing  to  the  early  days  of  the  infant,  as  well  as  the  reflective 
self-analysis  of  the  trained  psychologist,  is  a  phenomenon  of 
consciousness.  By  this  use  of  the  word,  however,  we  do  not 
mean  either  to  affirm  or  to  deny  the  right  of  reflective  science  to 
refer  to  the  being  called  Mind  other  activities  than  those  which 
it  may  be  said  to  manifest  in  consciousness.  If  this  right  w^ere 
admitted,  it  would  no  longer  be  improper  to  speak  of  '"  uncon- 
scious" mental  acts,  or  "unconscious"  states  of  mind.  In  other 
words,  the  terms  "mental  acts"  and  "facts  of  consciousness" 
would  no  longer  be  throughout  strictly  convertible.  And  there 
are  many  of  our  common  experiences  which  induce  us  to  use 
this  kind  of  instinctive  metaphysics.  There  are  also  certain 
undoubted  phenomena  which  scientific  psychology  can  handle 
more  satisfactorily  by  means  of  the  hypothesis  of  unconscious 
mental  activities.  What,  however,  is  now  intended  is  this  : 
abjuring-  metaphysics  and  attending-  only  to  the  primary,  attain- 
able data  for  a  science  of  psychology,  it  is  a  justifiable  and  nec- 
essary use  of  the  word  consciousness  which  makes  it  synonymous 
with  psychic  facts  in  general.  Where  there  is  no  consciousness, 
there  are  no  psychic  facts  as  data  for  psychology  ;  wherever 
there  is  consciousness,  there  already  exist  psychic  facts  demand- 
ing scientific  description  and  explanation.  ; 

\  1.  The  word  "  consciousness"  has  been  used  by  different  i^svchologists 
with  a  somewhat  wide  range  of  meanings  ;  and — as  was  to  be  expected— in 
connection  with  this  varying  use  there  has  been  no  little  difference  of  opin- 
ion concerning  the  nature  of  consciousness.  On  the  one  hand,  some  writers 
have  identified  consciousness  with  self  consciousness  as  the  so-called  "  power 
by  which  the  soul  knows  its  own  acts  and  states  "  (so  Porter :  The  Human  In- 
tellect, p.  83)  ;  or  have  sjioken  of  it  as  an  inner  '•  witness,"  an  "  inner  illumi- 
nation," which  gives  us  information  about  everything  in  the  mind  (Cousin  : 
Psychology,  chap.  x.  ;  and  Hickok  :  Empirical  Psychology,  chap,  iii.,  2). 
Sir  William  Hamilton  employed  it  as  a  collective  term  for  the  cognitive 
aspect,  or  factors,  of  all  psychical  states.  On  the  other  hand,  many  German 
writers,  and  recent  writers  generally,  have  rightly  protested  against  identify- 
ing consciousness  and  self-consciousness  ;  and  also  against  the  fallacy  wdiich 
assumes  that  an  actual  self-reference  of  every  psychic  fact,  or  state,  to  a  sub- 
ject (the  Ego)  is  the  necessary  accompaniment  of  the  very  existence  of  such 
fact  or  state.  This  protest,  when  made  in  a  lively  way,  may  take  the  form 
of  such  questions  as  follow  :  Are  we  to  believe  that  every  psychic  fact,  as 
such,  has  all  this  mechanism  concealed  in  its  interior,  as  it  were  ;  this  uni- 
versal double  entendre,  or  two-foldness  of  fact,  as  mere  fact  ?     As  for  me. 


32  CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

ordinarily  when  I  hear  a  sound,  the  hearing  is  all  there  is  of  it ;  I  do  not, 
besides,  consciously  refer  it,  as  something  heard  by  me,  to  a  self  as  the  sub- 
ject of  the  state.  To  say,  I  hear  the  sound,  or  the  sound  is  heard  by  me, 
means  ordinarily  no  more  than  to  say,  in  a  perfectly  impersonal  way  :  psy- 
chic fact  of  hearing  has  arisen  in  consciousness. 

This  somewhat  too  lively  form  of  objection  embodies  a  deserved  criti- 
cism of  a  widely  current  psychological  fallacy.  I  may,  indeed,  subsequently 
recall  any  psycliic  fact  and  attribute  it  to  myself,  as  the  state  of  which  I  was 
subject.  I  may  also  make  this  reference  simultaneously,  or  nearly  simul- 
taneously, with  the  occurrence  of  such  psychic  fact.  But  I  do  not  neces- 
sarily do  this.  To  say  that  one  can  never  think  of  a  state  of  consciousness 
which  is  not  some  one's  state  of  consciousness  is,  then,  obvious  enough. 
To  say  that  /  cannot  remember  a  state  of  isast-consciousness  without  im- 
plying that  it  was  my  state  is  scarcely  less  obvious.  But  to  say  that  the 
terms  of  the  very  existence  of  every  state  of  my  consciousness  are  identical 
with  the  terms  of  its  being  thought  about  as  consciousness,  or  even  with 
the  terms  of  its  being  recognized  as  referable  to  me,  as  w?/  consciousness, 
is  not  at  all  obvious.  In  other  words,  phenomena  of  consciousness  as  such, 
in  this  use  of  the  term,  do  not  necessarily  involve  that  reference  of  state  to 
Self,  as  its  subject  or  ground,  in  which  the  essence  of  developed  self-knowl- 
edge consists. 


> 


But  psychic  facts,  or  phenomena  of  consciousness,  in  order  to 
serve  as  data  of  psychology,  must  become  objects  of  knowledge. 
That  is  to  say,  the  phenomena  must  not  only  in  fact  exist,  but 
they  must  also  be  known  to  exist ;  in  this  respect  psychologj'^ 
does  not  diifer  from  every  other  empirical  science.  But  psychol- 
ogy is  peculiar,  and  indeed  unique,  in  that  the  relation  between 
the  occurrence  of  the  phenomenon,  as  fact,  and  the  observation 
of  its  occurrence  is  different  from  that  which  accompanies  the 
attempt  to  acquire  data  in  any  other  science.  Observation  is 
itself  a  phenomenon  of  consciousness ;  and  when  this  observa- 
tion is  direct,  it  is  separable,  neither  in  reality  nor  in  time,  from 
the  phenomenon  observed  as  a  fact.  This  is  equally  true  whether 
the  observation  is  deliberately  conducted  for  i)urposes  of  definite 
self-knowledge,  or  resembles  those  faintest  glimpses  of  psychic 
facts  Avhicli  most  of  our  ordinary  so-called  "inner  illumination  " 
reveals.  In  these  respects  all  psycliic  facts  are  alike  in  the  way 
in  which  they  become  immediate  objects  of  knowledge.  In  these 
respects  the  data  of  scientific  psychology  are  identical  with  the 
knowledge  which  every  plain  man  has  of  his  own  mental  life. 
In  all  cases  of  immediate  knowledge  of  a  phenomenon  of  con- 
sciousness, the  knowing  of  the  phenomenon  as  object,  and  the 
l>henomenon  known  as  fact,  is  one  state  or  complex  phenome- 
non of  consciousn(>ss.  In  general,  there  are  not  two  parallel  or 
rapidly    succeeding    series,    or  orders,   of  phenomena  to  take 


ATTENTION    NECESSARY   TO   CONSCIOUSNESS  33 

account  of ;  there  is  only  ouc  and  the  same  phenomenon  (com- 
plex and  shifting-,  although  "one  and  the  same"),  which,  in  one 
aspect,  is  phenomenon /r^y  consciousness,  and,  in  another  aspect, 
is  phenomenon  of  aomv  object.  Not  in  the  reality  of  the  psychic 
fact,  but  by  an  abstraction  to  which  no  reality  ever  corresponds, 
two  momenia  can  be  distinguished — viz.,  the  existence  of  the 
particular  content,  and  its  belonging  to  the  collective  content  of 
my  consciousness.  Its  existence  fur  y/ie— this  is  my  conscious- 
ness of  it.' 

Further  light  is  to  be  thrown  on  the  nature  of  consciousness 
only  by  anticipating  other  truths,  which  will  bo  fully  discussed 
later  on.  Among  such  truths  the  following  are  most  important : 
The  so-called  faculties  are  all  exercised  in  every  state  of  con- 
sciousness. To  say  the  same  thing  in  better  accord  with  the 
fundamental  facts  of  experience  :  every  state  of  consciousness,  or 
psychic  fact,  so  far  as  it  ever  becomes  an  object  of  knowledge,  is 
a  complex  state,  a  fact  with  several  aspects  or  sides.  It  is  fact 
of  intellection,  fact  of  feeling,  fact  of  conation ;  and  yet  it  is 
these,  without  ceasing  to  be  one  psychic  state  or  fact,  in  the 
life  of  consciousness.  But  the  most  primary  form  of  intellection 
is  discriminating  consciousness.  In  other  words,  within,  and  as 
an  integral  part  of,  every  jjsychic  fact,  discriminating  mental  ac- 
tivity is  involved.  We  may  then  say  that  every  phenomenon  of 
consciousness  which  becomes  an  object  of  immediate  knowledge, 
is  accompanied  by  conscious  discernment  of  this  phenomenon 
as  such  a  fact,  and  no  other,  in  the  so-called  flowing  current  of 
conscious  life. 

Attention  is  the  necessary  presupposition  and  unceasing  ac- 
companiment of  all  the  life  of  consciousness.  As  many  writers 
truly  and  yet  figuratively  say,  attention  may  be  variously  "  dis- 
tributed "  over  the  different  parts  of  the  area  covered  by  each 
state  of  consciousness.  It  may  become  directed  to  the  more 
l)erfect  discrimination  of  this  or  of  that  aspect  of  an}^  complex 
]>sj^chic  fact ;  and  as  the  direction  of  attention  changes,  or  the  in- 
tensity of  attention  becomes  modified,  the  complexion  of  the 
psychic  fact  itself  changes.  Just  so  far  as  attention  becomes 
directed  to  the  content  of  consciousness,  to  the  nature  of  the 
psychic  fact,  as  such,  and  to  the  relation  in  which  anj-^  particular 
fact  stands  to  contiguous  psychic  facts,  we  have  the  basis  laid 
for  an  important  modification  of  the  nature  of  consciousness.  In 
such  discriminating  activity,  and  in  its  accompanying  "  self-feel- 
ing," and  in  accompanying  motor  activities,  the  foundations  of 
self-consciousness  are  laid.     In  order,   however,  that   self-con- 

•  Comp.  Natorp.  Einleitung  in  d.  Psychologie.  p.  C2  f. 


34  CONSCIOUSNESS    AND   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

sciousness,  more  properly  speaking,  may  be  developed,  a  concept 
of  the  J5/^o,  or  "  self,"  must  be  formed;  and  this  is  dependent 
upon  the  development  of  conceptual  knowledge. 

Discriminating  consciousness,  or,  as  it  is  sometimes  called, 
"  perceptive  consciousness,"  is  therefore  necessary  as  the  ac- 
comijaniment  of  all  psychic  facts,  if  such  facts  are  to  become 
objects  of  knowledge,  and  so  furnish  data  for  scientific  psychol- 
ogy. It  is  this  truth  which  causes  the  confusion  of  conscious- 
ness as  mere  psychic  fact  and  self -consciousness,  and  which  gives 
rise  to  the  theory  that  all  conscious  experience  necessarily  in- 
volves a  knowledge  of  self.  In  accordance  with  this  distinction, 
we  may  now  modify  our  previous  more  vague  conception  of 
consciousness.  In  so  far  as  consciousness  can  serve  the  purposes 
of  self-knowledge  it  must  be  defined  as  synonymous  with  psychi- 
cal state,  regarded  as  discriminated,  hoioever  faintly,  in  respect  of 
content,  and  related,  however  imperfectly,  to  the  stream  of  mental 
life. 

I  2.  The  difficulties  that  accompany  the  effort  to  tell  how  I  can,  in  one 
and  the  same  state  of  consciousness,  not  only  have  intellection,  feeling,  and 
will,  but  also  know  that  I  have  them,  largely  arise  from  that  fruitful  source 
of  psychological  fallacies — the  substitution  of  abstractions  for  actual  experi- 
ence, of  thoughts  about  what  can  take  place  for  knowledge  of  what  actually 
does  take  jilace.  The  error  is  essentially  the  same,  whether  the  j^ossibility 
of  all  real  self-consciousness  is  denied,  or  the  impossibility  of  any  fact  of 
consciousness  existing  without  activity  of  reflective  self-consciousness  is 
affirmed.  The  truth  is  that  people  generally  sujiiiose  themselves  to  be  capa- 
ble of  recognizing  their  mental  experience  as  their  own,  and  of  attributing 
it  to  themselves,  with  an  immediate  and  indubitable  certainty.  On  the 
other  hand,  they  do  not  believe  that  they  always,  or  customarily,  do  this. 
A  science  true  to  facts  amply  justifies  both  these  poj^ular  opinions  as  against 
the  two  corresponding  forms  of  the  psychologist's  theoretical  fallacies. 

I  3.  The  truth  that  a  measure  of  self-consciousness  is  necessary  in  order 
that  all  psychic  facts,  as  such,  may  become  immediate  objects  of  knowledge, 
gives  us  the  key  to  that  extraordinary  divergence  of  view  concerning  the 
nature  and  value  of  consciousness  which  differeni  treatises  on  psychology 
display.  In  the  liglit  of  the  foregoing  truths,  we  may  now  profitably  refer 
to  the  pregnant  declarations  of  several  authorities  on  this  subject.  Thus  one 
writer'  denies  that  the  existence  of  "ideas"  (here  nearly  or  quite  synonymous 
with  psychic  facts,  regarded  as  discriminated  and  related  to  other  facts)  and 
consciousness  are  one  and  the  same  thing.  There  are  psychical  facts 
enough  which  are  not  perceived.  But  the  same  writer  holds  that  to  be  per- 
ceived and  to  arise  as  an  idea  in  consciousness  are  not  different  processes. 
Unconscious  mental  processes  exist  in  great  variety  and  abundance,  but 
"  unconscious  idea"  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.     Another  writer,^  after  affirm- 

'  Lipi)R  :  (Jrunclthatsachen  d.  Scclenlebcns,  p.  20  f. 

"  Brcntauo  {Ho  gcbrauche  ich  ihn  derm  am  Liebsten,  etc.) :  Psychologic,  i..  p.  132. 


DKGRICES   OF   CONSCIOUSNESS  35 

ing  a  deciiled  preference  for  that  use  of  the  word,  "consciousness,"  which 
identities  it  with  psychical  phenomenon  or  psychical  act,  goes  on  to  main- 
tain :  Every  psychical  act  is  conscious  in  that,  however  simple  it  may  be,  it 
has,  besides  tlie  [)rimary  object,  a  secondary,  viz.,  the  psychical  phenomenon 
itself.  Hence,  every  psychical  act  may  be  considered  in  four  ways  :  (1)  As 
a  mental  image  of  the  primary  object ;  (2)  as  mental  fact  in  itself  ;  (3)  as  cog- 
nition of  itself ;  (4)  as  feeling  of  itself.  Still  another  writer '  maintains  that 
thinking  and  consciousness  can  be  separated  only  ideally — that  is,  in  tliought. 
There  is  no  thoughtless  consciousness  ;  for  consciousness  is  always  thinking 
consciousness.  And  yet  this  writer  adds,  "  Thinking  is  consciousness  brought 
to  an  orderly  unity." 

All  the  foregoing  and  similar  views  contain  important  truths.  Their  ap- 
parent contradictions  with  one  another,  and  their  obvious  internal  confusion, 
are  removed  when  we  remember  that,  although  consciousness  may  properly 
be  identified  with  all  psychic  facts  as  mere  occurrences,  psychic  facts  cannot 
be  known  as  such,  without  involving  at  least  inchoate  and  confused  self-con- 
sciousness. The  beginning  of  self-consciousness  is  consciousness  considered 
no  longer  as  bare  psychic  fact,  but  as  discriminating  its  state  and  relating 
this  particular  state  to  others  in  the  stream  of  conscious  life. 

§  4.  The  course  and  laws  of  the  development  of  self-consciousness  can  be 
more  fully  traced  only  after  the  phenomena  of  feeling,  x>erception,  and  con- 
ceptual knowledge  have  been  further  considered.  Consciousness — meaning 
self -consciousness — has  always  been  closely  related  to  perception.  Thus 
we  are  told  :  "  Consciousness  is  the  condition  in  which  we  not  only  have  the 
content  of  the  idea  )p  the  soul,  but  also  perceive  or  remark  the  same."  "  On 
the  contrary,  the  necessity  of  distinguishing  between  consciousness  and  self- 
consciousness  is  made  more  clear  by  reflecting  ujion  the  difference  between 
perceiDtion  (by  the  senses)  and  self-consciousness.  When  I  am  observing  an 
object  through  a  microscope,  or  a  fireman  rescuing  a  woman  from  the  win- 
dow of  a  burning  building,  or  am  listening  to  an  interesting  political  dis- 
course, or  to  a  sonata  of  Beethoven,  I  am  in  a  high  state  of  perceptive  con- 
sciousness ;  bTit  I  am  little,  or  not  at  all,  self-conscious. 

What  has  been  said  of  discriminating  consciousness  illustrates,  however, 
the  trath  of  Dr.  George's  ^  remark  :  The  possibility  of  self-consciousness  de- 
pends upon  the  fact  that  the  conscious  Ego  is,  as  it  were,  a  "wandering 
point ;"  and  that  tlms  the  entire  process  of  perceiving  objects  is,  in  the  last 
analysis,  closely  connected  with  a  process  of  establishing  their  place  and 
form  in  relation  to  the  thinking  subject  and  to  one  another.  As  the  powers 
concerned  in  the  perception  of  objects  develop,  so— but  not  in  the  same  or- 
der or  proportion,  necessarily— does  the  so-called  faculty  of  "  inner  percep- 
tion," or  self-consciousness,  develop.* 

What  is  meant  by  a  "  State  of  Consciousness  "  slionld  by  this 
time  be  tolerably  clear.     The  very  words  imply,  what  all  knowl- 

'  Ilorwicz  :  Psycholoirische  Analysen,  i.,  P-  1G4  f. 
2  Comp.  Fortlage  :  Beitriige  zur  Psychologie,  p.  156. 
'  Lehrbnch  d.  Psychologie.  p.  402  f. 

«  Comp.  Hartsen  :  Grundziige  d.  Psychologic,  p.  17  f.  And  Mohr  (Grandlagc,  etc.,  p.  43)  sayp  : 
"  We  always  connect  the  concept  of  perception  with  the  word  consciousness." 


36  CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

edg"e  of  mental  life  progressively  illustrates  and  confirms,  viz. : 
that  we  are  here  dealing-  with  some  sort  of  unity  in  variety.  If 
there  were  no  real  unity  implied,  and  experienced  as  it  is  im- 
plied, we  could  not  speak  of  a  state  of  consciousness  ;  and,  of 
course,  if  we  could  not  speak  of  one  such  state,  we  could  not 
speak  of  several  diflferent  states,  or  comj^are  state  with  state,  or 
trace  the  genesis  of  any  one  state,  or  group  of  states,  in  relation 
to  the  entire  development  of  mental  life.  But  if  the  so-called 
single  states  of  consciousness  were  not,  in  reality,  also  complex 
and  capable  of  being"  actually  known  as  complex,  we  could  not 
distinguish  one  state  as  different  in  structure,  or  tone,  from 
other  states,  could  not  classify  states,  or  build  up  knowledge  of 
the  development  of  self. 

This  unity  in  variety,  which  belong-s  to  all  states  of  conscious- 
ness as  such,  is  of  unique  character — and  this,  whether  we  lay 
emphasis  on  the  unity  that  comprises  the  variety,  or  upon  the 
variety  comprised  in  the  unity.  Both  the  unity  and  the  variety 
must  be  conceived  of  and  described  in  such  a  way  as  fairly  to 
represent  the  facts,  and  not  to  violate  or  discredit  each  other. 
The  unity  of  each  state  of  consciousness  Ih  such  that  it  in  no  wise 
makes  impossible  a  variety  of  content  (and  even  a  variety  of 
self-recognized  content)  as  belonging*  to  that  one  state.  But  the 
variety  also  of  the  content  of  each  state  of  consciousness  is  such 
that  it,  whether  recognized  or  unrecog-nized,  in  no  wise  destroj's 
or  impairs  the  unity  of  that  particular  state.  Nor  must  it  be  for- 
gotten that  we  are  here  dealing*  with  an  actual  concrete  unity, 
such  as  may  be  known  in  experience,  and  with  a  similar  variety 
in  such  unity,  and  not  with  the  abstract  unities  of  mathema- 
ticians or  psycholog"ists.  Certain  conceptions  of  unity  and  vari- 
ety may  be  framed  which  make  it  unthinkable  that  a  variety  of 
content  should  be  realizied  in  one  state  of  one  subject — one  mind 
to  which  the  complex  state  belongs.  But  a  state  of  consciousness 
is  no  such  abstract  imity  devoid  of  real  variety ;  nor  is  it  an  ab- 
stract diversity  incapable  of  being:  united  in  a  unity. 

There  is  no  other  way  to  know  what  sort  of  a  unity  in  variety 
every  state  of  consciousness  actually  is  than  reflectively  to  ob- 
serve some  such  state  of  consciousness.  In  this  way  it  becomes 
clear  that  no  state  of  consciousness  can  be  known  as  single  in 
the  sense  of  being  apart  from  the  contiguous  stream  of  mental 
life.  But  each  state  becomes  known  as  one  state  in  so  far  as  dis- 
criminating consciousness  separates  it,  however  vaguely,  from 
this  stream  ;  while  the  boundaries  of  separation  are  fixed  only  in 
and  during  the  discriminating-  activity  itself.  Moreover,  the  dif- 
ferent elements,  factors,  phases  (the  name  is  not  so  very  impor- 


\ 


A   STATE   OF   CONSCIOUSNESS  37 

tant  here)  of  the  one  state  exist,  as  component  parts  of  that  one 
state,  only  in  and  during-  this  same  discriminating  activity. 
What  and  how  many  these  elements  are  depends — we  may  say 
somewhat  tiguratively — upon  the  wandering-  of  the  point  of  at- 
tention and  its  distribution  over  the  entire  area,  rather  than 
upon  the  constitution  of  the  state  regarded  as  something  made 
up  outside  of  attentive  and  discriminating-  consciousness. 

By  a  "  state  of  consciousness  "  we  mean,  then,  such  portlun  of 
the  actual  life  of  co/usciounnesfi  an  may  he,  hy  dlscrhninathuj  activity 
of  consciousness,  considered  as  one,  both  with  respect  to  its  oum  so- 
called  constitution,  and  also  with  respect  to  its  relation  to  other  states 
of  the  same  life. 

I  5.  To  illustrate  further  the  unity  in  variety  which  eveiy  state  of  con- 
sciousness is,  we  ruay  take  an  examjile.  I  am  observing  a  horse,  running  at 
full  speed  ;  or  I  am  reading  an  interesting  discussion  in  a  book.  A  friend 
interrupts  me  with  the  question  :  What  are  you  thinking  about?  If  I  an- 
swer as  fully  as  possible,  I  may  say  in  the  one  case :  I  am  thinking  as  I  ob- 
serve,— What  speed,  what  grace  of  motion,  what  strength  !  I  am  feeling  ex- 
hilaration at  the  sight  of  sueh  sjieed,  grace,  strength.  I  am  calculating 
whether  the  animal  will  make  the  goal  by  a  given  time,  etc.  Or  I  am  think- 
ing as  I  read  :  How  true,  or  what  nonsense  !  I  am  feeling  repugnance 
toward  the  views  of  the  writer,  or  sympathy  with  his  skill  in  setting  forth  the 
truth.  I  am  anticipating  what  the  next  turn  to  the  discussion  will  probably 
be.  By  more  careful  analysis  I  may  also  recognize  the  truth  that  I  am  suffer- 
ing certain  dimly  conscious  bodily  feelings  of  discomfort  from  the  hardness 
of  the  seat,  the  bad  air  surrounding  me,  or  the  "leavings-over,"  as  it  were, 
of  the  news  received  in  the  morning  that  one  of  my  investments  has  failed. 

But  it  will  be  said  that  the  state  of  consciousness  which  is  thus  described 
in  answer  to  the  question  is  itself  not  only  another,  but  a  quite  diflferent 
state  of  consciousness  from  that  to  which  the  question  referred  ;  it  is  indeed 
only  a  subsequent  state  of  reflective  consciousness  by  which  the  earlier  state 
is  remembered  in  an  imperfect  and  jierverted  way  ;  moreover,  it  is  itself 
not  one  state,  but  a  succession  of  states  in  the  unceasing  flow  of  mental  life. 
And  all  this  is,  in  some  important  meaning  of  the  words,  the  truth.  Two 
things  must,  however,  be  noted.  Such  memory-states  are  themselves  true 
states  of  consciousness  and  have  the  unity  in  variety  which  belongs  to  all 
states  of  consciousness.  Again,  the  transition  from  one  state  to  another,  even 
when  the  character  of  the  consciousness  changes  markedly,  as — for  example 
— in  answer  to  the  above-mentioned  questions,  is  never  like  a  sudden  leap 
from  one  form  of  mental  life  into  a  totally  different  form  of  such  life.  Fac- 
tors of  intollection,  feeling,  and  conation,  are  carried  over — so  to  speak — from 
one  state  into  the  next ;  these  factors,  thus  carried  over,  bind  the  states  into 
the  unity  of  one  mental  life,  while  they  do  not  prevent  discriminating  con- 
sciousness from  considering  portions  of  that  life  as  ideally  sejaarable  states. 

?  6.  In  this  field  of  reflection,  figures  of  speech  are  very  powerful. 
With  this  in  mind,  we  should  avoid  comparing  consciousness  to  a  line,  or 
the  diff"erent  moments  (and  states)  of   cousciou.sness  to  points  in   a   line. 


38  CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

Neither  is  the  comparison  of  states  of  consciousness  to  a  compound  resulting 
from  a  perpetually  changing  chemical  synthesis  free  from  all  objection.  All 
states  of  consciousness— as  we  shall  soon  see — actually  occupy  a  somewhat 
indefinite  but  appreciable  amount  of  time  ;  this  is  true  whether  the  time  be 
measured  by  objective  or  by  subjective  standards.  Moreover,  the  factors, 
or  momenta,  which  enter  into  them  are  not  entities  that  can  be  analyzed  out 
of  them  and  made  to  enter  into  other  combinations,  as  can  the  atoms  or 
molecules  of  a  jDhysical  or  chemical  synthesis. 

A  series  of  circles,  with  widening  or  contracting  areas,  made  by  a  curved 
line  that  keeps  advancing  while  it  constantly  returns  upon  itself,  so  as  to  in- 
clude in  each  new  circle  a  part  of  the  area  belonging  to  the  preceding 
circle,  is  a  better  mathematical  figure  than  that  of  movement  along  a  line,  to 
illustrate  the  nature  of  consciousness.  What  goes  on  in  the  field  of  a  not  too 
rapidly  revolving  kaleidoscope  may  also  be  taken  as  an  illustration.  Or  if 
tlie  change  of  states  is  to  be  represented  by  a  series  like  A,  B,  C,  D,  .  . 
Z;  then,  since  A  —  {a,  b,  c,  d,  e,  etc.),  B  =  (c,  d,  e, /,  g,  etc.),  C=  (e, /,  g,  h, 
i,  etc.),  2)=  {g,  h,  i,j,  k^  etc.),  etc.,  etc. ;  the  true  character  of  the  change  is 
better  represented  by  a  steady  or  somewhat  intermittent  flow  of  the  follow- 
ing order  :  {a,  b,  c,  d,  e,  etc.)  into  (c,  d,  e,f,  g,  etc.)  into  (e, /,  g,  h,  i,  etc.)  into 
iff)  f>f  hji  ^,  etc.),  etc.,  etc. 

g  7.  The  qiiestion  whether  we  can  properly  speak  of  unconscious  factors 
or  modifications  of  mind,  as  combining  to  form  states  of  consciousness,  has 
been  much  debated.  The  argument  of  Leibnitz  is  well  known  :  "I  hear  the 
noise  of  the  sea,  but  I  do  not  hear  the  noise  of  each  wave  alone ;  yet  the 
noise  of  each  wave  must  produce  a  mental  effect,  otherwise  the  whole  to- 
gether would  produce  no  mental  effect."  So  M.  Taiue  '  argues  with  regard 
to  the  nature  of  states  of  auditory  consciousness  ;  and  Sir  William  Hamilton 
applies  a  similar  argument  to  the  constitution  of  the  ininiminn  visibile. 

Now  that  the  aggregate  effect  of  a  large  numblr  of  minute  physiological 
changes,  no  one  of  which  alone  would  occasion  a  modification  of  conscious- 
ness, may  be  the  production  of  a  particular  mental  state,  there  can  be  no 
doubt.  Experiment  constantly  .shows  this  effect  taking  place.  We  may 
even  be  inclined  to  admit  that  unconscious  but  real  psychic  changes  have  an 
influence  upon  the  character  of  all  our  states  of  consciousness.  But  to  re- 
gard conscious  states  as  comjDounded  out  of  more  elementary  states  of  the 
unconscious,  or  to  argue  that  because  I  have  a  conscious  sensation  jiro- 
duced  by  a  certain  number  or  intensity  of  nervous  shocks,  therefore  I  must 
have  a  certain,  though  unconscious,  sensation  produced  by  each  component 
nervous  shock,  is  quite  unwarrantable.^ 

§  8.  It  is,  however,  equally  unwarrantable  to  press  the  so-called  unity  of 
consciousness  so  as  to  deny  that  each  real  state  of  consciousness  is  complex, 
or  even  that  this  complexity  may  be  recognized  by  discriminating  conscious- 
ness. Wliile,  then,  we  may  say,  with  Professor  James,*  "  Whatever  things 
are  thought  in  relation  are  thought  from  the  outset  in  a  unity,  in  a  single 
pulse  of  subjectivity,  a  single  psychosis,  feeling,  or  state  of  mind,"  we 
must  also  note  that  this  very  sentence  admits  that  si'vend  things  may  be 

'  De  I'lntclligcnce  (4th  ed.),  I.,  p.  1T5  f. 

"  See  Itabier  :  Lemons,  etc.,  I.,  p.  55  f.,  for  a  criticism  of  Tuiue's  argument. 

*  Principles  of  Psychology,  I.,  p.  273. 


THE   CIRCUIT   OF   CONSCIOUSNESS  39 

"thought  in  relation,"  and  uses  the  word  "feeling  "to  indicate  an  important 
phase  of  the  one  state  differing  from  the  thought  which  relates  these  things. 
Moreover,  we  shall  see  that,  instead  of  the  conscious  state  having  from  "the 
outset "  all  the  unity  it  can  attain,  it  may  rather  be  said  to  develoi)  such  unity 
according  as  the  variety  of  its  content  becomes  discriminated  more  clearly. 

The  foregoing-  description  of  states  of  consciousness,  us  they 
become  objects  of  knowledge,  and  so  furnish  immediate  chita  for 
scientific  psychology,  justifies  us  in  regarding  each  such  state 
as  equivalent  to  what  may  figuratively  be  called  a  "  Field  of 
Consciousness."  Every  field  of  consciousness  may  then  be  said 
to  have  a  certain  "  circuit,"  inasmuch  as  it  contains  a  larger  or 
smaller  number  of  discriminable  factors  or  objects.  It  may  also 
be  said  to  have  a  certain  "  intensity,"  since  we  are  much  more 
alive  psychically  at  some  times  than  at  others  ;  and  also  a  certain 
character  or  "  tone,"  since  the  nature  of  the  predominating  form 
of  mental  life  difiers  in  different  states  of  consciousness.  For 
example,  in  illustration  of  the  last  distinction  :  sometimes  the 
field  of  consciousness  may  be  characterized  as  objective,  for  I 
am  "occupied  with,"  or  "absorbed  in,"  the  perception  of  some 
natural  object,  as  the  movement  of  a  frog-preparation  under  the 
stimulus  of  the  electrical  current,  or  the  curve  of  reaction-time 
which  is  being  marked  upon  a  revolving  drum.  At  other  times 
I  am  "  overwhelmed  with  "  physical  pain  or  "  drowned  in  "  sor- 
row, or  "  all  alive  with  "  expectation  or  joy.  In  other  words,  the 
field  of  consciousness  is  chiefly  occupied  with  subjective  feeling. 
Moreover,  the  difi'erent  fields  of  consciousness,  discriminable 
as  such  in  the  flow  of  mental  life,  succeed  each  other  with  varying 
degrees  of  rapidity.  No  fact  is  more  familiar  than  this,  that 
sometimes  our  thoughts  come  and  go  with  an  enjoyable  or  tan- 
talizing speed ;  while  at  other  times  the  flow  of  mental  life  is 
sluggish  and  we  have  relatively  few  states  of  consciousness 
within  a  given  objective  time. 

Difterent  "  fields  of  consciousness  "  differ,  then,  as  respects  (1) 
extent,  or  "  circuit  "  ;  (2)  intensity,  or  amount  of  mental  life  en- 
tering into  them  ;  (8)  speed  of  movement  as  measured  by  the 
number  of  recognizably  different  fields  occurring  in  a  definite 
amount  of  objective  time ;  and  (4)  character,  or  predominating 
specific  quality.  The  fuller  discussion  of  each  of  these  topics 
requires  the  previous  treatment  of  several  allied  subjects ;  but 
upon  each  a  few  words  of  detail  are  now  in  place. 

§  9.  The  accurate  experimental  measurement  of  the  extejit  of  the  field  of 
consciousness  is  made  difficult  by  the  complication  of  this  problem  witli 
many  changing  and  obscure  conditions.     Among  these  the  character  and 


40  CONSCIOUSNESS   AXD   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

distribution  of  the  "attention"  given  to  the  different  factors  or  objects  in 
the  one  field  is  most  important.  The  older  form  of  speculative  psjchol- 
ogj  maintained  the  impossibility  of  attending  to  more  than  one  thing  at  a 
time,  as  a  deduction  from  the  unity  of  the  soul.  Strictly  carried  out,  this 
theory  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  mental  development  cannot  show  itself 
in  consciousness  except  in  the  way  of  increased  speed  in  the  succession  of 
mental  states.  But  modern  evolutionary  psychology  recognizes  the  depend- 
ence of  the  field  of  consciousness,  as  respects  both  energy  and  variety  of 
recognized  content,  not  only  upon  the  age  and  culture  of  the  individual,  but 
also  upon  the  development  of  civilization.  Here,  as  everywhere  else,  it 
invites  us  to  return  from  merely  speculative  deductions  to  the  actual  facts  of 
psychical  life. 

The  number  of  successive  impressions  of  sound,  for  example,  which  can 
be  so  far  "  grasped  together"  as  to  allow  clear  discernment  of  the  likeness 
or  unlikeuess  of  that  particular  field  to  another  field  similarly  constituted, 
has  been  experimentally  investigated. '  "When  the  interval  between  the  suc- 
cessive imijressions  was  the  most  favorable  possible  (0.2-0.3  sec),  without 
grouping  the  imjiressions,  16  was  found  by  one  experimenter  to  be  the 
maximum  even  number,  15  the  maximum  odd  number,  which  could  be 
united  in  one  field  of  consciousness.  It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  in 
such  experiments  attention  is  uniformly  distributed  and  a  certain  "sensa- 
tion-mass," as  it  were,  is  the  only  clearly  discerned  object  of  perception, 
while  the  individual  factors  in  that  mass  are  but  dimly  distinguished. 
Now  a  distinction  must  be  made  between  the  extent  of  the  field  of  percep- 
tive consciousness  and  the  extent  of  what  has  been  called  "  apperception  " 
(or  dear  discriminatio7i  of  particulars)  within  that  field.  And  Professor  Cat- 
tell  '  has  shown  that  four  or  five  visual  impressions  exhaust  our  j^ower  of  clear 
discernment.  This  experimenter  tested  the  "  grasp  of  consciousness  "  by 
displaying  from  4  to  15  short  perpendicular  lines  for  0.01  sec.  Of  eight 
perso)\s  experimented  with,  two  could  give  correctly  the  number  seen  up  to 
6,  but  none  beyond  6  ;  three  others  up  to  4  ;  and  three  persons  could  not  be 
sure  of  even  so  many  as  4.  It  is  interesting  to  note  how  these  conclusions 
agree  with  those  of  Hamilton,  who  affirmed  that  the  field  of  his  visual  con- 
sciousness could  embrace  6  or  7  distinct  simultaneous  impressions.  Yet 
more  recent  experiments^  show  that  if  more  than  5  or  6  (or  in  "  exceptional 
and  star  records,"  8)  tactual  impressions  occur  simultaneously,  they  can- 
not be  localized  in  the  one  field  of  consciousness  ;  the  surplus  number  droi> 
entirely  out  of  the  field  or  fuse  in  their  resultant  with  other  simultaneous 
impressions.  And  returning  to  impressions  of  sound  :  our  ability  to  recog- 
nize a  difference  of  one  click  does  "  not  extend  far  beyond  groups  of  8  or  10 
clicks."* 

The  dependence  of  the  extent  of  the  field  of  consciousness,  whether 
dimly  and  almost  blindly  perceptive  or  clearly  a])perceptive,  ui^on  natural 
and  acquired  characteristics — upon  heredity,  age,  training,  bodily  condition, 
etc. — may  be  experimentally  confirmed.     To  this  end  the  various   "tests" 

"  By  Dietze  and  otherfi.  Sec  Ladd  :  Elements  of  Physiological  Psychology,  p.  494  f.,  and  Philo- 
eoph.  Studien,  ii.,  Ileft  3.  p.  3C2  f. 

•I  Philos(,,)h.  Stiulicn,  iii..  Heft  1,  pp.  94-127. 

=•  By  Dr.  Krohn  :  Journal  of  Xcrvous  and  Mental  Disease,  Murrh,  1S93. 

*  Elinor  Studies  from  the  Psychological  Laboratory  of  Clark  University,  i. 


DIFFERENT   FIFLDS    OF    CONSCIOUSNESS  4] 

for  school-children  and  others,  with  a  view  to  determine  how  many  objectn 
they  can  grasp  together  in  one  mental  activity,  so  as  to  remember  and  de- 
scribe them,  are  of  scientific  as  well  as  practical  value.  Of  value  in  both 
directions,  and  closely  connected  with  the  whole  development  of  mental  life, 
as  memory,  knowledge,  and  will,  is  the  fact  that  growth  of  speed  and  skill 
in  rational  nunital  synthesis  enlarges  the  grasp  of  consciousness.  Thus,  as 
experiment  sliows,  groups  of  letters  are  harder  to  grasp  than  groups  of 
figures  ;  only  half  as  many  disconnected  as  connected  words  can  bo  united 
in  one  field;  only  one-third  as  many  disconnected  letters  as  letters  connected 
in  words.  These  results  are  i)artly  due  to  the  iutiuence  of  habit  ;  but  they 
also  indicate  llie  d&pendence  of  enlarging  perceptive ponei-s  upon  the  Ri/ntliesis  of 
thought.  -  '"* 


The  actual  limitation  of  the  field  of  consciousness,  with  respect  to  extent, 
is  a  source  both  of  mental  strength  and  of  mental  weakness.  That  we  can 
grasj)  together,  and  yet  discriminate  so  many  items  in  one  conscious  state,  is 
an  exhibition  of  mental  strength.  It  is  even  possible  to  conduct  side  by 
side,  as  it  were,  two  quite  distinctly  different  psychical  life-currents,  and  yet 
do  this  in  the  unity  of  one  consciousness.  Many  have  had  an  experience 
like  that  of  David  Copperfleld,  as  he  wandered  through  the  streets  of  Lon- 
don, stupefied  with  grief  and  reflecting  upon  his  grief,  and  yet  all  the  while 
noticing  the  minutest  details  of  the  objects  surrounding  him.  Frederick 
the  Great  is  said  to  have  boasted  of  his  father,  Frederick  William  First,  that 
he  died  observing  himself,  in  death,  as  a  scientific  investigator  observes  a 
natural  phenomenon. 

^  10.  The  Herbartian  school  has  doubtless  thrown  much  light  on  the  for- 
mation of  the  different  fields  of  consciousness  by  its  theories  of  the  grouping 
together,  under  the  "  eye  of  consciousness,"  as  it  were,  of  the  contempo- 
raneous "ideas."  These  ideas  this  school  seems  to  teach,  sometimes  form 
a  field  of  "  flat  surface,"  in  case  none  of  them  attracts  attention  to  itself  in 
higher  degree  than  do  the  others.  But  if  one  or  more  of  the  ideas,  or 
groups  of  ideas,  attract  more  attention  than  the  rest,  the  so-called  field  of 
consciousness  exhibits  inequality  :  hills  and  intervening  valleys,  or  finally,  a 
towering  mountain,  may  occupy  nearly  the  entire  field.  We  object  seriously 
to  the  Herbartian  theory,  in  that  it  seems  to  make  entities  out  of  "ideas," 
to  confuse  the  boundaries  between  consciousness  and  the  unconscious,  and  to 
set  up  untenable  mathematical  formulas  for  the  "  fusion"  and  separation  of 
the  so-called  factors  of  mental  life.  But  the  following  truth  is  illustrated 
by  all  our  study  of  psychology  : 

Every  state  of  consciousness,  in  developed  mental  life,  must  be  regarded  as 
resulting  from  an  immense  number  of  living  factors  that  form  a  sort  of  organic 
unity. 

^  11.  That  different  "  fields  of  consciousness  "  differ  in  amount  of  jisychic 
energy,  in  some  recognizable  way,  is  an  indubitable  fact  of  exi)erience.  Of 
all  of  us  it  is  true,  our  exjierience  in  consciousness  is  more  vivid,  more  in- 
tense, by  far,  at  some  times  than  at  others.  What  is  meant  by  this  is  par- 
ticularly clear  when  we  apply  such  language  to  our  states  of  feeling.  We 
speak  of  pains  as  more  or  less,  and  of  pleasures  as  great,  moderate,  or  small. 
That  sensations  have  quantity,  which  is  indirectly  measurable,  and  how  it 
is  that  "Fechner's  law"  attempts  to  formulate  this  fact,  will  be  explained  in 


42  CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

the  in'oper  place.  Ami  in  spito  of  all  which  Lotze  aud  others  have  urged  to 
the  contrary,  we  tliiuk  the  common  imj^ression,  that  "ideas" — meaning  by 
this  both  memory-images  aud  images  of  the  imagination — diifer  in  vividness 
aud  intensity,  is  scieutiticully  justifiable.  "  Intensity  "  is,  moreover,  a  word 
which  we  find  peculiarly  appropriate  to  describe  a  certain  kind  of  difierence 
recognized  when  we  compare  our  desires  and  states  of  conative,  or  striving, 
consciousuess  with  one  another ;  what  can  be  meant  by  thoughts  differing  in 
intensity  is,  indeed,  more  difficult  to  explain.  But,  jjlainly,  those  convic- 
tions, confidences,  hopes,  fears,  expectations,  etc.,  which  make  so  necessary 
a  part  of  all  our  states  of  judgment,  differ  in  intensity. 

On  the  basis  of  such  experiences  we  form  the  conception  of  conscious- 
ness as  admitting  of  an  indefinite  number  of  degrees  of  energy.  Between 
any  two  states  of  consciousness,  A  and  C,  differing  from  each  other  in  amount 
of  mental  life,  we  can  imagine  that  another,  B,  which  shall  be  more  intense 
than  A,  and  less  intense  than  C,  may  be  interj^olated.  This  jjicture  of  a  con- 
tinuous lino,  measuring  the  amount  of  psychic  energy  displayed  in  any 
given  field  of  consciousness,  has  an  indefinite  further  or  upper  end  ;  this  end 
marks  the  maximum  of  intensity.  How  much  can  I  feel,  without  losing 
consciousness?  How  vivid  can  my  memory-image  or  picture  of  imagination 
become  as  measuring  the  utmost  cajjacity  for  vividness  which  my  conscious 
mental  life  can  display  in  this  way  ?  But  at  the  inferior  or  downward-dip- 
ping end,  the  line  of  consciousness  passes  what  is  called  "  the  threshold  of 
consciousness."  In  other  words,  as  respects  intensity,  the  different  fields 
of  consciousness  differ  by  minute  gradations  all  the  way  from  an  indefinite 
maximum,  which  varies  for  the  individual  and  for  the  nation  and  for  the 
race,  to  that  lowest  degree  which  can  just  be  distinguished  from  "  the  un- 
conscious." 

Is,  then,  the  distinction  between  consciousness  and  "the  unconscious" 
to  be  abolished?  Aud  if  this  tlistinction  be  abolished,  what  becomes  of 
the  very  basis  for  the  knowledge  of  truly  ^wyc/^/cY//  life  ?  The  answer  to  this 
inquiry  reqiiires  a  knowledge  of  developed  mental  experiences,  and  even  in- 
volves no  small  temjitation  to  resort  to  metaphysical  assumption.  But  we 
now  need  to  remember  simply :  it  is  not  as  respects  intensity  alone  that 
conscious  states  differ  from  each  other,  and  that  all  conscious  states  differ 
from  "  the  unconscious ; "  but  only  as  objects  of  discriminating  conscious- 
uess, and  therefore  as  not  of  too  great  or  of  too  little  intensity,  can  different 
fields  of  consciousness  be  compared.  Further  discussion  of  this  toi^ic  must 
be  for  the  present  jiostponed. 

^  12.  The  speerf  of  the  change  or  succession  of  different  fields  of  con- 
sciousness is  dependent  upon  the  time  which  is  required  to  form  the  single, 
.so-called,  fields ;  and  this,  in  turn,  depends  upon  the  character  of  the  field 
formed,  and  especially  upon  the  amount  of  discriminating  activity  in- 
volved. The  same  result  also  depends  upon  inherited  and  acquired  charac- 
teristics— temperament,  habit,  training,  bodily  and  mental  condition,  etc. 
A  certain  amoiuit  of  time  is  required  to  form  any  field  of  cnyiscioiisness,  t<>  "  come 
to  consciousness  "  at  all,  as  we  are  accustomed  to  say.  This  is  true  whether 
the  particular  field  be  described  as  the  having  of  a  .sensation,  tlie  perceiving 
of  an  object,  the  remembering  of  a  word,  recalling  an  associated  image, 
framing  a  thought,  exercising  a  choice,  or  whatever  form  of  activity  be  par- 


TIIK   SPEED    OF    CONSCIOUSNESS  43 

ticiilarly  characteristic  of  the  "lieUl."  There  is  probably  a  certain  uiuonnt 
of  time  which  is,  for  every  iudividual,  most  favorable  for  the  formation  of 
such  a  state  of  consciousness  as  shall  bo  characterized  by  the  greatest 
amount  of  content,  vividness  of  realization,  and  clearness  of  discriminating 
energy.  But  the  more  elaborate  any  field  of  consciousness  is,  the  more  time 
is  required,  within  given  limits  and  other  things  being  equal,  for  its  forma- 
tion. Fields  of  consciousness  characterized  by  discriminating  perception 
("apperception")  require  more  tiuio  for  their  formation  than  those  which 
consist  more  nearly  of  mere  sensation-mass ;  those  characterized  also  by 
choice  require  yet  more  time. 

There  is  certain  evidence  from  experiments  in  reaction-time  to  show  that 
about  three-quarters  of  a  second  is  the  average  time  required  for  the  forma- 
tion of  a  not  too  complex  state  of  fairly  clear  discriminating  perceptive  con- 
sciousness. Years  ago  (1868)  Vierordt  concluded  that  very  small  intervals 
of  time  are  regiilarly  overestimated  and  greater  ones  underestimated.  The 
minimum  of  error  in  our  sense  of  time  he  placed  at  1-1.5  sec.  Subsequent 
more  careful  investigations  led  others  to  conclude  that  our  sensitiveness  to 
time  intervals  is  greatest  for  intervals  of  0.7-0.8  sec.  Yet  more  recent  and 
accurate  researches  have  shown  how  very  complicated  is  even  this  seemingly 
simi)le  problem  ;  but  they  have  on  the  whole  tended  to  confirm  this  interval 
as  about  that  of  the  average  most  accurate  time-sense.  It  may,  then,  be 
taken  as  a  fair  measure  of  the  time  necessary  to  come  to  a  state  of  discrimi- 
nating consciousness,  where  the  problem  before  consciousness,  as  it  were,  is 
an  ordinarily  difficult  one. 

Measuring  in  the  same  way,  it  is  found  that  the  period  occupied  in  the 
development  of  tlie  simpler  forms  of  sensory-motor  consciousness  is  some- 
what shorter  than  that  given  above.  In  general,  simple  reaction-time — that 
is,  the  period  between  the  action  of  some  form  of  sensory  stimulus  upon 
the  organ  of  sense  and  the  motion  of  some  member  of  the  body  to  indicate 
that  the  resulting  state  of  sensation  is  recognized  as  having  taken  place— is 
0.1-0.3  sec.  Many  variations  arise  within  these  limits,  depending  upon  the 
kind  of  sensation,  the  kind  of  motor  reaction,  the  intensity  of  the  stimulus, 
the  fixation  of  attention,  and  various  other  conditions.  For  example,  Gold- 
scheider  found  '  that  temperature  sensations  come  to  consciousness  later  than 
those  of  contact,  that  cold  is  perceived  much  sooner  than  heat,  and  that  the 
difference  increases  with  the  distance  of  the  stimulus  from  the  brain,  until 
it  may  reach  as  much  as  0.5  sec.  With  feebler  degrees  of  stimulation  the 
time  occupied  in  coming  to  consciousness  increases,  while  the  accuracy  of 
perception  decreases  (i.e.,  the  average  errors  and  personal  errors  increase). 
But  if  clear  discernment  of  the  significance  of  the  sensation-complexes  takes 
place — and  this  involves,  of  course,  more  activity  of  so-called  memory  and 
judgment — still  more  time  is  required.  Thus  Baxt  found  that  if  a  disk 
with  letters  on  it  be  displayed  and  then  quickly  followed  by  disjilaying  a 
bright  white  disk,  when  the  interval  between  the  two  is  about  5rr,-  the  first 
disk  is  seen  as  scarcely  a  trace  of  a  weak  glimmer  ;  but  at  9. Go-  interval 
letters  appear  in  the  glimmer,  one  or  two  of  which  can  be  partially  recog- 
nized at  14.4(r  ;  four  letters  can  be  well  recognized  at  33.G(j  ;  and  six  letters, 

'  Rcactionszeiten  d.  Temperatiir-Enii)rin(luiif;en.    Berlin.  Phyaiolog.  Grcsellsch.,  June,  18S7. 
-  Here  and  elsewhere  o-  siguities  thousandths  of  a  second. 


44  CONSCIOUSNESS    AND   SKLF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

at  52.8,r.  On  the  other  hand,  after  much  practice  and  with  attention  fully  on 
the  alert,  sensation,  perception,  and  "apperception"  seem  to  fuse  into  one 
process — an  inluUive  leaj)  nf  discriminating  consciousness — in  which  intelligent 
choice,  even,  may  have  a  part. 

When  reasoning  from  these  experiments  in  reaction-time  to  determine 
the  real  time-rate  of  the  growth  of  states  of  consciousness — the  period  actu- 
ally occupied  in  the  formation  of  the  field  of  consciousness — two  things  must 
be  remembered  :  First,  this  objective  measurement  does  not  exactly  indicate 
the  subjective  growth ;  since  the  precise  amount  of  time  to  be  allotted  to 
the  physiological  processes  between  the  organ  of  sense  and  the  brain,  and 
between  the  brain  and  the  muscular  reaction,  cannot  be  stated ;  nor  do  we 
certainly  know  how  strictly  parallel  in  time  with  the  processes  in  the  brain 
are  the  changes  in  consciousness.  Again,  all  experiments  of  this  kind  are 
necessarily  somewhat  artificial  in  character,  and  so  must  be  received  with 
caution  in  proof  of  principles  of  the  natural  life  of  mind. 

The  time-rate  of  the  life  of  consciousness,  considered  as  involving  the 
succession  of  one  field  of  consciousness  by  another,  is  a  subject  the  discus- 
sion of  which  is  complicated  with  the  development  of  memory,  imagination, 
judgment,  and  indeed  of  the  entire  mental  life.  It  cannot,  therefore,  be 
treated  at  this  stage  in  our  investigation.  Certain  general  truths  relating  to 
this  subject  must,  however,  be  constantly  borne  in  mind  :  (1)  The  speed  in 
development  and  in  succession  belonging  to  different  series  of  psychical 
states  is  different  for  different  classes  of  such  states.  (2)  In  general,  the 
time-rate  of  the  life  of  consciousness  depends  upon  a  vast  and  incalculable 
number  of  factors  ;  yet  it  has  its  maximum  and  its  minimum.  (3)  Different 
persons,  under  different  circumstances,  are  either  "  fast,"  or  "  moderate,"  or 
"  slow,"  in  mental  movement ;  but  no  one  can  be  more  than  about  so  fast, 
or  about  so  slow,  since  the  time -conditions  of  all  mental  life  have  their  lim- 
its fixed  on  both  sides. 

The  three  classes  of  difference  which  distinguish  all  fields  of 
consciousness — Extent,  Intensity,  and  Time-rate — are  related  to 
each  other  in  a  very  interesting  but  puzzling  way.  Analogies 
derived  from  the  physical,  or  even  the  purely  biological  sciences 
respecting  the  dependence  of  one  "  function  "  on  another,  how- 
ever suggestive  of  truth  thej'^  may  be  when  rightly  interpreted, 
arc  likely  to  be  applied  to  psychical  phenomena  in  a  misleading 
way.  In  all  expenditure  of  psychical  energy,  time,  intensity,  and 
number  of  objects  over  which  the  aggregate  of  disposable  energy 
is  distributed,  are,  indeed,  related  so  that  they  may  be  conceived 
of  as  capable  of  statement  in  terms  of  mathematical  formulas. 
No  one  can  feel  or  think  intensely  Avithotit  "  consuming  "  more 
than  a  certain  small  amount  of  time  ;  but  no  one  can  feel  or  think 
intensely  for  more  than  about  so  much  time.  No  one  can  discern 
clearly  any  external  object,  or  analyze  any  of  his  own  mental 
states,  without  employing  time  in  some  proportion  to  the  com- 
plexity of  the  thing  to  be  analyzed  and  the  clearness  of  the 


THE    UANGE   OF   CONSCIOUSNESS  45 

resiiltin^^  aniilysis.  One  can  g-ivo  ifoine  iitteiition  to  several 
objects  in  one  tield  of  consciousness  through  a  given  amount  of 
time  ;  but  no  one  can  g-ive  nearl}'  all  liis  attention  to  more  than 
one  object,  and  this  only  for  a  given  length  of  time.  Further- 
more, if  we  anticipate  the  ordinary  division  of  psychical  states 
between  the  three  so-called  faculties  of  mind — intellect,  feeling, 
will — we  may  go  on  to  say  :  No  one  can  give  himself  up  to 
thought  largely  without  keeping  clear  from  intense  feeling  and 
strenuous  conation  ;  no  one  can  feel  intensely  (whether  the  feel- 
ing be  bodily,  testhetical,  or  religious)  without  refraining,  for 
the  time,  from  minute  analysis,  etc. 

On  the  basis  of  such  experiences  as  the  foregoing  we  might 
proceed  to  formulate  the  relations  of  extent,  intensity,  and  time- 
rate,  as  belonging  to  all  fields  of  consciousness,  in  imitation  of 
the  corresponding  procedure  of  natural  science.  For  example, 
the  intensity  of  the  "fields"  varies  inversely  as  their  time-rate, 
within  given  limits  ;  in  any  field  the  number  of  the  objects  to 
which  the  energy  of  discriminating  consciousness  is  distributed 
varies  inversely  as  the  amount  of  energy  distributed  to  any  one, 
or  more,  of  these  objects,  etc.  Such  statements  would  have  a 
certain  value  ;  they  might  acquire  a  considerable  amount  of  pre- 
cision, especially  as  applied  to  certain  of  the  simpler  psychical 
processes,  through  the  work  of  the  psychological  laboratory. 
They  are  of  great  practical  importance  in  their  bearing  upon  a 
wise  economy  of  our  psychical  energy  and  resources.  But,  after 
all,  when  we  look  away  to  the  larger  fields  of  actual  human  life 
— and  especially  to  those  fields  that  lie  in  the  higher  ranges  of 
such  life — we  see  much  which  cannot  easily  be  brought  under 
such  laboratory  formulas.  Abnormal  or  unusual  mental  states, 
rare  moments  in  the  experience  of  even  men  of  average  ability, 
the  conscious  intuitions  and  divinations  of  men  of  genius  and 
of  artists,  suggest  much  which  refuses  to  be  thus  formulated. 
How  shall  we  measure  that  growth  of  mental  life  which  con- 
sists both  in  deepening  and  in  broadening,  both  in  intenser 
feeling  and  in  higher  analytic  skill,  and  not  less  in  free  and 
rational  choice  ?  How  shall  we  state,  in  terms  of  mere  num- 
ber and  quantity,  the  difference  between  the  "  fields  of  con- 
sciousness "  in  the  life,  on  the  one  hand,  of  Aristotle  and 
Kant,  or  of  Shakespeare  and  Gothe,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
of  the  most  degraded  Bushman,  of  the  hopeless  idiot,  or  of 
"■  Peter  von  Hacklander,"  the  soldier,  who  could  never  remem- 
ber at  one  time  more  than  two  of  the  three  ingredients  of  gun- 
powder? ^ 

•  See  Lazarus  :  Das  Lcbeii  d.  Seele,  ii.,  p.  241  f. 


46  coiTSCiousisrESS  and  self-consciousness 

§  13.  Differences  in  tlie  cliaracter  of  cliflferent  fields  of  consciousness  de- 
pend uijon  the  particular  asjiect,  or  phase,  of  psychical  energy  which  is  em- 
phasized in  each  of  them.  Thus  we  speak  of  ourselves  as  being,  at  one 
time,  in  a  state  of  thought ;  at  another  time,  in  a  state  of  feeling ;  at  still 
another  time,  as  making  a  choice,  or  "  jiutting  forth  "  an  effort  to  move  a 
weight  or  to  remember  a  date.  Such  characterizations  will  be  at  once  rec- 
ognized as  corresponding,  in  a  general  way,  to  the  ordinary  division  of  the 
soul  into  three  faculties  of  cognition,  feeling,  will.  Further  subdivisions 
of  more  specific  character  in  the  fields  of  consciousness  are  based  ujjon  more 
minute  analysis.  Thus  we  s^ieak  of  ourselves  as  "  buried  in"  reverie, 
"  plunged  in  "  abstract  thought,  "  lost  in  "  sweet  or  painful  reminiscences  ; 
while  at  other  times  our  states  are  described  as  states  of  anger,  fright,  joy, 
etc.  Again,  we  express  the  content  of  consciousness  by  speaking  of  our- 
selves as  "swept"  with  storms  of  passionate  desire,  "carried  away"  by  ap- 
petite, "driven  by  "impulse;  or,  yet  again,  we  find  ourselves  raised  to 
"  serene  heights  "  of  religious  contemplation. 

It  will  be  shown  in  due  time  that  all  the  three  so-called  fundamental 
faculties  are  involved  in  every  field  of  consciousness,  that  the  distinction 
between  active  and  passive  consciousness  is  one  only  of  degrees,  and  that 
all  forms  of  intellectual  life  are  necessary  to  every  act  of  knowledge,  whether 
of  things  by  percejDtion  or  of  self  by  self-consciousness.  Meanwhile  the 
following  truth  of  daily  experience  must  be  borne  in  mind  :  Fields  of  con- 
sciousness are  known  actually  to  differ  in  character,  inasmuch  as  discriminating 
consciousness  discerns  different  degrees  of  emphasis  exhibited  at  different  times 
u-ith  respect  to  the  differing  phases  or  aspects  of  the  one  mental  life. 

The  Conditions  of  Consciousness  are  either  physical  or  psy- 
chical. But  in  saying"  this  we  cannot,  without  metaphysical 
theory,  absorb  the  one  set  of  conditions  in  the  other,  or  point 
out  the  real  nature  of  the  relations  existing-  between  the  two  sets 
of  conditions.  Psychology,  as  a  descriptive  and  explanatory 
science,  can  only  examine,  in  a  very  imperfect  way,  this  ques- 
tion :  On  occasion  of  what  phenomenal  antecedents  (whether 
psychical  or  physical)  are  definite  eifects  in  consciousness  known 
to  follow  '? 

The  existence  and  activity  of  the  human  Nervous  System  is 
the  general  physical  condition  of  all  those  mental  states  which 
can  become  data  for  psychological  science.  In  the  threefold  ar- 
rangement of  organs  which  characterizes  this  system — (1)  end- 
organs,  (2)  connecting  nerve-tracts,  (3)  central  org-aus-  it  is  the 
end-organs  of  sense,  and  especially  the  central  organs  of  the 
cerebral  hemispheres,  upon  whoso  activity  the  states  of  con- 
sciousness chiefly  depend.  Moreover,  we  g"et  sure  pi'oof  of  dis- 
criminative consciousness  only  on  condition  that  the  brain  is 
supplied  Avith  properly  aerated  arterial  blood.  To  stop  this 
supply  by  cloture  of  the  great  arteries  extinguishes  all  observ- 


PHYSICAL   CONDITIONS    OF    CONSCIOUSNESS  47 

able  iilionomeiia  of  consciousness ;  psychic  facts  arc  not  known 
to  occur  until  the  arterial  circulation  is  re-established.  Corrup- 
tion of  this  circulation  with  drui^s  or  products  of  diseased  tissue 
alters,  more  or  less  promptly  and  profoundly,  the  character,  ex- 
tent, intensity,  and  time-rate  of  the  fields  of  consciousness.  All 
consciousness  apparently  involves  a  certain  heig'htening'  of  mo- 
lecular activity  in  the  l)rain-ceuters,  and  the  consequent  conver- 
sion of  stored  energy  into  kinetic  energy — the  destruction  of  tis- 
sue by  the  throwing  down  of  molecules  from  a  state  of  highly 
elaborate  combination  with  unstable  equilibrium  to  a  state  of  less 
elaborate  combination  Avith  more  stable  equilibrium.  Thus  there 
seems  reason  to  maintain^  that  the  physical  basis  of  consciousness 
is  to  be  thought  of  as  coming  under  the  general  biological  law  : 
All  actioity  of  tissue  is  conditioned  upon  its  heinr/  decomposed,  and  then 
immediately  regenerated  hy  nourishment.  Intensify  of  co)iscions- 
ness  depends  upon  intensity  of  neural  function  ;  the  latter  depends 
upon  intensity  of  the  loorJc  of  decomposition,  and  is  inversely  as  the 
ease  and  rapidity  with  which  the  inner  work  of  one  nerve-element  is 
transmitted  to  another. 

\  14.  The  science  of  the  phenomena  of  consciousness,  as  such,  is  not 
dependent  upon  our  being  able  to  decide  whether  a  nervous  system,  or  in- 
deed any  material  organism,  is  an  indispensable  condition  of  all  conscious- 
ness. It  is  only,  for  example,  by  remote  and  complicated  jirocesses  of 
inference  that  we  can  (doubtfully  at  best)  determine  whether  the  spinal  cord 
of  a  decapitated  frog — or,  for  that  matter,  an  amceba — is  "  conscious"  or  not. 
And  when  Professor  Huxley  and  others  incline  to  aflBrni  that  even  our  high- 
est human  consciousness  is  but  an  "  epiphenomenon,"  rather  than  an  influ- 
ential fact  in  the  world  of  reality,  they  are,  at  best,  announcing  a  doubtful 
conclusion  in  the  metaphysics  of  physics.  But  whether  psychic  facts,  that 
can  never  be  known  by  any  discriminating  consciousness  as  facts,  occur  or 
not,  the  conditions  and  chai-acter  of  our  self-known  psychic  facts  remain  the 
same.  And  for  scientific  psychology  to  speak  of  the  very  jihenomena,  upon 
immediate  knowledge  of  which  it  must  rely,  as  "  epiphenomena  "  (phenomena 
over  and  above  the  only  real  and  scientifically  knowable  phenomena),  is 
prematurely  to  abandon  the  only  ground  on  which  this  particular  science  has 
legitimate  work  to  accomplish. 

1 15.  The  connection  of  consciousness,  or  of  psychic  facts  as  known, 
with  changes  in  the  circulation  of  blood  in  the  brain,  is  exceedingly  intimate. 
But  the  precise  nature  of  such  changes  is  thus  far  undetermined.  A  recent 
writer,  '■  presents  reasons  for  believing  that  the  physical  condition  of  con- 
sciousness, as  distinguished  from  the  unconsciousness  of  profound  slumber, 
is  due  to  an  excess  of  the  pressure  of  the  arterial  circulation  in  the  brain 
over  the  pressure  of  the  venous  circulation  in  thepm  mater. 

I  See  Herzen  :  Die  physischen  Bedingunpen  d.  Bewiisetseins.  18SC. 

=  Dr.  James  Cappie  :  The  Causation  of  Sleep.  Edinburgh,  1882.  And  Tlie  Intracranial  Circula- 
tion,   Edinburgh,  1890. 

V   >  ■  ^ 


48  CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

Modern  physiological  psychology  emphasizes  the  wonderfully  delicate 
way  in  which  the  whole  nervous  mass  responds  to  the  slightest  phases  of 
change  in  all  forms  of  excitation  with  accompanying  modifications  of  even 
the  lowest  possible  phases  of  conscious  mental  life.  Haller,  for  example, 
noticed  that  the  noise  from  beating  a  drum  increased  the  flow  of  blood  from 
au  open  vein.  Mosso  observed  that  the  approach  of  a  lamj)  toward  a  patient 
whose  brain  was  exposed  increased  the  volume  of  the  brain-substance.  M. 
Payot  claims  to  have  seen  the  passage  of  a  cloud  over  the  sun  increase  the 
respiratory  rhythm  and  pulse-rate  of  a  sleeping  infant.  M.  Fere  found  that 
slight  sensations  of  sound  and  smell  sometimes  aflfect  a  man's  dynamometric 
force.  Schiff  and  Vulj^ian  have  observed  the  pupils  of  the  eyes  dilate  under 
the  influence  of  various  forms  of  excitement.  Experiments  in  reaction-time 
show  tliat  increasing  the  intensity  of  conscious  states  of  sensation  increases 
the  volume  of  the  blood  in  the  forearm  and  hand  with  which  the  agent  is 
reacting. 

Furthermore,  the  intensity  and  duration  of  molecular  activity  and 
the  destruction  of  tissue  in  the  brain  are,  in  some  sort,  a  measure  of  the  in- 
tensity and  duration  of  certain  states  of  consciousness.  Especially  is  this 
obviously  true  of  emotional  states.  Such  states  exhaust  themselves  quickly, 
and  leave  an  exhausted  brain.  Experiments  seem  to  prove  that  those  changes 
of  temperature  of  the  brain-mass  which  may  fairly  be  supposed  to  indicate 
molecular  activity  are  greater  and  more  rapid  in  the  development  of  those 
tiekls  of  consciousness  which  are  characterized  by  strong  emotion.' 

The  psychical  conditions  of  consciousness  are  chiefly  those 
very  forms  of  josychical  life  which  have  already  been  indicated 
as  present  in  all  the  various  states  of  consciousness.  Especially 
important  among-  them  is  the  "  wandering- "  of  discriminating, 
attentive  activity  from  one  object,  factor,  or  phase,  to  another, 
within  the  entire  so-called  field  of  consciousness.  And  if  we 
should  say  that  the  existence  of  a  "  mind  "  is  the  one  precondi- 
tion of  all  human  consciousness  we  should  perhaps  be  not  much 
more  premature  in  our  metaphysics  than  are  those  who  affirm 
that  the  brain  is  such  a  necessary  precondition. 

[.\mong  the  book.s  referred  to  in  the  notes,  Horwicz  (especially  the  sections,  Die 
Hmpfindungen  und  das  Bewnssfcsein,  i.,  Absch.  4;  and  Organik  des  Denkcns,  ii.,  Buch  4), 
Lipp.s  (on  Die  allKcmeinsten  Thatsachen,  Absch.  2),  and  Lazarns  (iii.,  ],  Der  Tact)  are 
most  suggestive  on  the  general  suliject.  See  also  Wundt  :  Physiolog.  P.sychologie  (2d  ed), 
II.,  iv..  cliap.  1.5.  Brentano:  ii.,  chap.  2.  Sully  :  The  Human  Mind,  1.,  p.  7'2  f.  Ochoro- 
witz  (Redingungen  d.  Be\vusstwerden.s,  1874)  gives  a  1)il)liogr;iphy  up  tn  date,  fairly  full. 
Since  then  special  monographs  by  J.  C.  Fischer,  J.  b.  A.  Koch,  Schuster,  Wahle,  and 
others  have  appeared.] 

'  See  Experimental  Researches  on  the  Temperature  of  the  Head.  Proceedings  of  Royal  Soc. 
London,  1878.    And  corap.  Tanzi :  Ceutrl-bl.  fur  Physiologic,  Mai,  1888. 


CHAPTEK  IV. 

THE   SO-CALLED    "MENTAL   FACULTIES" 


\ 


It  is  pr€>siippose(l,  in  the  very  attempt  at  a  science  of  psychol- 
og-y,  that  diliereut  states  or  "  fiekis  "  of  consciousness  can  be 
surely  discriminated  as  respects  their  intensity,  extent,  or  num- 
ber of  discernible  factors  and  objects,  and  characteristic  quality. 
It  folloAvs,  then,  that  a  scientilic  classification  of  these  states  may 
be  based  u])on  their  differences  as  actually  known  in  the  life  of 
consciousness.  In  other  words,  psychic  facts  may  be  compared, 
"  sorted  out,"  and  theoretically  assigned  to  classes,  on  the  basis 
t»f  immediate  observation.  In  the  very  attempt  to  do  this,  how- 
ever, we  become  aware  that  there  is  much  which  is  so  peculiar 
about  these  facts  as  to  modify  our  conception  of  the  meaning"  and 
value  of  our  work  of  classification.  For,  in  the  first  place,  the 
different  factors  and  characteristics,  by  recognition  of  which  we 
classify,  have  no  existence  apart  from  the  individual  states  in 
which  they  are  observed  ;  and  the  states  in  which  the  factors 
and  characteristics  are  discriminated  do  not  exist  apart  from  that 
conscious  mental  life  which  they,  taken  together,  constitute.  In 
the  next  place,  the  very  tokens  hij  which  we  compare  and  classify 
the  states  of  consciousness  do  not  exist,  either  in  reality  or  in 
the  conception  we  are  able  to  frame  of  them,  apart  from  the 
process  of  observation  which  notes  them.  Both  these  points 
have  already,  for  the  present,  been  made  sufficiently  clear. 

These  just-mentioned  truths  of  all  mental  life  are  comi^licated 
with  others  of  which  account  must  be  taken  before  we  can  under- 
stand the  meaning  and  value  of  any  classification  of  mental  fac- 
\\\i\.  All  (iaHsijicdt'ion  of  jyHycMc  facts  as  immediately  l^nown  is 
iii-tiompan'xed  hy  a/)  iuiplied  or  express  assignment  of  ihem  to  the 
same  suhject  of  ilieiii  all.  In  other  words,  I  can,  on  the  basis  of 
immediate  knowledge,  only  classify  my  states  of  consciousness 
as  like  or  unlike  other  states  of  my  own  ;  you  can,  in  the  same 
way,  only  classify  states  of  yoi/r  consciousness  as  like  or  unlike 
other  states  of  your  oio?i,  etc.  Thus  all  my  conceptions  of  mental 
faculty  are,  in  the  last  analysis,  derived  from  experience  with  my 
own  different  modes  of  behavior  as  discriminated  by  my  own 
4 


no  THE    SO-CALLED    "MENTAL    FACULTIES"     . 

self-consciousness.  To  be  sure,  both  3'ou  and  I  endeavor  to 
improve  and  enlarge  our  knowledge  of  mental  faculties  in  gen- 
eral by  appeal  to  the  widest  possible  realm  of  psychic  facts. 
But,  after  all,  this  can  only  be  done  by  a  returning  appeal  to  the 
immediately  recognized  differences  in  our  own  psychical  life. 
By  sensation,  memory,  and  intelligence,  or  by  love,  hope,  and 
fear,  or  by  desire,  striving,  and  choice,  etc.,  we  can  only  under- 
stand, in  others,  the  possession  and  exercise  of  such  so-called 
"  faculties "  as  we  know  ourselves  to  possess  and  exercise.  To 
speak  of  mental  faculties — their  existence,  operations,  laws,  prod- 
ucts, etc.— is,  at  bottom,  a  rather  mythological  way  of  saying  : 
I  know  (by  memory  and  self-consciousness)  that  my  mental  life 
assumes  a  variety  of  recurrent  forms,  more  or  less  like  or  unlike 
to  each  other ;  and  I  know  (by  inference  from  observed  physical 
signs)  that  the  mental  life  of  others  assumes  a  similar  variety  of 
the  same  recurrent  forms. 

A  semi-mythological  way  of  speaking,  similar  to  that  just 
indicated,  is  common  enough  in  all  forms  of  science.  For  man, 
as  a  rational  and  metaphysical  being,  seems  bound  to  explain 
the  world  of  his  immediate  experience  by  referring  it  to  a  world 
of  entities  and  relations  that  can  never  become  objects  of  im- 
mediate experience.  The  modern  physical  sciences  can  never 
succeed  in  freeing  themselves  from  such  metaphysics.  AVe 
have  already  noted  the  fact  that  self-consciousness  assumes  the 
existence  (in  some  meaning  of  the  word  "  existence  ")  of  a  subject 
(a  self)  to  which  all  states  of  consciousness  must  be  referred. 
What  more  natural,  and  even  inevitable,  then,  than  that  the  vari- 
ous princii^al  modes  of  the  behavior  of  this  subject  should  be 
spoken  of  as  its  "  faculties,"  "  capacities,"  "  functions,"  "  pow- 
ers." '  The  language  of  common  life,  in  which  we  always  find 
the  embodiment  of  genuine  psychological  truth,  certainly  indi- 
cates the  permissibility  of  doing  this.  Suppose,  for  example, 
that  my  present  experience  claims  to  represent  my  exjierience 
in  viewing  a  beautiful  landscape  one  year  ago  to-day.  I  might 
express  this  complex  psychic  fact  by  saying  either:  "/distinctly 
remember  that  /saw  Fuji  (or  the  Matterhorn)  at  such  a  time  in 
my  life  ;  "  or,  "  My  ineinory  informs  ine  of  the  fact  that  I  saw, 
etc."  And  in  the  effort  to  emphasize  the  i)urely  scientific  inter- 
est (the  "  objectivity,"  so  to  speak)  which  I  wish  to  give  to  the 
phenomenon  of  my  memory,  as  such,  I  might  even  resort  t(^ 
some  unnatural  form  of  impersonal  expression  like  this  :  "  Psy- 
chic fact  is  now  occiirring  which  is  recognitive  (and  so  a  fact  of 

1  Thiit  even  scholastic  psychology  did  not  mean  by  the  doctrine  of  faculties  to  deny  the  unity  iind 
indivisibility  of  the  principle  of  thought,  see  Ilamiltou  :  Lectures  on  Metaphysics,  xx. 


I 


MEANING    OF   THE   TEllM    "FACULTIES"  01 

conscious  memory)  of  another  psychic  fact  considered  as  ante- 
cedent (fact  of  perception  by  the  senses)."  Now,  if  we  ask  our- 
selves whether  tliese  throe  forms  of  expression  mean  essentially 
the  same  thing-,  we  arc  letl  to  make  the  following  distinctions : 
The  first  two  mean  something-  different  from  the  last,  and  the 
difference  is,  both  for  science  and  for  life,  of  inestimable  impor- 
tance. The  first  two  mean  at  least  thus  much,  thdt  self-conscious 
discrirnlnatioii  lies  at  the  basis  of  all  classijication  and  explanation 
of  the  phenomena  of  co)isciousness.  But  does  the  second  of  the 
three  modes  of  expressing  the  fact  of  recollection  mean  anything 
essentially  different  from  the  first  ?  In  answer  to  this  question 
we  must  say  the  difierence  is  only  a  matter  of  possible  conven- 
ience. The  second  form  lays  more  emphasis  on  the  truth  that 
those  psychic  facts,  which  must  all  be  referred  to  the  same  sub- 
ject, differ  in  kind,  and  may  accordingly  be  assigned  to  certain 
fundamental  or  derivative  classes  ;  but,  in  all  important  respects, 
the  same  truth  is  expressed  in  the  first  two  forms  of  statement. 

By  the  so-called  "  faculties "  of  mind,  therefore,  scientific 
psychology  can,  at  most,  only  mean  to  indicate  the  different  modes 
of  behavior,  or  forms  of  functioning,  which  discriminating  con- 
sciousness assigns  to  the  one  subject  of  all  psychical  states.  In  so 
far  as  this  word  or  other  cognate  terms  (such  as  "  capacity," 
"  power,"  etc.)  can  be  safely  used  in  the  clear  light  of  this  un- 
derstanding, we  need  not  greatly  ol)ject  to  them.  But  they  afford 
no  explanation  of  psychic  facts,  Avhether  in  general  or  in  special ; 
they  are  rather  themselves  the  result  of  imperfect  classification 
and  confused  analysis.  Moreover,  they  lend  little  help  to  im- 
proved classification.  On  the  other  hand,  their  use,  however 
guarded,  is  likely  to  occasion  the  separation  in  theory  of  that 
which  is  indissolubly  and  necessarily  related  in  fact,  the  substi- 
tution of  mere  classification  for  real  explanation,  and  a  gener- 
ally inadequate  and  misleading  account  of  the  development  of 
mental  life.  At  the  same  time,  after  uttering  proper  warnings, 
the  limitations  and  necessities  of  psychological  language  are 
such  that  wo  are  obliged  to  employ  the  terms  assigned  custom- 
arily to  the  so-called  "  faculties." 

^1.  Tho  so-called  "old  psychology"  has  been  accused,  not  altogether 
unjustly,  of  making  an  exaggerated  and  deceptive  use  of  classification  in  the 
construction  of  psychological  science.  Much  of  its  theory  seemed  to  imply 
that  when  we  have  grouped  the  different  ])sycliic  facts  and  have  assigned 
them  to  different  "  faculties,"  we  have  satisfied  the  demands  "  of  science." 
But  what  we  wish  to  know  is  not  simply  under  how  many  and  what  different 
classes  the  phenomena  of  conscioiisness  may  he  arranged,  but  also,  and 
chiefly,  how  to  explain  each  form  of  activity,  as  arising  out  of  other  forms, 


52  THE   SO-CALLED   "MENTAL   FACULTIES" 

and  as  determined  by  the  place  which  all  mental  life  occupies  in  the  natural 
environment  of  that  life.  In  other  words,  we  wish  to  connect  psychic  facts 
with  other  psychic  facts,  and  with  non-mental  or  physical  facts,  under  uni- 
form relations,  so  as  to  discover  the  so-called  "laws  of  mental  life." 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  admitted  that  classification,  even  if  the 
laugnage  emjiloyed  to  designate  its  results  be  somewhat  misleading,  is  the 
necessary  beginning  of  psychological  as  of  every  other  science.  Many  of 
the  classifications  of  the  older  psychologists  are  still  of  great  assistance  in 
the  study  of  mental  life.  Moreover,  it  is  not  by  any  means  wholly  true  that 
the  effort  at  successful  explanation  is  the  mark  of  the  so-called  "  new  psy- 
chology" alone.  Modern  research  is,  however,  distinguished:  (1)  by  more 
careful  experimental  analysis  ;  (2)  by  extending  the  range  of  induction  to 
various  fields  of  neglected  facts ;  (3)  by  requiring  a  larger  compliance  with 
the  principles  of  all  scientific  induction  ;  and,  especially,  (-i)  by  making  con- 
stant use  of  the  conception  of  development. 

§  2.  The  history  of  psychological  science  shows  that  modern  opposition 
to  the  doctrine  of  "faculties"  has  developed  chiefly  along  two  lines.  The 
first  of  these  is  that  followed  by  the  anatomical  and  j)hysiological  explanation 
of  mental  life.  This  opposition,  in  its  extreme  form,  becomes  a  proposal  to 
institute  a  "  psychology  without  a  soul."  On  the  other  hand,  Herbart  and 
the  followers  of  the  Herbartian  movement,  while  admitting  the  existence  of 
the  soul  as  a  reality  and  making  use  of  this  admission  as  an  eocplanatory  prin- 
ciple of  all  mental  phenomena,  reject  the  entire  doctrine  of  faculties.  Her- 
bart himself  did  this  in  the  interests  both  of  a  metaphysical  doctrine  of  the 
soul's  unity  and  also  of  a  scientific  account  of  its  different  functions.  All  the 
functions  of  the  soul  were  reduced  by  him  to  one  simple  type,  namely,  that 
of  "  ideation"  (called  Vorstelhing,  and  standing  for  all  intellectual  operations, 
both  presentative  and  representative),  in  the  most  general  sense  of  this  word. 
The  one  thing  which  the  soul  does  in  response  to  all  forms  of  relation  be- 
tween it  and  other  beings  is  to  put  forth  "  ideas."  Feeling  and  will,  so- 
called,  are,  according  to  Herbart,  secondary  and  derived  activities  of  the 
soul,  resulting,  in  all  cases,  from  the  relations  developed  between  the  ideat- 
ing processes. 

The  searching  analysis  of  the  Herbartian  school,  the  yet  more  searching 
analysis  of  the  sensory-motor  activities  by  exiierimental  psychology,  the 
study  of  psychic  facts  in  the  light  of  the  conception  of  development,  and  the 
general  effort  of  science  to  throw  off  imnecessary  metaphysical  assumptions, 
have  combined  either  to  discredit  or  greatly  to  modify  the  earlier  doctrine 
of  mental  faculties.  In  what  meaning  we  understand  and  shall  use  (if  at 
all)  this  term,  or  any  kindred  term,  has  already  been  sufficiently  explained. 

^  3.  It  is  sometimes  said — and  not  without  a  certain  show  of  reason — that 
just  as  physical  science  has  the  right  to  talk  of  different  classes  of  motor 
facts  as  thoiigh  they  were  due  to  different  real  modes  of  one  force,  so  psy- 
chology has  the  right  to  use  terms  which  imply  that  the  different  psychic 
facts  are  due  to  different  real  modes  of  the  activity  of  one  force,  or  being, 
called  "  the  mind  "  (or  "  soul  ").  But  the  case  of  ])hysieal  science  and  that 
of  psychology,  though  similar  in  some  respects,  are  by  no  means  the  same. 
For  psychology  is  less  helped  than  is  physical  science  by  such  semi-mytho- 
logical language  ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  much  nunc  likely  to  be  misled  or 


PlIINCIPLKS   OF   TnP:iK   CLASSIFICATION  .0:] 

seriously  injured.  Whether  pliysics,  for  example,  discusses  the  relations 
between  electrical  phenomena  and  temperature  i)henomena  in  terms  of  dif- 
ferent "  modes  of  motion,"  or  as  difVercnt  "  forms  of  energy,"  or  even  speaks 
of  the  two  as  though  they  were  manifestations  of  ditl'erent  "  entities,"  it  is 
always  consciously  and  definitely  at  work  upon  one  and  the  same  thing.  As 
science  it  attempts  simply  to  point  out  and  state  in  mathematical  formulas 
the  detiuito  relations  which  exist  between  observed  changes  of  one  sort  and 
observed  changes  of  another  sort.  In  carrying  out  this  attempt  it  is  able  to 
consider  apart,  as  actually  separable  in  their  objective  presentation,  the 
compared  classes  of  facts.  Temperature  changes  it  can  measure  apart  by 
one  set  of  standards  (thermometers,  etc.),  and  electrical  changes,  apart,  by 
another  set  of  standards  (electrometers  of  one  form  or  another).  It  can  also 
compare  both  these  classes  of  facts  with  other  facts  of  change,  by  way  of 
observed  physical  motion,  and  bring  them  all  under  one  princii)le — the  hy- 
l^othesis  of  the  conservation  and  correlation  of  energy.  How  the  funda- 
mental nature  of  psychic  facts  renders  much  of  this  imi)ossible  has  already 
been  repeatedly  exphiined. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  psychology  has  suffered  from  the  improi:)er 
use  of  the  doctrine  of  faculties.  It  vill  be  shown  later  on  that  this  is  still 
esi)ecially  true  of  the  entire  view  taken  of  the  nature  of  hnoxdedge ;  for 
"  knowledge  "  is  almost  uniformly  assigned,  even  by  the  more  modern  writ- 
ers on  psychology,  to  the  jilace  of  one  of  the  three  elementary  and  indivisible 
faculties  of  mind.  Mental  faculties  are — we  are  almost  uniformly  told — 
knowledge,  first,  and  then  feeling  and  will.  But,  in  fact,  knowledge  involves 
a  complex  and  continuous  develoiiment  of  all  the  faculties  ;  it  is  as  truly  a 
matter  of  feeling  and  will  as  of  intellect.  Many  other  examj^les  of  the  same 
misleading  effect  might  be  taken  from  the  history  of  psychology.' 

The  first  impression  when  we  enter  upon  the  general  field  of 
psychic  facts,  for  the  purpose  of  classifying"  them,  is  one  of  be- 
wildering variety.  Certain  main  difierenccs  in  the  characteris- 
tics of  the  difierent  fields  of  our  own  consciousness  are,  indeed, 
easily  made  apparent.  But  of  minor  differences  we  find  so  great 
and  indefinite  a  number  as  to  seem  to  bafile  all  i^reliminary  at- 
tempts at  classification.  Moreover,  in  the  interests  of  scientific 
exactness  we  at  once  ask  ourselves  :  What  principles  of  classifi- 
cation shall  Ave  adopt  ?  To  this  latter  question  the  most  obvious 
answer  is  that  given  by  the  language  of  common  life.  This 
language  sets  forth,  of  course,  the  more  strongly  marked  and 
unmistakable  differences  in  our  different  psychic  facts.  For 
example,  in  the  entire  domain  covered  by  the  different  fields  of 
sense-consciousness  we  find  that  the  established  classifications  de- 
pend upon  the  bodily  organ  whose  activity  mainly  determines 
the  character  of  the  sei:>arable  fields.     Popular  esteem  recognizes 

'  On  the  defects  of  the  ordinary  doctrine  of  Faculties,  see  :  Lotze  :  Microcosmns,  bk.  ii.,  chap.  2. 
Lewes  :  Study  of  Pttycholojxy,  p.  27  f.  Wundt :  Physiolog.  Psychologic,  Einl.  And,  especially  Her- 
bart :  Psychologic,  Einl.    And  Beneke  :  Pragmatische  Fsychologie,  Einl.  and  chap.  i. 


54  THE   SO-CALLED    "MENTAL   FACULTIES" 

live  organs  of  seuse,  aud  iive  corresponding  classes  of  sensa- 
tions, or  classes  of  fields  of  consciousness  mainly  of  a  sensuous 
character.  But  only  a  slight  examination  is  required  to  show,  for 
example,  that  tastes  and  smells  are  blended  in  most  of  our  knowl- 
edge of  substances  taken  into  the  mouth ;  indeed,  a  variety  of 
other  sensations — tactual,  muscular,  of  temperature,  etc. — blend 
with  all  our  so-called  "  taste  "  of  things.  Again,  if  we  try  to  clas- 
sify sensations  of  smell,  we  find  ourselves  speaking  of  the  smell  of 
a  rose,  the  smell  t>/' asaf oetida,  the  smell  o/'this  or  that  substance. 
But  this  is  not,  properly  speaking,  a  classification  directly  of  our 
psychic  states  at  all,  but  only  of  certain  objects  that  are  known  or 
inferred  to  excite  in  us  these  differing  states  of  sensation. 

Indeed,  the  moment  we  reflect  upon  the  principle  which  con- 
trols the  most  obvious  classifications  of  even  our  sense-experi- 
ence, we  begin  to  doubt  whether  we  have  really  been  compaj-ing 
at  all  "  the  fields  of  consciousness,  as  such,"  in  order  to  discover 
their  likenesses  and  their  differences.  The  ground  of  this  doubt 
is  laid  in  the  truth  that  it  is  the  ohjeds  known  by  developed  ex- 
perience through  the  senses,  and  the  organs  known  to  be  instru- 
mental in  acquiring  an  acquaintance  with  these  objects,  which 
are  of  first  practical  interest  to  us.  Our  "  states,  as  such,"  do  not 
concern  us  until  reflective  consciousness  begins.  But  when  we 
do  turn  discriminating-  consciousness  upon  the  fields  of  ex- 
perience, with  the  purpose  of  classifying  its  phenomena,  this 
doubt  immediately  arises,  and  then  continues  to  assume  larger 
and  larger  dimensions.  To  choose  an  example  from  the  fields  of 
consciousness  occasioned  by  irritation  of  the  skin :  by  placing 
my  hand  upon  a  marble  table  I  know  the  object  to  be  smooth, 
cold,  hard,  flat,  etc.  All  this  knowledge  I  may  be  said  to  acquire 
through  "  feeling  "  of  the  table  with  my  hand.  But  blue  is  not 
so  unlike  red,  nor  the  smell  of  the  rose  so  unlike  that  of  asafoet- 
ida,  considered  as  a  phenomenon  of  consciousness,  as  is  the 
smooth  feeling  of  the  table  unlike  its  cold  feeling  ;  neither  is  its 
smooth  feeling  the  same  as,  or  strictly  similar  to,  its  hard  feeling. 
Furthermore,  red  is  undoubtedly  unlike  blue  in  that  it  is  a  differ- 
ent color ;  but  it  is  like  blue  and  unlike  the  feeling  of  cold  in  that 
red  and  blue  are  both  sensations  of  coloi- ;  while  cold  and  heat 
are  alike  in  that  both  are  sensations  of  temperature.  And  yet 
cold  and  heat  are  in  ps)/c7iical  quality  so  uidike  that  there  is  not 
the  slightest  difficulty  in  conceiving  of  a  being  that  should  pass 
its  entire  existence  miserably  cold  without  so  much  as  having 
the  faintest  concejition  of  the  nature  of  the  sensation  of  warmth. 

Our  doubts  and  dilHculties  are  still  further  increased  when 
we  try  to  consider  in  what  respects  our  memory-images  are  like, 


LIKE    AXD    UNLIKE   PSYCHIC   FACTS  55 

in  what  respects  unlike,  the  perceptions  from  wliich  Ave  ure  ac- 
customed to  say  they  are  "  derived ;  "  again,  in  what  respects  our 
so-called  concepts  resemble  and  differ  from  our  memory-ima<^es  ; 
and  yet,  ag-ain,  in  what  respects  thinking  is  unlike  imagining, 
and  imagining  is  unlike  remembering,  and  so  on.  In  the  inter- 
ests of  an  enlarged  study  of  mental  life,  by  the  improved  classi- 
tication  and  explanation  of  all  its  phenomena,  we  may  go  on 
scientitically  to  investigate  such  questions  as  follows :  In  what 
respects  is  dream-life  like  and  unlike  waking  life  ;  the  experi- 
ence of  the  h^'pnotic  subject  or  of  the  insane  like  and  unlike 
that  of  the  normal  and  sound  consciousness ;  the  animal  or  the 
savage  or  the  infant  like  and  unlike  the  adult  and  cultured  man  V 

It  is  by  no  means  with  the  wanton  desire  to  create  confusions, 
for  the  mere  purpose  of  clearing  them  up  subsequently,  that  we 
have  raised  such  inquiries  as  the  foregoing.  Such  confusions 
arise  the  moment  we  ask  a  question  like  the  following:  In 
what  essential  respect  as  phenomena  of  consciousness,  in  what 
purely  internal  qualities,  do  my  sensations  of  blue  and  red 
resemble  each  other  ?  Indeed,  do  we  not  meet  with  the  color- 
blind who  may  have  one  of  these  classes  of  color-sensations 
without  the  slightest  conception  of  the  other  ?  And  if  one  think 
it  easy  to  say  just  how  the  sensation  of  cold  quoad  sensation  is 
worthy  to  be  classed  with  the  sensation  of  a  musical  sound,  one 
only  needs  the  effort  to  describe  this  internal  resemblance  to 
destroy  his  easy-going  contideuce.  To  i^usii  the  matter  to  its 
extreme,  we  may  say,  classification  of  the  psj'chic  facts,  on  the 
basis  of  their  internal  resemblance  to  each  other,  their  strict 
likeness  as  psychic  facts,  seems  to  be  difficult,  if  not  impossible. 
This  truth  is  at  present  admitted  by  all  Avith  respect  to  sensa- 
tions of  smell.  But  is  not  the  case,  we  may  ask,  essentially  the 
same  Avith  all  kinds  of  sensations,  and  indeed  Avith  all  kinds 
of  elementary  psychic  facts  ? 

Three  considerations  sum  up  what  is  necessary  to  be  said 
upon  the  classification  of  mental  phenomena  at  the  present 
l")oint.  First :  what  all  the  sensations  and  more  primary  forms 
of  feeling  and  desire  are  like,  and  what  unlike,  can  only  be 
known  by  a  real  experience  extending  to  each  one  of  them.  To 
the  totally  blind  man  Ave  cannot  describe  Avhat  sensations  of  color 
are  like  by  bidding  him  dwell  upon  sensations  of  sound  ;  and  of 
the  deaf  man  the  reverse  is  true.  The  man  blind  to  the  color  red 
cannot  knoAv  Avhat  red  is  really  like  by  study  of  his  oavti  sensa- 
tions of  blue:  the  tone-deaf  man  cannot  knoAV  Avhat  a  musical 
scale  is  like  by  being  directed  to  consider  his  OAvn  sensations  of 
noise.     We  might  even  say  that  the  man  avIio  has  had  experience 


56  THE   SO-CALLED    "MENTAL   FACULTIES" 

of  the  peculiar  quality  of  the  note  ct}  cannot  know  in  what  respect 
the  "  sharp  "  or  "flat  "  of  this  note  is  like  or  unlike  the  note  a}  it- 
self, except  by  mentally,  at  least,  executing"  the  required  slight 
chang'e  of  pitch  and  marking  the  modification  of  his  own  con- 
sciousness. Confessedly,  no  one,  by  tasting  sweet  alone,  can 
know  the  nature  of  the  sour  or  of  the  bitter  ;  nor,  by  smelling 
camphor,  can  one  tell  how  heliotropes  smell.  The  same  thing 
is  true  of  the  more  elementary  forms  of  feeling.  What  they  are 
like  can  be  known  only  by  their  being  felt. 

^[T^^econd :  We  actually  classify  our  states  of  consciousness  by 
selecting  some  one  or  more  of  their  most  i^romineut  character- 
istics and  roughly  comparing  them  with  other  states  in  which  the 
same  characteristics  have  also  been  prominent.  What  Ave  mean 
by  "  same  characteristics  "  here  is  ordinarily  very  complex.  In 
the  case  of  color-sensations,  for  example,  we  mean  that  certain 
muscular  and  tactual  sensations  connected  with  the  eyeball  are 
associated  with  every  color,  and  that  every  color  is  localized,  as 
a  surface  of  some  object  related  to  other  colored  surfaces,  in  the 
field  of  the  eye.  That  is  to  say,  color-sensations  are  all  alike  in 
the  similarity  of  their  connections  with  other  complex  sensory 
and  motor  and  intellectual  states.  But  in  itself  considered,  if  we 
could  so  consider  it,  each  color-sensation  has  its  own  i^eculiar, 
indescribable  and  incommunicable  quality.  Hence  it  is  that  we 
use,  for  the  classification  of  the  senses,  terms  taken  from  tlie 
symbolism  of  space  relations.  Musical  tones,  again,  are  consid- 
ered as  like  or  unlike,  not  only  because  of  the  likeness  or  unlike- 
ness  of  the  objects  from  which  they  proceed,  or  because  they  are 
all  alike  received  through  the  ear,  biit  also  because  they  can  be 
arranged,  as  near  to  or  remote  from  each  other,  along  a  line 
called  a  scale.  But  this  line  itself  indicates  the  connection 
which  each  tone  has  established  with  muscular  and  tactual  sen- 
sations in  the  effort  to  sing  it  or  to  image  it ;  and  perhaps  also 
with  visual  sensations  in  reading  notes.  Thus  the  symbol  for 
likeness  and  unlikeness  of  colors  is,  as  we  shall  see,  a  triangle 
with  one  side  incomplete.  While  for  tastes  we  appeal  to  con- 
nected and  localized  sensations  of  skin  and  muscle ;  or,  for  both 
tastes  and  smells,  to  the  likeness  or  unlikeness  of  the  objects 
habitually  associated  Avith  them.  Here  again  the  same  thing  is 
true  of  the  elementary  forms  of  feeling.  They  are  classifiable 
only  by  appeal  to  comi)lex  associations. 

But,  third  :  After  recognizing  the  indefinitely  great  variety  of 
unlike  qualities  belonging  to  our  more  elementarj''  sensations  and 
feelings,  Ave  are  prepared  to  notice  that  the  case  of  the  other  so- 
called  "  faculties"  is  markedly  different.    Representative  images. 


KNOWLEDGE,    FEELING,    AND    WILL  .')? 

or  ideas,  dififcr  amonj^  tliomselves  chiefly  as  the  original  seu- 
satious  or  feelinijfs  from  which  they  are  said  to  be  "  derived  ' 
were  different.  Bat  (us  r(pre.sc/Uatlve  images  they  seem  divisible 
into  two  classes  at  most,  viz.,  memory-imag-es  and  images  of 
the  imagination.  This  distinction  may  itself  be  shown  to  be  one 
largely,  if  not  wholly,  of  degnies ;  so  that  it  would  not  be  mean- 
ingless to  say  that  all  representative  images,  as  such,  are  alike. 
But  this  likeness  consists  chiefly  in  the  relation  which  they 
sustain  as  "  copies  "  to  their  so-called  "  originals."  How  many 
kinds  of  will,  properly  speaking,  can  be  recognized  ?  How 
many  kinds  of  thinking,  and  how  many  kinds  of  desire,  as  such  V 
Whether  the  answer  to  these  questions  is  detinitely  certain  or 
not,  every  one  recognizes  at  once  the  truth  that  remembering, 
imagining,  thinking,  desiring,  and  willing  have  not  the  same  be- 
wildering and  unclassifiable  variety,  considered  as  faculty,  which 
sensations  and  feelings  have.  AVe  are  thus  led  to  the  dhtbict'ion 
between  the  great  number  of  qualitatively  tmiike  forms  of  receptivity , 
as  it  were,  and  the  relatively  few  forms  of  orga^ihing  activity  dis- 
played in  all  mental  states.  It  is  imagining,  thinking,  and  volun- 
tary direction  of  attention  which  reduces  all  this  variety  to  unity, 
and  thus  organizes  our  otherwise  disparate  and  unlike  factors 
of  psj'chical  life.  And  this  is  only  saying  in  another  way  that 
psychology  recognizes  these  mental  activities  as  at  the  basis  of 
all  classification,  unifying,  and  organization  of  what  is  otherwise 
discrete. 

Finally,  Ave  may  inquire  as  to  the  meaning  and  value  of  the 
ordinary  threefold  classification  of  so-called  "  mental  faculties." 
There  are  customarily  said  to  Ije  three,  and  only  three,  un- 
derived  and  irreducible  faculties  of  mind  ;  these  are  Knowledge, 
Feeling,  Will.  Is  this — which  is  now  often  called  the  "  ac- 
cepted " — classification  of  mental  faculty  scientifically  justifiable  ? 
In  answer  to  this  question,  it  has  already  been  said  that  "Knowl- 
edge," in  any  proper  sense  of  that  term,  cannot  be  correlated 
with  feeling  and  conation  as  a  like  elementary  and  original  form 
of  mental  life.  Much  the  same  thing  must  be  said  of  Will :  it 
cannot  be  considered  as  an  elementary  and  underived  form  of 
mental  life.  Moreover,  all  question  as  to  the  threefold  division 
of  the  faculties  of  mind  means,  for  descriptive  and  explanatory 
psychological  science,  just  this  and  nothing  more :  Does  that 
subject  to  which  self-consciousness  assigns  the  psychic  states 
actually  exercise  three  elementary  and  underived  forms  of  func- 
tion i  By  "  elementary  "  forms  of  function  we  mean  such  as  can 
be  said  to  belong  to  every  most  simple  psychic  state,  so  far  as 
such  state  can  be  made  the  object  of  discriminating  conscious- 


58  THE   SO-CALLED    "  MEXTAL   FACULTIES" 

noss.  By  "  uuderived  "  forms  of  fuuction  we  mean  sucli  as  can- 
not be  described  or  explained  in  terms  that  have  the  same 
meaning"  when  applied  to  other  forms  of  function.  When  psy- 
(•holoy,ical  science  has  reached  these  elementary  and  underived 
functions,  its  analysis  and  classification  can  go  no  further.  The 
idace  to  cease  attempts  at  classification  has  been  found. 

But  if  the  question  just  raised  be  properly  stated  and  ex- 
plained, it  must  be  answered  in  the  affirmative.  Every  real  psy- 
chic fact  is  complex  to ith  an  irreduclhle  threefold  complexity  ;  it  may 
be  said  to  have  three  "  aspects  "  :  it  is  fad  of  intellection,  fact  of 
feeling,  fact  of  conation.  To  use  popular  languag'e,  which  must 
be  explained  with  care  in  order  not  to  be  deceptive  :  Whenever 
I  know  myself  as  in  any  state  of  consciousness,  I  know  myself  as 
perceiving  or  thinking-  something,  feeling  somehow,  and  doing 
somewhat.  Whenever  I  infer  any  state  of  consciousness  in  an- 
other mind,  I  believe  that  other  to  be  perceiving  or  thinking 
something,  feeling-  somehow,  and  doing  somewhat.  One  of  these 
three  "  aspects"  maybe  emphasized,  as  it  were,  at  the  expense  of 
the  others ;  but  no  one  of  the  three  can  be  destroyed  without 
destroying  the  psychic  fact  itself  as  an  object  of  discriminating 
consciousness. 

Further,  neither  discriminating  self-consciousness  nor  the 
highest  flight  of  imagination  enables  me  to  do  away  with  the 
difference  between  the  three  "aspects"  of  the  one  psychic  fact. 
Each  of  the  three,  as  such,  and  psychically  considered,  is  j^ecul- 
iar  in  quality,  unique,  not  to  be  confused  with  the  others,  or  ex- 
pressed in  terms  of  the  others.  Intellection  cannot  be  described 
in  terms  of  feeling;  neither  can  conation.  To  know  what  feeling 
is,  the  feeling — and,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  peculiar  feeling 
— must  ha  fit.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  conation.  That  com- 
plex states  of  consciousness,  which  are  predominating!}^  states  of 
feeling,  follow  in  dependence  upon  other  complex  states  which 
are  predominatingly  states  of  intellection,  and  that  the  former 
are  in  their  turn  followed  by  states  of  will,  is  matter  of  common 
enough  (experience.  I  learn  that  my  friend  is  dead :  I  feel  sor- 
row, and  desire  to  pay  respect  to  his  memory ;  and  I  resolve  to 
attend  the  funeral.  Or  I  hear  that  a  chamber  concert  of  classical 
music  is  to  be  given  ;  I  have  feelings  of  pleasant  recollection  and 
anticipation  ;  and  I  decide  to  purchase  tickets.  Such  examples 
are  given  to  show  that  knowledge  excites  feeling,  and  feeling  fur- 
nishes motive  to  will.  But,  in  the  same  abstract  way  of  speak- 
ing, it  is  equally  trute  that  will  represses  or  excites  feeling,  and 
feeling  modifies  kjiowledge,  etc. 

The  scheme  of  classification  suggested  b^^  our  discussion  will 


THE    THREE-FOLD   DIVISION  09 

load  us  to  study  all  the  so-called  faculties  as  resulting  from  the  dc- 
velop7)unt  of  mental  life  by  the  comhmation  and  elahoration  of  tlie 
simpler  and  more  elementary  imychical  activities. 

I  4.  The  threefold  division  of  tlie  mental  faculties  was  first  established 
l)y  the  authority  of  Kant.'  It  wus  soon  widely  adopted  in  Germany,  and  has, 
more  lately,  been  prevalent  in  other  lands.  The  scholastic  division  into 
l)o\vors  of  Understanding  and  powers  of  Will  was  for  a  considerable  time 
idmost  universally  adopted  by  English-speaking  psychologists.  With  the 
Scottish  writers  of  the  old-fashioned  realistic  school  the  term  employed  for 
classification  was  "  Intellectual  and  Active  Powers."  This  twofold  division 
was,  in  part,  resi)onsible  for  the  unfortunate  separation  of  psychology 
and  ethics— the  "intellectual  "  powers  being  treated  under  the  former  head, 
while  ethics  treated,  psychologically,  of  the  so-called  "active  powers." 
With  the  abandonment  of  the  twofold  division  by  this  school,  the  triple  di- 
vision of  mental  faculties  became  prevalent  in  Great  Britain.  This  cliango 
in  opinion  was  very  tardily  followed  by  an  enlargement  of  the  sphere  of  psy- 
chology iH'oper  and  a  reduction  of  psychological  ethics  to  its  proper  jilace 
as  the  psychological  study  of  man  considered  as  capable  of  conduct.  Thus 
the  most  modern  treatises  on  psychology  in  English  have  done,  what  all 
German  works  have  for  a  long  time  done,  viz.,  have  examined,  with  a  view 
to  description  and  explanation,  the  phenomena  of  feeling  and  will  as  well 
as  those  of  intellect.  Meantime,  the  modern  biological  way  of  studying 
psychology  has  stimulated  research  into  the  nature  of  feeling  and  conation, 
especially  in  those  vague  and  obscure  regions  which  lie  around  the  very  roots 
of  mental  life. 

It  would  scarcely  be  correct,  however,  to  speak  of  the  triple  division  of 
mental  faculties  as  "universally  accepted."  Indeed,  the  very  emphasis 
which  modern  science  has  laid  upon  the  study  of  feeling  and  conation,  in 
their  more  primitive  forms  of  manifestation,  has  created  a  tendency  in 
certain  quarters  to  return  to  the  twofold  classification  of  mental  faculty. 
Thus  we  are  told  by  one  writer:  "We  recognize  only  two  fundamental 
classes — activity  of  thinking  and  affective  movement."  Both  of  these  are 
then  subdivided  by  this  writer ;  the  former  into  ideation  (both  presentation 
and  representation)  and  iudgment,  the  latter  into  feeling  and  willing.  It  is 
well  known  to  students  of  physiological  psychology  that  some  of  its  advo- 
cates "  endeavor  experimentally  to  show  that  volition  is  nothing  more  than 
intensity  of  sensation.  On  the  other  hand,  Wundt  would  apparently  have 
us  regard  all  mental  life  as  developing  from  the  twofold  root  of  sensation 
and  will.' 

I  5.  Many  of  those  who  officially  adopt  the  threefold  division  of  men- 
tal faculties  proceed,  in  the  interest  of  scientific  explanation,  to  do  away 
with  the  real  and  fundamental  character  of  this  distinction.     Reference  has 

'  Kritik  d.  L'rtheilskraft.  Einl.  And  sec  IlamiUou  :  Lectures  on  Metaphysics,  xi.  and  xx.,  for 
a  history  of  opinion. 

.  '  Miinsterherg,  for  example,  of  whose  views  later  on. 

3  physiolorc.  Psychologie.  In  the  2d  od..  p.  455,  Jjis  words  are:  "Sensation,  feelin<jr.  will,  or 
— <ince  expcrienoo  always  approximates  a  reference  of  feeling  to  will — at  any  rate,  sensation  and 
will,  appear  to  offer  themselves  as  elementary  data,  independent  as  such  of  each  othe:'." 


60  THE   SO-CALLED    "MENTAL   FACHLTIES" 

jilready  been  inaclo  to  the  method  of  Herbiirt  and  his  school.^  The  Avay 
of  the  traditional  English  and  Hcottish  psychology  has  for  some  time 
been  to  distinguish  knowledge,  feeling,  and  will  as  tlie  three  faculties,  and 
then  to  proceed  to  argue  the  "dependence  "  of  will  on  feeling,  and  feeling 
on  knowledge.  This  argument  has  often  been  carried  to  the  absurd  length, 
which  leads  Sully'  to  remark:  "A  twinge  of  toothache  or  of  muscular 
cramp,  is  not  first  apprehended  under  its  qualitative  aspect,  a  twinge,  and 
then  felt  as  pain."  In  opposition  to  the  extreme  view,  another — equally  ex- 
treme perhaps,  but  certainly  not  so  absurd — has  arisen,  which  regards 
(so  Horwicz,  Korner,  and  others)  feeling  as  prior  to  intellect.  But  here 
it  may  at  once  be  pointed  out  that  there  is  no  feeling  in  general,  as 
psychic  fact.  Every  really  existing  feeling  is  an  aspect  of  some  conscious 
mental  life,  is  just  this  peculiar  feeling  and  no  other.  But  how  can  this  be, 
without  at  least  some  low  form  of  discriminating  consciousness  ?  And 
discriminating  consciousness,  quoad  discriminating,  is  the  aspect  of  psychic 
facts  which  we  call  intellection.  If,  then,  there  were  any  i^sychic  fact  of 
• '  pure  "  feeling,  without  even  the  least  admixture  of  discrimination  or  cona- 
tion, by  way  of  attention  in  its  lowest  form,  such  a  psychic  fact  could 
neither  be  known  to  exist  as  state  of  my  consciousness,  nor  inferred  as  state 
of  any  other  particular  consciousness,  nor  imagined  as  state  of  any  possible 
consciousness.  In  other  words,  we  find,  infer,  and  imagine,  all  states  of 
consciousness  as  having  these  three  elementary  and  underived  aspects.  And 
it  is  only  as  either  immediately  found,  or  inferred,  or  imagined,  that  states 
of  consciousness  can  be  classified,  or  made  the  data  for  the  conclusions  of 
scientific  psychology. 

[Besides  the  references  already  made,  the  followini?  works  may  be  consulted  concern- 
ing the  division  of  mental  faculties  and  the  classifications  of  psychology  :  Ballauf  :  Ele- 
munte  d.  Psychologie,  Die  Seelenvermiigen,  Absch.  2.  Brentano  :  Psychologic,  chap.  iv. , 
ix.  Bain:  Senses  and  Intellect,  Introduction.  Hoffding :  Psychology,  iv.  Drobisch  : 
Empirische  Psychologie,  v.,  2.  Mohr  :  Grundlage  d.  Empirisch.  Ps3-chologie,  §  14. 
Cruger  :  Grundriss  d.  Psychologie.  §  1.  This  last-mentioned  writer  expresses  the  ground 
of  the  threefold  division  in  the  following  succinct  way  :  "  Die  psychischen  Erscheinungen 
oder  die  Vorgiinge  in  unserer  Seele  sind  von  dieifacher  Art ;  es  geschieht  erstens  etwas 
in  WIS,  zweitens  iiiit  «zi.s,  drittens  ana  oder  durch  ?<««."] 

'  Dr.  Ward,  after  aflBrming  (Encyc.  Brit.,  art.  Psychology,  p.  39)  tliat  there  is  substantial  agree- 
ment as  to  the  impossibility  of  expressing  the  elementary  facts  of  mind  in  less  than  three  proposi- 
tions—I  feel  somehow,  I  know  something,  I  do  something — proceeds  to  advocate  what  seems  to  be 
a  modification  of  Ilerbartiau  and  traditional  EugUsh  views  as  to  the  uatiu'e  of  feeUng  and  its  depend- 
ence on  knowledge. 

2  The  Uumau  iliud,  i.,  p.  70. 


CHAPTER  V. 

PRIMAPvY  ATTENTION  "^ 

It  lias  been  customary,  until  comparatively  recent  times,  for 
writers  on  psychology  to  speak  of  attention  as  in  some  sort  a 
special  faculty  or  function  of  the  mind.  And  this  usage  has  in- 
deed much  in  our  ordinary  experience  and  languag-e  to  sanc- 
tion it.  For  do  we  not  prize  hig-hly  the  cultivation  of  the  power 
of  voluntarily  concentrating-  our  energies  upon  selected  ends ; 
and  Avhat  disting-uishes  men,  whether  as  respects  native  gifts  or 
acquired  accomplishments,  more  than  their  marked  difierences 
in  the  exercise  of  this  power  ?  Moreover,  all  men  know  perfectly 
Avell  what  is  required  of  them  when  they  are  exhorted  to 
'■  hearken  "  or  to  "  look,"  to  taste  or  smell,  and  try  the  quality  of 
any  substance,  or  to  "  feel"  and  find  out  for  themselves  whether 
the  particular  object  be  smooth  or  rough,  hard  or  soft,  fluid, 
viscous,  or  solid.  The  dititerence  between  merely  seeing  and 
looking,  hearing  and  hearkening,  tasting  or  smelling  or  feeling 
in  a  passive  and  in  an  active  way,  happening  to  remember  and 
trying  to  recall,  thinking  and  letting  our  thoughts  run,  is  con- 
secrated by  much  experience  and  by  many  forms  of  speech. 

Attention,  in  the  meaning  Avitli  which  the  word  is  employed 
to  characterize  certain  conscious  and  purposeful  performances  of 
the  adult,  is  not  improj)erlj'  called  a  special  faculty  or  power  of 
mind.  But,  then,  in  this  case,  attention,  like  all  the  other  cog- 
nate faculties  or  powers  so-called,  is  the  result  of  development. 
That  is  to  say,  it  is  a  progressively  acquired  mental  function,  in- 
volving intellection,  feeling,  conation — all  combined — in  a  pe- 
culiar way.  This  becomes  evident  when  we  consider  analytically 
what  we  mean  by  an  act  of  attention  (an  exercise  of  the  "faculty 
of  attention  ")  in  its  most  highly  complex  form.  We  mean,  of 
course,  a  purposeful  volition,  sufinsed  with  pecul'iav  feelhirjs  of  efiort 
or  strain  and  accompanied  hy  a  changed  condition  of  the  field  of  dis- 
criininatioe  consciousness,  as  respects  intensity,  content,  and  clear- 
ness. To  illustrate :  we  will  suppose  tliat  one  is  "  being  read 
to,"  but  has  ceased  for  the  moment  to  listen  to  what  is  being 
read ;    and  then,  that  one  is  summoned  by  a  question  of  the 


62  PRIMARY   ATTENTION 

reader,  back  from  one's  pleasant  or  sad  wanderings  of  thouglit, 
and  begins  again  to  "  attend  to  "  the  matter  in  hand.  The  ab- 
rupt change  in  the  flow  of  consciousness  which  the  question  im- 
mediately occasions  is  now  followed  by  another  change,  which, 
though  less  abrupt,  is  even  more  wide-reaching,  wonderful,  and 
strongly  marked.  To  characterize  figuratively  the  beginnings  of 
this  change,  we  might  say  :  a  summons  is  issued  to  the  forces  of 
the  soul  to  rally,  to  marshal  themselves,  to  submit  to  discipline, 
to  do  in  a  definite  and  purposeful  way  a  certain  piece  of  work. 
And  now  that  we  are  really  listening  with  hxed  attention,  the 
voice  of  the  reader  is  notably  louder,  even  when  considered  as 
mere  noise.  Moreover,  a  far  larger  number  of  the  words,  as  just 
such  words  and  no  others,  is  now  understood  ;  probably,  also, 
the  content  of  consciousness  becomes  widened  and  the  number  of 
factors  or  objects,  more  or  less  clearly  discriminated  in  the  field 
of  consciousness,  becomes  notably  increased.  A  faint  feeling  of 
effort,  having  its  seat,  as  it  seems,  rather  deeply  within,  may  be 
recognized,  for  we  are  trying  to  attend  not  only  to  the  words,  biit 
to  the  thoughts  of  the  writer  ;  and  this  effort  seems  to  involve 
the  control,  in  some  purposeful  way,  of  the  train  of  representa- 
tive images  awakened  in  the  stream  of  our  own  conscious  life. 
So  often  as  our  thoughts  tend  again  to  wander  from  the  reader's 
words,  we  resolve  anew  that  it  shall  not  be  so  ;  and,  with  a 
somewhat  increased  feeling  of  effort,  it  may  be,  we  bring  our 
thoughts  back  again. 

What  is  the  fuller  meaning  of  the  clianges  effectad  in  the  field 
of  consciousness  by  voluntary  attention,  when  they  are  translated 
into  the  langiiage  of  psychological  science,  can  appear  onlj'  later 
on.  We  now  note  simply  the  fact  that  such  attention  involves 
the  trained  exercise  of  the  developed  functions  of  intellection, 
feeling,  and  will,  in  a  highly  complex  way.  Such  attention  may 
rightly  be  called  a  complex  faculty,  dependent  for  the  character 
it  attains  upon  the  development  of  all  the  three  primary  faculties 
which  miinifest  themselves  in  every  state  of  consciousness. 

The  foregoing  conclusion  suggests  the  truth  of  another  wliich 
is  much  more  difficult  of  analysis.  Xo  break  is  anywhere  appar- 
ent in  the  evolution  of  mental  life,  at  which  we  can  say,  just  here 
the  faculty  of  attention  begins  to  be  exercised. 

While,  then,  the  higher  forms  of  attention  require  the  devel- 
opment of  all  the  faculties,  we  find  in  primary  attention  the 
facts  which  make  possible  the  developed  form  of  attention,  and 
so  the  elaboration  of  all  faculty.  If  we  did  not  attend  in  this  pri- 
mary way  (unthinking,  involuntary  way),  then  the  organization 
and  elaboration  of  mental  life  could  not  take   place  at  all.     We 


AS   UNIVERSAL    AND    ELEMENTAUY  t)M 

treat,  therefore,  of  primary  ;itteiitioii  as  a  most  general  form  uf 
all  mental  life.  For,  thus  understood,  attention  is  the  unceasini;: 
accompaniment  and  indispensable  condition  of  the  development 
of  faculty,  of  the  entire  growth  of  mental  life. 

» 

g  1.  The  neglect  to  recognize  duly  the  universal  and  elementary  charac- 
ter of  attention — of  .so?«e,  and  some  kind  of,  attention — in  every  mental  state, 
in  every  field  of  consciousness,  has  led  many  writers  on  psychology  to  discuss 
the  subject  as  though  it  had  to  do  with  one  faculty  only  (will,  as  intelligent 
choice) ;  or  as  though  it  involved  only  a  late  and  highly  developed  form  of 
psychoses.  Thus  Volkmann,  although  he  advocates  the  "genetic"  method 
and  treats  the  mental  life  as  a  develoi)uient,  does  not  reach  the  discussion 
of  "attention  "  until  p.  201  of  his  second  volume.  On  the  other  hand,  Dr. 
Ward  and  Professor  Sully,  among  English  psychologists,  have  perhaps  most 
clearly  recognized  the  true  psychological  import  of  attention.  The  former 
writer  holds  that  the  "relation  of  presentation  itself"  (the  having  of  any 
"ideas  before  the  mind,"  any  states  of  discriminating  consciousness),  "im- 
plies what,  for  want  of  a  better  word,  may  be  called  attention,  extending  the 
denotation  of  this  term  so  as  to  include  even  what  we  ordinarily  call  inat- 
tention. Attention,  so  used,  will  thus  cover  jDart  of  what  is  meant  by  con- 
sciousness— so  much  of  it,  that  is,  as  answers  to  being  mentally  active,  active 
enough  at  least  to  '  receive  impressions.' "  Thus  we  are  rightly  reminded 
that  "  what  we  ordinarily  call  inattention  "  is  not  total  absence  of  attention, 
but  rather  diminished  amount  of  attention,  or  attention  directed  to  other 
objects  than  the  ones  which  would  seem  projoer  under  the  circumstances  ;  or 
diminished  amount  of  purjjoseful  volition,  with  a  lessening  of  the  accom- 
imnying  effort,  in  attention.  It  is  no  unmeaning  jest  to  say  that  the  idle 
school-boy  is  often  more  attentive  (to  other  objects  in  diverse  fields  of  con- 
sciousness) than  he  would  be  if  he  strictly  attended  (to  his  lessons).  The 
truth  that  inattention  is  still  atte.ntion  is  expressed  in  the  popular  language 
when  we  say  :  Are  you  attending  strictly  to  me,  or  to  it — to  titis  thing,  to  the 
exclusion  of  that?  The  truth  of  the  vague  statement  of  Ward,  that  attention 
thus  covers  "part  of  what  is  meant  by  consciousness,"  has  already  been  in- 
dicated, but  will  ajipear  more  clearly  as  we  discuss  the  relation  of  primary 
attention  to  all  the  factors  and  phases  of  every  field  of  consciousness. 

In  the  effort  to  reduce  the  phenomena  of  attention  to  their  lowest  terms, 
some  writers  have,  on  the  other  hand,  made  their  theory  of  the  sirbject  far  too 
simple  to  satisfy  the  demand  of  our  indubitable  experience.  Tliis  is  true 
of  the  view — already  mentioned — which  attempts  to  identify  attention  with 
conscious  increase  in  the  intensity  of  sensation.  This  view  not  only  results 
in  denying  the  reality  of  so-called  "voluntary  attention,"  but  it  overlooks 
the  complex  relations  which  exist  among  the  factors  of  even  the  lower  forms 
of  mental  life,  considered  as  being,  all  of  them,  recognizable  states  of  an 
active  subject,  or  £^70,  whatever  we  may  mean  by  this  latter  term.' 

'  Another  c!ai?s  of  writers— the  pBycholodsts  of  the  English  empiricist  school,  such  as  Locke, 
Hume,  Hartley,  the  Mills,  and  Spencer— are  justly  complained  of  by  Professor  James  (Psychology, 
I.,  p.  402),  because  they  hardly  notice  "  so  patent  a  fact  as  the  perpetual  presence  of  selective  atten- 
tion "in  all  mental  phenomena.  This  neglect  James  considers  due  to  their  unwillinsrness  to  at- 
tempt a  problem  whose  solution  would  so  obviously  interfere  with  the  "  smoothness  of  their  tale  " 


64  PRIMARY    ATTET^^TIOX 

^  2.  That  voluntary,  purposeful  attention  is  a  development  involving  u 
higher  organization  of  the  same  factors  and  relations  which  are  nascent  in 
primary  attention  ;  that  j^rimary  attention  itself  involves  all  the  primary 
forms  of  mental  function — intellection,  feeling,  conation  ;  and  that  its  very 
essence  consists  in  certain  recognizable  relations  existing  among  these 
primary  forms  of  mental  function  :  these  are  truths  virtually  admitted  by 
the  keenest  wiiters  of  modern  times  on  this  subject.  Thus  one  author  (Es- 
ser)  defines  attention  as  the  power  of  the  spirit  to  ap2:)ly  its  intuiting  activity 
to  an  object  (external  or  internal)  in  a  preferential  or  exclusive  way ;  and  to 
do  this  with  "  the  design  to  win  a  clearer  and  more  significant  cognition  of 
the  object  than  is  customarily  the  case."  Another  (Lipps)  denies  that  the 
distinction  between  voluntary  attention  and  involuntary  attention  is  essen- 
tial or  fundamental.  All  acts  of  attention  are  indeed  acts  of  will,  but  we 
find  nothing  of  an  external  "  being-directed,"  as  it  were,  of  the  attention. 
Yet  primary  attention  is  to  be  understood  as  mental  activity  supporting  and 
enhancing  the  effect  of  stimuli  already  acting  on  the  mind.  Attention  is 
thus  a  word  which  we  might  substitute  ior  jxtychical  energy,  rising  and  falling 
in  response  to  stimuli,  and  so  reacting  to  vary  the  extent  and  clearness  of 
the  field  of  consciousness.  Still  another  psychologist  (Horwicz)  would  use 
the  word  attention  for  all  the  different  activities  of  mind  considered  as  dif- 
ferent in  respect  to  their  degree.  In  general,  then,  attention  is  nothing  but 
that  receptivity  of  the  soul  {subjectii-e  receptivity)  which  is  demanded  for  the 
perception  (the  conscious  recognition)  of  stimuli.  Attention,  says  another 
(Drbal),  is  "the  direction  and  absorption  [Vertiefuvg)  of  consciousness  into 
some  already  existing  or  expected  sensation  or  idea."  While,  finally,  one 
writer  (Dwelshauer)  would  have  us  consider  attention  as  the  exterior  side — 
visible,  in  some  sort,  to  oiirselves — of  that  process  through  which  we  pass 
in  the  clear  and  intelligent  percejition  of  objects. 

§  3.  We  may  make  our  concejition  of  attention  clearer  by  considering 
that  experience  which  is  sometimes  described  as  "coming  to  consciousness." 
What  it  is  to  "come  to  consciousness"  from  total  unconsciousness  cannot, 
of  course,  be  conceived.  To  attempt  this  would  be  like  trying  to  describe 
the  ijassage  from  nothing  to  something  by  a  jiath  which,  from  its  very  nat- 
ure, can  never  be  known.  But  we  frequently  discover  a  process  of  enlarge- 
ment or  diminiition — as  we  say,  with  a  natural  and  suggestive  ai^j^lication  of 
space-terms  to  mental  experience — in  our  mental  life.  Indeed,  it  is  just 
this  phase  of  our  mental  exj^erience  which  has  already  been  described  in 
terms  of  the  difference — as  respects  richness  of  content,  intensity,  clearness 
of  discriminating  activity — of  our  different  fields  of  consciousness.  As  we 
"  come  to  ourselves  "  out  of  drowsiness  or  a  fit  of  abstraction,  we  begin  more 
and  more  to  yield  or  to  enforce  (upon  ourselves)  attention.  That  complex 
change  in  the  relations  between  the  different  factors  and  phases  of  the  men- 
tal states  wliich  marks  this  process  of  coming  to  consciousness  is  evidently 
closely  allied  to  the  increasing  amount  and  changing  distribution  of  atten- 
tion. In  somewhat  the  same  way  we  may  think  of  the  infant  as  "coming 
to  "  more  and  higher  degrees  of  conscious  life,  as  its  powers  of  voluntary  and 
involuntary  attention  are  developed. 

To  illustrate  the  nature  of  primary  attention  as  connected  with  the  rise 
aud  fall  of  psychic  energy,  let  us  take  an  example.     You  sit,  half  diizingand 


PHYSIOLOGICAL   COXDITIONS   OF   ATTENTION  05 

half  (lay-drcaming,  by  an  open  window  in  a  city  street.  You  have  ncaily 
"lost  yourself"  comploteh-.  The  noise  of  the  street — rattling  of  carts, 
sound  of  voices,  tinkle  or  clang  of  car-bells — is  as  a  soft,  irregular  humming 
in  your  ears.  Vague  and  confused  pictures  of  the  outside  world,  inter- 
rupted by  the  frequent  closing  of  the  eyelids,  come  and  go  upon  the  eyes. 
All  detinite  feelings  are  merged  in  the  general  feeling  of  bodily  quiet  and 
comfort.  The  thoughts  and  mental  images  are  wandering  at  tJieir  will.  But 
now  you,  as  slowly  as  it  is  jiossible,  we  will  suppose,  "come  to  yourself" 
again.  Gradnally  the  particular  sounds  arising  in  your  environment  define 
themselves — coming,  going,  returning,  with  now  some  and  now  others  more 
clearly  defined  ;  the  same  thing  happens,  pno'ipass?^  almost,  with  the  par- 
ticular sights.  The  general  feeling  of  bodily  quiet  and  comfort  gives  place 
to  more  clearly  discriminated  sensations  of  malaise,  due  to  the  uncomfort- 
able chair  you  have  occupied.  But,  above  all,  do  you  remember  what  you 
have  been  doing,  where  you  are,  and  what  you  ought  to  be  doing.  Yoiir 
thoughts  clearly  define  themselves,  and  j'ou  resolve  that  they  shall  be  yet 
more  clearly  defined,  shall  be  kept  in  that  condition.  You  have  9/our  will 
over  the  mental  images  which  have  been  having  their  will.  You  are  now 
"  fully  yourself  "  again. 

If,  then,  we  consider  the  description  of  those  changes  which  the  succes- 
sive fields  of  consciousness  go  through  in  the  process  of  coming  to  a  fuller 
consciousness,  we  find  that  it  essentially  corresi^onds  throughout  to  the  de- 
scription already  given,  of  the  changes  produced  by  increasing  exercise  of 
the  power  of  attention.  The  conclusion  is  then  warranted,  in  a  preliminary 
way,  that  primary  attention  is  a  form  of  psiichical  energy  which  necessarily 
enters  into  the  determination  of  the  character  of  every  field  of  consciousness.  lu 
other  words,  primary  attention  is  a  most  general  form  of  all  mental  life. 

The  Physiological  Conditions  of  Attention  are,  in  their  most 
general  form,  essentiall}^  the  same  as  the  physiological  conditions 
of  all  conscious  mental  function.  These  are  the  integrity  of  the 
nervous  substance  ;  the  supply  of  a  sufficient  quantity  of  prop- 
erly aerated  blood  ;  the  molecular  activity  of  the  so-called  "  ps}'- 
chic"  nerve- cells  and  nerve-fibers,  with  the  resulting  couA-ersion 
of  stored  into  kinetic  energy  and  the  fall  of  tissue  from  a  condi- 
tion of  highly  complex  chemical  constitution  and  more  unstable 
ecpiilibiium  to  a  condition  of  less  complex  constitution  and 
more  stable  equilibrium.  This  general  identifying  of  the  physi- 
ological conditions  of  primary  attention  with  those  of  all  con- 
scious mental  life  is  another  argument  for  considering  attention 
as  a  most  general  form  of  that  life.  In  the  same  direction  points 
the  correspondence  between  those  changes  in  the  cliaracter  of 
attention  which  we  observe  in  sleep  and  those  physiological 
changes  which  we  have  reason  to  believe  belong  to  sleep.  Li 
dreams  the  wandering,  unpurposeful  character  of  attention,  and 
the  consequent  low  condition  of  discriminating  intelligence, 
feeling,  and  choice,  are  characteristic  of  the  stream  of  conscious- 
5 


66  PRIxMAEY   ATTENTION 

ness.  And  as  this  lowering-  of  attentive  faculty  increases,  the 
energ-y  displayed  may  dip  below  the  "  threshold  of  conscious- 
ness ; "  in  sleep  we  sink  into  the  unconscious,  and  so  cease  to 
attend  to  aug-lit  in  our  world  of  psychical  activity.  But  the  phys- 
iological changes  which  condition  the  characteristic  changes  in 
the  attention  during-  dreams  are  all  in  the  direction  in  which 
a  still  further  movement  (as  the  so-called  curve  of  sleep  rises 
higher)  brings  us  to  unconscious  and  dreamless  sleej). 

The  more  particular  physiological  conditions  of  attention  are 
the  concentration  of  arterial  circulation,  and  of  the  connected 
molecular  activity  of  the  "psychic"  nerve-cells  and  nerve-fibers, 
within  some  of  the  cerebral  areas,  and  the  relative  withdrawal  of 
such  circulation  and  nerve-activity  from  other  cerebral  areas. 
Tlie}^  consist  also  in  the  concentrated  expenditure  of  nervous 
energ-y  in  certain  forms  of  nervous  processes  to  the  relative  with- 
drawal of  energy  from  other  forms.  In  other  words,  just  as  con- 
scioiis  attention,  in  its  most  primary  form,  appears  as  nfocusuiff 
of  psychical  energy  upon  some  phases,  or  factors,  or  objects,  of 
consciousness,  and  the  relative  withdrawal  of  such  energy  from 
other  phases,  factors,  objects  :  so  do  the  physiological  conditions 
of  all  attention  seem  to  involve  the  focusing  of  physioloyiccd  func- 
tion in  some  of  the  cerebral  areas,  or  forms  of  nerve-energy,  and 
the  withdrawal  of  such  function  from  other  areas  of  the  brain  or 
forms  of  its  energ-y.  Thus  both  that  restriction,  and  that  inten- 
sifying in  a  particular  direction  of  our  conscious  life,  vdiicli  all 
attention  implies,  have  their  correlatives  in  the  particular  phj^sio- 
logical  conditions  of  attention.' 

Increase  in  the  intensity  of  attention  (the  amount  of  "  paying 
attention,"  so-called)  has  for  its  plwsiological  condition  the 
increased  expenditure  of  nerve-energy.  While  this  is  emphati- 
cally true  of  voluntary  attention  when  directed  with  continuous 
effort  upon  difficult  and  disagreeable  tasks  and  objects,  it  is  also 
true  of  all  attention,  even  the  most  primary.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  distribution  of  discriminating  attention  over  a  larger  num- 
ber of  objects,  for  purposes  of  comparison,  has  its  physiological 
conditions  in  the  spreading  of  physiological  function  from  some 
so-called  "  center  "  of  the  brain  to  another — thus  involving-,  in  a 
milder  way,  a  larger  amount  of  the  connected  areas  of  tlie  brain. 

Another  condition  of  attention  is  to  be  found  in  the  connec- 
tion between  this  form  of  psychical  activity  and  the  activity  of 
the  striated  muscular  system.  This  connection  has  led  one  en- 
thusiastic writer ''  to  affirm  that  "  all  study  of  psychology  ought 

"  Comp.  Dr.  Cappie  :  Physiology  of  Attention,  etc.,  reprinted  from  Brain,  xxxiv. 
"See  Dwelshauer:  Psychologie  de  rApperceptiou,  p.  112,  where  this  dictum  is  quoted  with 
approval. 


AIJXOHMAL    CONDITIONS    OF    ATTENTION  67 

to  bes"in  with  muscular  pliysiolog-y."  From  the  point  of  view 
of  conscious  expuricncc,  we  tiud  that  we  cannot  voluntarily  attend 
without  feeling-  that  wo  are  accompl'isking  souiethhuf  by  our  atten- 
tion. The  feeling  of  holding-  our  organs  steady  seems  to  form 
no  unimportant  part  of  the  support  which  the  mind  receives  in 
its  cflbrt  to  give  fixed  attention.  Now,  it  is  by  fixation  of  atten- 
tion that  the  striated  muscle  connected  with  the  organs  both  of 
sense  and  of  motion  is  put  into  this  condition  of  physiological 
tension.  It  is  the  return  feeling  of  this  tension  which  dehncs 
still  further  the  character,  and  serves  as  the  continuous  support, 
of  our  act  of  attention.  All  this  involves  the  connection  of  the 
striated  muscles  with  the  cerebral  organs  and  with  that  modifi- 
cation of  consciousness  which  we  call  "  attention." 

\  4.  The  effect  of  impau-ed  integrity  of  the  nerve-centers,  or  of  abnormal 
conditions  of  blood-supply,  upon  attention  is  apjiarent  in  many  cases  of  men- 
tal alienation  as  well  as  in  certain  experiences  common  to  all.  Among  the 
former  are  those  diseased  conditions  where  some  particular  field  of  con- 
sciousness becomes  relatively  stable  or  lixcd  to  an  abnormal  degree.  One 
idea,  one  feeling,  one  fancy — as  we,  with  an  excusable  exaggeration,  declare 
— becomes  almost  the  sole  object  of  attention  by  the  mind.  This  abnormal 
condition  has  been  called  "hypertrophy  of  attention."  In  other  cases  the 
abnormal  condition  consists  in  a  large  or  almost  complete  impotency  to 
attend  fixedly  to  anything.  Here,  if  the  general  psychic  energy  of  the  sub- 
ject is  great,  "  the  current  of  ideas  is  so  rapid  and  exuberant,  that  the  mind 
becomes  a  prey  to  unbridled  automatism."  '  But  if  there  is  comjiaratively 
a  low  degree  of  psychic  energy,  the  current  of  ideas  may  not  be  rapid  and  ex- 
uberant, but  the  sufferer  is  still  unable  to  control  the  mental  train.  It  exists 
and  attends  to  itself /o?"  liim ;  he  cannot  attend  to  it,  or  to  any  j^articular 
part  of  it. 

The  action  of  disease,  fatigue,  drugs,  social  environment,  and  climatic 
changes,  to  excite  or  depress  the  attentive,  discriminating  consciousness — 
and  this  in  ways  resembling  those  with  which  the  maniac  and  the  idiot  are 
afflicted — is  too  well  known  to  need  further  elucidation. 

It  may  also  be  noted,  in  this  connection,  that  animals  who  have  lost 
important  parts  of  the  substance  of  the  brain,  or  have  this  substance  other- 
wise impaired,  show  the  effects  in  changes  of  the  power  of  attention.  The 
"soul-blindness"  and  "soul-deafness"  exhibited  by  the  dog  that  has  had 
comparatively  small  areas  of  his  cerebral  substance  extirpated  is  partly  due 
to  loss  of  power  to  attend  ;  -  and  so  is  the  large  impairment  of  memory  and 
intelligence  which  the  removal  of  considerable  portions  of  the  brain  pro- 
duces. Nothing  is  more  distinctive  of  idiocy,  or  of  that  "loss  of  mind  "  in 
which  general  paralysis  culminates,  than  the  connected  impotency  of  atten- 
tion. 

?  5.  Attention  implies  work  being  done  in  the  brain  ;  it  is  itself  the  indis- 
pensable  prerequisite    and    accompaniment  of  all  mental  work.     This  the 

'  See  on  this  subject,  Ribot  :   Psychology  of  Attention,  p.  78  f. 
'■^  See  the  author's  Elements  of  Phyeiolojjical  Psychology,  p.  269  f. 


~^/-IFORN\^ 


68  PRIMARY   ATTENTION 

physiology  of  nervous  function  makes  apparent.  The  waste  of  brain-tissue 
has  been  found  by  Byasson  and  others  to  correspond,  at  least  in  a  general 
way,  to  the  amount  of  work  accomplished  with  stress  of  attention.  For  this 
reason  the  physician  bids  his  patient,  whose  brain  is  "tired"  or  "worn 
out,"  cease  to  attend  to  business,  not  to  try  to  think,  not  to  mind  his  pain- 
ful emotions  and  feelings,  etc. 

The  same  truth  is  abundantly  proved  by  the  established  relations  be- 
tween attention  and  reaction-time.  Insufficient,  irregular,  and  too  prolonged 
attention,  all  lengthen  reaction-time  ;  active,  steady  attention,  not  -pvo- 
longed  so  as  to  produce  inattention  through  weariness,  shortens  reaction-time. 
If  the  reacting  agent  is  taken  "  off  guard,"  as  it  were — that  is,  uuattentive — 
he  reacts  much  more  slowly  and  inaccurately.  But  in  all  activity  of  the 
brain,  time  and  amount  of  work  done  are  related  in  an  intimate  way.  Ex- 
pectation and  attention  already  focused  result  in  getting  i^art  of  the  work 
necessary  for  clear  recognition  of  an  object  accomplished  before  the  object 
appears  ;  but  if  attention  has  been  overstrained,  through  too  long  expecta- 
tion, the  work  is  lost,  and  the  brain  is  left  out  of  condition  for  more  work. 
Thus  Wundt  found  that  when  one  is  warned  by  a  signal  to  exjiect,  after 
a  convenient  interval,  the  sound  made  by  a  falling  ball,  the  time  necessary 
to  discern  this  sound  (as  compared  with  the  time  necessary  without  any  sig- 
nal) is  reduced  from  2.53  o-  to  76  o-  when  the  ball  falls  25  ctm.,  and  from 
266  a  to  175  a  when  the  ball  falls  5  ctm.  Another  experimenter  (Beaunis) 
found  tliat  reaction  to  the  latter  of  two  visual  imioressions,  where  the  former 
serves  as  a  signal,  varies  in  time  according  to  the  interval  between  the  two 
impressions.  Thus,  as  the  time  of  expectation  increased  from  300  a-  to  500  a 
or  600  cr,  the  time  of  reaction  increased  from  155  o-  to  205  a  ;  but  as  the  time 
of  expectation  increased  above  600  a-  up  to  ■1,000  a,  the  time  of  reaction  di- 
minished to  143  o". 

More  recent  researches,  while  they  have  modified  these  figures  and 
shown  the  great  variety  of  influences  connected  with  variations  in  attention, 
have  confirmed  the  general  principle. 

In  prolonged  and  concentrated  voluntary  attention,  directed  to  the  clear  dis- 
crimination of  objects,  a  large  amount  of  loork  is  being  done  in  the  cerebral 
hemis^pheres.  The  subject  who  is  reacting  under  these  conditions  often, 
though  sitting  quiet,  sweats  profusely.  The  results  of  such  attention  in  ex- 
haustion, both  of  brain  and  of  end-organs  of  sense  and  motion,  is  too  well 
known  to  need  more  than  a  mention  here.  But  it  is  in  such  states  that  the 
entire  field  of  consciousness  is  heightened,  as  it  were.  Psychic  energy  in  all 
the  directions  of  intellection,  feelings  of  strain  and  effort,  and  active  cona- 
tion, is  then  at  a  maximum.  This  maximum  of  psychic  energy,  with  its 
characteristic  increase  of  attention,  is  conditioned  upon  a  maximum  of  worlc 
being  done  within  the  psychical  basis  of  our  mental  life.  Such  expenditure 
demands  the  repair  which  deep,  and  if  possible,  unconscious  sleep  alone  can 
bring  ;  in  such  sleep  there  is  no  attention  and  nothing  to  attend  to. 

I  6.  The  connection  of  attention  with  tlic  condition  of  the  muscular  sys- 
tem is  illustrated  by  the  more  obvious  physical  clianges  whicli  accompany 
attention.  Among  these  none  are  more  prominent  than  the  changes  in  res- 
piration. The  character  and  time-rate  of  our  breathing  vary  with  the  rise 
and  fall  and  changing  focus  of  attention.     Sighing,  for  example,  is  a  modi- 


ITS   VARIATIONS   AND    DISTRIBUTION  69 

fication  of  respiration  common  to  attention  and  to  physical  or  moral  pain. 
In  heiglitenecl  attention  we  bold  the  breath ;  and  after  prolonged  attention, 
as  in  case  of  inattention,  one  is  likely  to  yawn.  Unceasing  vaso-motor 
changes  accompany  changes  in  consciousness  as  affected  through  attention. 
When  attention  is  highly  concentrated,  the  heart  may  almost  stoji  beating. 
Eibot,  in  treating  of  this  subject,  has  pertinently  referred  to  what  Male- 
branche  says  of  the  effect  wrought  upon  him  by  his  first  wrai^t  attention  to 
Descartes'  treatise  De  Vllomme.  It  "caused  such  a  violent  beating  of  the 
heart  that  from  hour  to  ho^ir  lie  was  compelled  to  lay  the  book  aside,  and 
break  oif  its  perusal,  in  order  to  breathe  freely." 

In  view  of  such  considerations  as  the  foregoing,  the  claim  has  been  made 
that  every  volition,  whether  impulsive  or  inhibitory,  whether  voluntary  or 
involuntary,  ''acts  only  upon  muscles  and  through  muscles."^  The  truthful- 
ness of  this  statement  depends  upon  how  we  understand  it.  If  it  be  pressed 
so  as  to  mean  that  attention  is  only  the  psychical  equivalent  of  muscular 
strain,  the  passive  resultant  of  the  sensations  which  vary  in  intensity  as 
the  action  of  the  muscle  rises  and  falls,  the  statement  may  well  be  denied. 
But  if  it  means  that  in  every  act  or  state  of  attention,  of  whatever  kind 
and  in  whatever  degree,  motor  elements  connected  with  the  changes  in  the 
muscular  fiber  play  an  imjiortant  part,  then  there  is  little  doubt  of  its 
truthfulness. 

The  consicleratious  already  aclYanced  are  closely  connected 
with  two  important  topics  :  these  are  the  Variations  of  Attention 
and  the  Distribution  of  Attention.  Ordinar}'^  observation  shows 
that  we  do  not  easily  and  naturally  attend  to  any  object  in  the  field 
of  consciousness,  or  to  any  phase  of  our  own  mental  life,  with 
a  long-continued  and  perfectly  uniform  strain  of  attention.  In- 
deed, we  cannot,  bj"  the  highest  and  most  strenuous  exercise  of 
will,  bring  about  such  an  activity  of  attention.  Just  as  the  en- 
tire gross  amount  of  our  psychic  energy  may  be  said  constantly 
to  be  rising  or  falling,  so  the  amount  of  this  energy  bestowed 
upon  any  one  element  or  group  of  elements  or  objects  imder- 
goes  processes  of  diminution  and  increase.  This  varicihle  char- 
acter marks  all  kinds  and  degrees  of  attention — slight  attention 
and  strict  attention,  forced  or  sioontaneous,  voluntar}'  or  invol- 
untary attention,  and  attention  focused  upon  objects  of  percep- 
tion as  well  as  upon  states  of  our  own  feeling  or  ideation. 
Neither  the  attention  "  wrung "  from  us  by  the  toothache  nor 
that  "  solicited  "  by  our  interest  in  the  object  we  are  viewing 
under  the  microscope  escapes  this  movement.  For  certain 
small  fractions  of  a  minute  we  almost  or  quite  forget  the  torture  -. 
and  we  not  infrequently  have  to  call  back  our  wandering  mind 
and  renew  attention  to  some  particular  part  of  the  microscopic 
field.     In  all  voluntary  and  highly  attentive  perception  the  same 

'  Ribot :  Psychology  of  Attention,  p.  51. 


70  PRIMARY   ATTENTION 

thing-  is  to  be  noted.  Errors  in  astronomical  observations,  for  ex- 
ample, are  caused  by  oscillations  of  attention,  which  even  the 
trained  observer  cannot  wholly  prevent.  When  we  confess  to 
the  weakness  of  being  unable  long  to  follow  any  line  of  thought, 
we  are  confessing,  at  worst,  only  to  a  somewhat  greater  degree 
of  that  weakness  which  all  mental  life  inevitably  feels.  It  has 
been  experimentally  shown/  indeed,  that  attention  cannot  be  so 
steadily  held  to  its  work  of  perception  as  to  feel  the  changes 
produced  by  regularly  increasing  or  diminishing  pressure  upon 
the  tips  of  the  fingers  as  a  perfectly  continuous  augmentation  or 
decrease. 

Closely  connected  with  the  rise  and  fall  of  psychic  energy  in 
all  attention  is  the  distribution  of  attention.  In  all  degrees  and 
kinds  of  attention  there  is  more  "given"  to  some  objects  or 
phases  of  the  field  of  consciousness,  and  less  to  other  objects  or 
phases  of  the  same  field.  At  any  given  instant  in  the  mental 
life,  and  with  respect  to  every  jjarticular  complex  mental  state, 
we  may  say  that  attention  is  "withdrawn  "  from  some  things  and 
"  concentrated "  upon  others.  If  the  so-called  withdrawal  is 
complete,  then  the  objects  from  which  the  attention  is  with- 
drawn droj)  out  of  the  complex  mental  state.  To  sink  "  below 
the  threshold  "  of  consciousness,  and  no  longer  to  "  g-et  any  at- 
tention "  whatever,  amounts  to  one  and  the  same  thing :  so 
intimately  connected  is  primary  attention  with  all  states  of  con- 
sciousness. On  the  other  hand,  an  absolutely  complete  concen- 
tration or  absorption  of  attention  in  any  one  thing  is  equivalent 
to  the  cessation  of  discriminating  consciousness.  Besides  those 
objects  in  the  field  of  consciousness  on  which  attention  is  con- 
centrated, others  must  be  said  to  have  at  least  a  minimum  of 
vagrant  and  vague  attention  attracted  to  them.  Moreover,  as 
the  stream  of  conscious  life  flows  on,  attention  constantly  be- 
comes redistributed.  This  follows  necessarily  from  the  almost 
ceaseless  changes  which  go  on  in  the  entire  amount  of  psychic 
energy  to  be  distributed,  and  also  from  the  augmentation  and 
decrease  of  the  particular  amounts  of  such  energy  belonging-  to 
the  difierent  factors  and  objects  of  every  part  of  the  stream. 
Distribution  of  attention  is  ceaseless  redistribution,  and  redis- 
tribution of  attention  is  equivalent  to  the  "  refocusiug "  of 
attention. 

While  all  kinds  and  degrees  of  attention  and  all  states  of 
consciousness  considered  as  dependent  upon  the  presence  of  at- 
tion  conform  to  these  general  principles,  a  marked  difference 

'  By  President  G.  Stanley  Hall  and  Dr.  Motora.  Comp.  Am.  Journal  of  Psychology,  1SS7. 
No.  1. 


ITS    VARYING   DEGREES  71 

exists  between  voluntary  and  involuntary  attention,  as  respects 
both  tliG  variable  amount  of  attention  and  its  distribution.  Tliis 
undoubted  difference  in  our  conscious  experience  is  expressed 
and  consecrated  by  all  the  lang-uage  customarily  employed. 
An  act  of  Avill  lixating-  the  attention  "witli  a  detinite  i:)urposo  in 
view,  within  limits  which  vary  for  different  individuals,  circum- 
stances, and  kinds  of  conscious  states,  influences  both  the 
rhythm  and  the  distribution  of  attention.  This  fact  may  be  stated 
in  a  popular  way  by  saying":  I  can  "fix"  my  attention  on  this 
thing-,  can  "  check  "  or  "  inhibit  "  it  from  dropping  off",  at  least  a 
little  longer  than  it  otherwise  would ;  or  I  can  "  decide "  that 
this  thing  rather  than  that  shall  have  the  larger  share  of  my  at- 
tention, at  this  time — (/'/  icilJ.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  I  know 
that  the  vacillation  of  attention  is,  outside  these  very  narrow 
limits,  quite  beyond  my  control  ;  and  that  very  many  of  my  ex- 
periences solicit,  demand,  require,  the  larger  share  of  my  atten- 
tion, Avhether  I  will  it  so  or  not.  Such  distinctions  contirm  our 
preliminary  view,  that,  wliereas  voluntary  attention  is  of  the  nature 
of  a  dei^eloped  and  trained  faculty ,  primary  attention  is  a  uccessa7'y 
acco7npaniinent  of  every  truly  2ysy  chic  fact. 

§  7.  The  variations  of  attention  have  been  the  subject  of  mnch  experi- 
mental investigation  as  well  as  speculative  discussion.  The  attempt  has 
been  made  to  establish,  experimentally,  a  definite  periodic  variation  or  rhythm 
for  the  different  forms  of  sensation  ;  but  the  investigations  have  thus  far 
resulted  in  increased  doubt  and  discussion  over  various  important  points. 
Among  these  are  the  following  :  Is  there  a  special  organ  or  part  of  the  brain 
concerned  in  "  ajij^erception  "  (or  clearly  recognitive  perception)?  Is  a  so- 
called  "  act  of  will"  anything  more  than  a  "peculiar  complex"  or  "  definite 
grouping"  of  sensations?  Has  the  "feeling  of  effort,"  periodically  evoked 
ill  connection  with  the  varying  degrees  of  attention,  a  central  {i.e.,  within 
the  brain)  or  a  peripheral  {i.e.,  in  the  contracting  and  relaxing  muscle- 
fiber)  origui? 

The  rise  and  /kU  of  attention  in  connection  with  the  varying  intensity  of 
sensation,  or  varying  extension  of  objects  in  the  field  of  conscioiisuess,  may 
be  illustrated  by  many  forms  of  experiment.  When  we  are  attending  to  any 
sensation  which  is  periodically  reiieated,  and  very  weak  (or  near  the  "  thresh- 
old of  consciousness  "),  fluctuations  in  the  intensity  of  the  sensation  con- 
stantly occur.  Indeed,  an  objectively  constant  weak  stimulus  may  be  so 
gauged  (for  example,  by  holding  a  ticking  watch  at  the  right  distance  from 
the  ear)  as  to  come  and  go  in  consciousness  (that  is,  at  a  certain  distance,  no 
matter  how  steadily  we  try  to  attend,  some  ticks  of  the  watch  will  not  be 
heard).  Helmholtz  showed  that  a  black  radius  on  a  white  disk  can  be  made 
to  lengthen  and  shorten  alternately  by  fixating  it  with  a  steady  attempt  at 
uniform  attention.  A  revolving  gray  disk,  looked  at  in  this  way,  undergoes 
rhythmical  changes  in  its  apparent  brightness.  These  vacillations,  as  we 
have  already  said,  were  thought  to  have  a  different  period  for  the  different 


72  PRIMARY   ATTENTION 

sensations.  Tims  Lange  '  gave  the  period,  from  one  optical  maximum  of  sen- 
sation to  the  next,  at  3  to  8.4  sec. ;  but  the  corresponding  period  for  acoustic 
sensations  at  not  less  than  3.5  to  4.0  sec.  He  also  considered  that  the  two 
periods  could  not  be  made  to  corresjjond  exactly.  The  periods  of  oscillation 
for  meuiory-iniages  he  fixed  as  follows:  for  acoustic  sensations,  3.7  to  2.8 
sec.  ;  for  oi)tic,  3.1  to  2.6  sec.  ;  for  electrical  touch,  2.1  sec. 

Ebbiughaus,  while  experimenting  to  determine  the  laws  of  the  simplest 
and  most  nearly  primary  forms  of  memory,  came  upon  a  similar  remarkable 
rhythm  in  attention.  He  experimented  to  determine  how  many  *'  non-sense 
syllables  "  could  be  learned  and  remembered,  in  series,  under  different  con- 
ditions of  learning  and  remembering.  But  he  discovered  that  both  learning 
and  remembering  seemed  to  show  a  kind  of  ])eriodic  oscillation  of  the  mental 
susceptibility  to  attend,  in  which  the  increasing  fatigue  "  varied  about  a 
gradually  shifting  middle  position."  Thus,  in  eighty-four  experiments  with 
six  sixteen-syllable  series,  the  mean  time  required  for  learning  was  as  fol- 
lows :  for  the  first,  191  sec.  ;  for  the  second,  224  sec.  ;  for  the  third,  206 
sec.  ;  for  the  fourth,  218  sec. ;  for  the  fifth,  210  sec.  ;  for  the  sixth,  213  sec. 

§8.  The  determination  of  the  rhythm  of  attention,  experimentally,  is 
closely  connected  Avith  the  experimental  study  of  the  dislribution  of  altea- 
tlon.  In  the  periodic  swing  of  attentive  apperception,  where  the  objects  are 
at  all  complex,  what  happens  between  two  maxima  of  attention  is  not  a  total 
loss  of  consciousness  ;  it  is  not  merely  a  diminution  of  the  gross  amount,  as 
it  were,  of  j^sychic  energy.  It  is  also— and  frequently  it  is  rather — a  tem- 
porary wandering  of  the  attention  to  some  other  object  or  factor  in  the  field 
of  consciousness.  When,  for  example,  the  ticks  of  the  watch  drop  out  of 
consciousness,  I  cannot  listen  to  them  with  a  steady  strain  of  attention,  for 
my  attention  is  "  wandering"  to  some  other  sound  or  to  some  different  kind  of 
sensation  in  the  total  field  of  consciousness.  The  way  in  which  the  liypnoti.c 
subject  passes  into  the  hypnotic  condition,  by  means  of  fixation  of  attention, 
is  worthy  of  study  at  this  point.  The  relief  from  the  steady  strain  of  atten- 
tion to  the  bright  light  at  which  he  is  gazing  may  come  either  by  wandering 
of  mind  to  something  else — other  object  fixated  for  a  moment,  or  idea  aris- 
ing in  the  mind — or  by  sinking  into  unconsciousness  through  somnolence 
followed  by  deep  sleep. 

Experiments  abundantly  confirm,  what  common  experience  suggests  : 
namely,  the  arising  of  any  new  factor  or  object  in  the  field  of  consciousness  takes 
place  onhj  in  connection  with  the  redistribution  of  attention.  The  phenomena 
of  "  distracted"  attention  are  in  point  here.  In  fact,  distraction  of  attention, 
if  the  aggregate  of  psychic  energy  be  not  increased,  necessarily  follows  upon 
the  introduction  of  any  such  new  factor  or  object.     Let  us  suppose  the  fol- 

'  Philosoph.  Stud.,  iv.,  Heft,  3  and  7.  Urbantschitsch  had  already  ainiod  to  show  that  thCBc 
oscillations  could  not  be  due  to  variations  in  the  objective  stimulus.  In  the  case  of  acoustic  sensa- 
tions (the  tickintr  watch),  he  attributed  it  to  exhaustion  of  the  acoustic  nerve.  But  Lanire  main- 
tained, vi'ith  excellent  show  of  reasons,  that  the  oscillations  liave  a  central  orisriit.  ^Miinstorbersz, 
however,  has  vigorously  attacked  Lau'/e's  explanations  (in  his  Beitriige,  etc.,  1SS9,  Ilcft  2).  lie  ex- 
perimented by  fixinc;  the  eyes  on  the  line  of  demarkation  of  a  disk,  2  meters  distant,  and  rccordins 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  sensation  by  movements  of  the  finpcr.  Pindinc;  that  rapid  breathing  dimin- 
ished the  interval  (from  G.9  sec.  to  5.1  sec),  and  slow  breathinc;  increased  it  (up  to  S..")  sec.)— and  on 
other  grounds— he  conclndi-d  that  the  oscillations  originare  in  mnscular  fatiirue.  While  wo  think 
Lange's  peculiar  theory  of  the  charartfr  of  the  alleged  central  process  extremely  doubtful,  his  gen- 
eral conclusions  on  this  point  seom  unshaken. 


DISTRACTION   OF   ATTENTION  73 

lowing  series  of  cxpei-imonts  iustitutoLl  to  test  the  "  disturbance  (or  changed 
distribution)  of  utteution."  First,  we  have  a  series  of  simple  muscular  reac- 
tions in  response  to  a  stimulus  of  light ;  second,  the  same  reactions  are  taken 
while  a  weak  reflected  light  flickers  across  the  field  occupied  by  the  light 
to  the  stimulus  of  which  the  reaction  is  to  take  place  ;  third,  the  attention  is 
still  further  disturbed  by  the  image  of  a  revolving  card.  The  average  times 
of  reaction  for  the  three  series  were  found  to  result  as  follows:  for  the  first 
series,  140  o- ;  for  the  second,  14:8  a  ;  for  the  third,  139  a.  Here  we  apparently 
tind  that,  while  the  reacting  agent  was  able  to  attend  to  the  light  so  as  not  to 
be  observably  disturbed  by  so  monotonous  an  object  as  a  revolving  card,  he 
could  not  do  this  for  anything  so  distracling  as  a  flickering  light.  Experi- 
ments with  other  more  decided  disturbances  of  attention  showed  the  reac- 
tion-time prolonged  from  143  o-  to  171  a-.' 

Binet-  attempted  to  solve  experimentally  this  problem  :  If  a  normal  per- 
son is  compelled  to  press  a  tube  a  certain  number  of  times,  once  in  so  often, 
with  a  given  uniform  pressure,  and  at  the  same  time  conduct  some  compli- 
cated mental  operation,  like  doing  a  sum,  reading  aloud,  etc.,  what  will 
luippen  ?  ^Yhat  did  happen  in  the  case  of  his  experience  may  be  summed 
up  under  these  four  heads  :  (1)  irregularity  of  interval  in  the  exertion  of  the 
Ijressures  upon  the  tube  ;  (2)  diminution  or  slower  rise  of  the  curve  of  pres- 
sure ;  (3)  incoordination  of  movement ;  (4)  dropping  of  some  of  the  volitional 
acts  out  of  clear  consciousness.  It  thus  appears  that  the  changed  distribu- 
tion of  attention  (distraction  in  some  directions  and  concentration  in  others) 
exercises  a  dynamical  modifying  influence  upon  all  the  sensory-motor  life. 

Another  interesting  discovery,  made  while  experimenting  in  reaction- 
time,  would  seem  to  throw  more  light  upon  this  subject.  Some  years  ago  it 
was  pointed  out'  that  two  normal  methods  of  reacting  may  be  detected,  in 
one  of  which  the  subject  of  experiment  concentrates  his  attention  on  the 
sensation  and  avoids  every  tendency  to  get  the  motion  ready  ;  in  the  other, 
attention  is  concentrated  upon  the  motion  to  be  performed.  These  are 
called  "  sensory  "  and  "  motor  "  (or  "  sensorial "  and  "  muscular  "  )  reactions, 
respectively.  The  time  of  the  former  was  at  first  thought  to  be  uniformly 
longer  than  that  of  the  latter,  in  the  proportion  of  about  223-230  o-  to  123- 
137  0-.  It  has  since  been  shown  *  that  this  distinction  applies  only  to  very 
simple  reactions,  where  little  activity  of  attention  is  necessary  to  discrimi- 
nate the  character  of  the  sensation  to  which  the  reaction  is  to  be  given. 
Even  under  these  conditions  the  diflference  in  time  between  the  two  kinds  of 
reaction  is  not  stable. 

1  See  art.  on  Disturbance  of  the  Attention  during  Simple  Mental  Processes,  by  E.  J.  Swift : 
Am.  Journal  of  Psychology,  Oct.,  1892.  Experiments  in  the  Yale  psychological  laboratory,  by  Dr. 
Bliss  (Yale  "  Studies  "  for  1S92-3).  show  that  the  influence  of  many  such  distracting  sensations  can, 
by  practice  or  express  volition,  often  be  rendered  speedily  nnappreciable.  They  also  illustrate  the 
important  general  truth  that  the  causes  of  variation  in  attention  are  exceedingly  manifold.  And, 
in  general,  the  most  recent  careful  experiments  by  Esser,  Cattell.  Mosso,  Lombard.  Pace,  and 
many  others,  prove  that  we  can  scarcely  speak  of  the  "periodicity,"  or  "rhythm"  of  attention, 
meaning  by  this  that  the  times  of  successive  risings  and  failings  are  regular  and  can  be  definitely 
fixed  for  particular  sensations,  circumstances,  etc. 

2  Art.  Concurrence  des  l^;tats  psycholosriques  :  Rev.  Philosoph.,  Feb.,  1S90. 

3  By  Lange  :  Pliilosoph.  Stud.,  iv..  Heft  4.  p.  479  f. 

*  By  Gi'Hz  Martins  :  Ueber  die  Muscularc  Iteaction  und  die  Aufmerlisamkcit— Philosoph.  Stud., 
vi..  Heft  2. 


74  PKIMAHY   ATTENTION 

The  same  problems  Lave  also  been  experimentally  approaclied  by  re- 
searches into  the  variations  of  attention  connected  with  accommodation  of 
the  eye, '  and  the  effects  of  fatigue  upon  the  contraction  of  the  voluntary 
muscles.'  Both  classes  of  researches  seem  to  show  that,  while  something 
like  a  rhythmic  change  of  psychic  energy  necessarily  takes  place,  its  perio- 
dicity is  so  inconstant  as  to  make  it  attributable  to  no  "  functional  rhythm 
natural  to  the  external  mechanism "  simply ;  the  rather  do  variations  of 
attention,  as  the  equivalent  of  the  rise  and  fall  and  redistribution  of  psychic 
energy,  express  a  vast  variety  of  causes  having,  in  part,  their  seat  in  the 
very  centers  of  psycho-jjliysical  life. 

In  genera],  then,  experiment  confirms  the  view  that  the  focusing  of  atten- 
tio)i  and  Us  consequent  redistribution  changes  the  relations  between  the  amounts 
of  psychic  energy  spent  in  feeling,  discrimination,  and  conation. 

1 9.  It  is  now  clear  in  what  meaning  of  the  words  we  may  insist  upon  the 
selective  character  of  all,  even  the  most  primary,  attention.  If  by  the  word 
"  selective  "  be  meant  to  affirm  that  distinct  and  purposeful  volition  charac- 
terizes all  attention,  or  that  such  volition  can  wholly  overcome  the  forced  and 
mechanical  character  of  the  combinations  of  factors  and  objects  which  take 
place  in  the  field  of  consciousness,  we  certainly  cannot  use  the  word  ' '  se- 
lective" of  all  our  acts  of  attention.  But  it  is  of  the  very  nature  of  all  atten- 
tion to  be  "  selective,"  in  that  differences  exist  among  the  different  factors 
and  objects  in  every  field  of  consciousness,  which  differences  grow  out  of 
that  selecting  and  rejecting  process,  in  which  the  distribution  of  psychic 
energy  consists.  Some  of  these  factors  and  objects  always  get  selected,  and 
some  of  them  accordingly  ^re;!  left,  in  the  change  which  the  focuses  of  concen- 
trated attention  undergo.  And  all  this  is  not,  as  yet,  the  result  of  a  special 
faculty.     It  is  rather  of  the  very  essence  of  psychical  life. 

Tlie  Relation  of  Attention  to  the  various  primary  Forms  of 
Mental  Life  may  now  be  considered  anew  in  tlie  lig-ht  of  our  con- 
scious experience.  We  have  seen  that  the  distribution  of  atten- 
tion is  inseparably  connected  with  the  deg-ree  in  which  each  of 
these  primary  forms  manifests  itself  in  every  state  of  conscious- 
ness. According"  as  intellection,  feeling,  or  conation  is  empha- 
sized in  each  state,  and  so  the  comijlexion  of  the  entire  state 
influenced  or  determined,  the  distribution  of  attention  takes 
place.  But,  conversely,  as  the  distribution  of  attention  takes 
place,  so  the  diiferent  phases  and  olijects  belonging*  to  the  one 
mental  state  g-et  emphasized,  and  the  complexion  of  the  entire 
field  of  consciousness  is  influenced  or  determined  accordingly. 
Putting  both  these  propositions  tog-ether  (and,  indeed,  the  two 
only  serve  to  approach  the  same  truth  from  different  sides),  we 
may  reaffirm  the  conclusion  already  virtually  reached  :  Pi'hnari/ 
attention,  essentially  considered,  is  the  variously  related  degrees  of 

1  E.  Pace  :  Zur  Frnge  d.  Schwankun<;en  d.  Aufmcrksamkeit,  etc. 

•  Lombard  :  Effets  de  la  Fatigue,  etc. — Arcliives  Italiennes  do  Biologic,  XIII.,  iii.  Aud  coinp. 
Jourual  of  PhyBJology,  xiii.,  1  aud  2,  1892. 


I 


ITS   KELATION  TO   INTELLECTION  7o 

psychic  cnenj}/  expended  upon  the  different  aspects,  elements,  and  ob- 
jects, in  the  one, Held  of  consciousness.  Now,  the  three  primary  as- 
pects of  all  mental  life  are  intellection,  feeling,  and  conation. 
All  elements  of  every  field  of  consciousness  come  under  one  of 
these  three  aspects ;  that  is  to  saj',  they  are  elements  of  intellec- 
tion, or  elements  of  feeling,  or  elements  of  conation.  All  objects 
known  in  any  field  of  consciousness  are  constituted  and  held  in 
consciousness  only  by  activity  of  the  mind  as  intellection,  feel- 
ing, and  will.  With  variations,  therefore,  in  these  three  neces- 
sarily connected  aspects  of  all  mental  life,  the  different  so-called 
kinds  of  attention  become  apparent.  With  the  development  of 
mind,  as  intellect,  feeling,  and  will,  the  higher  and  more  rational 
(the  intelligent  and  voluntary)  form  of  attention  is  made  possible. 
Intelligent  and  voluntary  attention  is  developed  mental  life,  on 
one  of  its  most  important  and  characteristic  sides  of  development. 

For  example,  it  is  customary  to  distinguish  spontaneous  at- 
tention from  voluntary  attention.^  And  spontaneous  attention 
ma}'  be  described  as  either  "  impulsive  "  or  "  forced."  The  mean- 
ing of  these  terms,  considered  as  merely  descriptive  of  psychic 
facts,  is  perfectly  obvious.  In  spontaneous  attention  we  have 
little  or  no  consciousness  of  striving  or  choosing  to  attend. 
Such  attention  may  also  be  called  "  x^assive  "  attention,  in  order  to 
distinguish  it  from  the  more  "active"  or  markedly  conative  kind 
of  attention.  If  our  feeling  is  that  of  being  attracted  or  drawn, 
Avithout  overcoming  of  resistance  (and  especially  without  any- 
thing painful  in  the  sensation  or  thought  which  attracts  or  draws 
us),  the  attention  may  be  called  "  impulsive  :  "  we  are  passive,  and 
yet  not  by  any  means  inattentive  ;  we  smoothly  and  quietly 
"  yield  "  attention.  But  if  the  feeling  which  accompanies  the 
change  in  the  focus  of  attention  is  one  of  being  compelled — and 
this  happens,  especially  when  we,  without  choice,  attend  to 
vivid  disagreeable  sensations  or  ideas — we  may  speak  of  our- 
selves as  being  "  forced  "  to  attend. 

First,  now,  we  consider  the  Relation  of  primarj^  Intellection  or 
discriminating  consciousness,  to  Attention.  In  general,  atten- 
tion intensifies  and  clears  up  the  content  of  our  sensations,  ideas, 
and  feelings  ;  and,  conversely,  the  more  intense  and  clearly  dis- 
criminated are  our  sensations,  ideas,  and  feelings,  the  more  do 
they  attract  or  compel  attention.  We  even  say  of  our  volitions 
and  choices  that  recognition  of  them,  and  thought  about  them, 
varies  directly  as  the  amount  of  attention  given  to  them. 

'  Ribot  also  employs  the  terms  "  natural ''  and  "  artificial "  (The  Psychology  of  Attention,  chap, 
i.  and  ii.).  The  latter  is  a  most  unfortunate  term,  since  it  implies  that  intelligent  voluntary  attention 
is  not  natural  in  man. 


76  PRIMARY   ATTENTION 

§  10.  The  etfecfc  of  directing  attention  upon  our  sensations  and  feelings 
is  popularly  known  and  embodied  in  ordinary  speech.  It  may  be  made 
more  obvious  by  a  great  variety  of  experiments.  At  any  time,  for  example, 
if  we  direct  attention  to  any  area  of  the  body,  a  considerable  number  of  sen- 
sations can  easily  be  raised  from  the  obscure  and  sub-conscious  place  which 
they  are  holding  in  the  general  mixture  of  so-called  "  bodily  feeling  "  to  a 
recognizable  intensity  and  content.  The  call,  "  attend  to  "  the  sensations 
in  your  finger,  arm,  back,  etc.,  seldom  fails  to  create  sensations  that  may  be 
attended  to,  in  the  particular  areas  on  which  attention  is  focused.  This 
effect  of  attention  on  discrimination  of  sensation,  has  an  obvious  physio- 
logical basis.  The  vaso-motor  and  secretory  functions,  the  circulation  and 
the  metabolism,  of  the  lieripheral  parts  of  the  body  are  profoundly  affected 
through  those  changes  in  the  central  organs  which  are  involved  in  the 
focusing  of  attention.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  functional  disturbances, 
simulating  disease,  and  even  organic  changes,  may  be  induced  by  too  much 
attention  to  the  bodily  sensations.  In  hypertesthetic  conditions  of  the  ner- 
vous system  one  can,  by  an  act  of  either  voluntary  or  involuntary  attention, 
raise  all  manner  of  painful  sensations  above  the  "threshold  of  conscious- 
ness." The  influence  of  "suggestion,"  whether  upon  those  in  the  hyp- 
notic state  or  those  possessed  of  normal  consciousness,  is  connected  with 
this  power  of  attention  over  sensation  and  feeling.  It  is  customary  to  speak 
of  suggestions  as  the  influence  of  imagination.  But  attention,  focused  in 
obedience  to  suggestion,  actually  creates  the  sensations.  A  trick  of  the  psy- 
cho-i^hysical  laboratory,  which  seldom  fails  to  operate,  consists  in  inducing 
the  subject  to  feel  the  warmth  of  a  wire  to  the  rise  of  temperature  in 
which  he  is  exj)ectantly  attending,  when  no  objective  rise  of  temperature 
actually  takes  place. 

The  influence  of  attention  upon  discrimination,  and  so  upon  the  intensity 
and  content  of  sensation,  is  illustrated  by  many  of  the  ordinary  exjieriments 
in  reaction-time.  In  connection  with  the  law  of  habit  and  the  activity  of 
memory,  it  results  in  such  experiences  as  the  following  :  Repeated  acts  of 
attention  directed  upon  the  same  sensory  objects  heighten  the  efl'ects  of 
discrimination  in  enlarging  and  making  more  accurate  the  contents  of  the 
field  of  consciousness.  If  a  disk,  on  which  are  drawn  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  differently  colored  spots  or  lines,  or  of  diff'erent  letters,  be  displayed 
for  a  brief  time,  by  fixed  attention  at  first,  only  some  three  to  six  of  these 
objects  can  be  discerned.  But  by  repeatedly  attending  to  this  field,  a  larger 
number  of  these  objects  is  seen  after  the  display  of  the  disk  for  the  same 
length  of  time.  Within  easily  attainable  limits,  each  time  the  disk  is  at- 
tended to  the  objects  already  recognized  clear  up  quicker,  as  it  were,  and 
part  of  the  total  amount  of  psychic  energy  at  our  disposal  is  released,  to  be 
distributed  in  increasing  the  clearness  and  intensity  of  the  other  objects. 

Nothing  is  more  patent  in  the  language  of  the  people  than  the  recog- 
nition of  the  effect  of  attention  on  the  intensity  and  discriminated  content  of 
our  feelings.  "  Never  mind  it,"  or  "  it  won't  hurt  you  much,  if  you  do  not 
mind  it,"  we  say  to  children  who  have  got  a  fall  or  have  cut  or  bruised  their 
fingers.  That  is  to  say,  if  we  abstract  attention,  or  the  attention  is  forced 
to  be  withdrawn  from  any  ])articular  sensation  or  feeling,  the  latter,  by 
virtue  of  this  withdrawal,  suffers  in  strength  and  clearness  of  content. 


ADJUSTMENT   OF   ATTENTION  77 

"What  is  true  of  sensations  is  also  true  of  ideas,  both  of  memory  and  of 
imagination.  If,  in  trying  to  recall  any  complex  event  of  the  past,  I  seize 
hold  of  some  element  or  phase  in  the  imperfectly  remembered  picture  of 
such  event,  and  attend  to  it  chiefly,  I  intensify  and  clarify  it.  This  partic- 
ular memory-image — for  example,  the  color  of  the  neck-tie  he  wore  or  the 
letter  with  which  his  name  began — becomes  a  sort  of  nucleus,  more  vivid 
and  full  of  content,  about  which  the  entire  picture  of  the  complex  event 
may  be  expected  to  organize  itself.  On  the  other  hand,  any  jiarticular 
portion  of  a  complex  memory  which  happens  to  appear  in  consciousness  as 
most  vivid  and  clear  attracts  or  compels  attention  to  itself. 

^11.  Certain  writers  on  psychology  deny  that  it  is  proper  to  speak  of 
sudden  and  strong  sensations  and  feelings  as  being  "  attended  to."  Thus 
Stumpf '  thinks  it  improper  to  say  that  one  "  attends  "  to  a  box  on  the  ear. 
But  such  a  view  not  only  destroys  the  real  import  of  the  most  consecrated 
forms  of  popular  language,  but  also  impairs  the  continuity  and  develop- 
ment of  mental  life.  For,  as  Sully  says  :  "  One  would  like  to  know  the 
fortunate  (or  unfortunate  ?)  man  who  could  receive  a  box  on  the  ear,  and  7io( 
attend  to  it."  The  very  question  we  should  be  inclined  to  ask  in  such  a  case 
would  be:  "  Did  you  jnijul  it  much?"  And  this  question  might  be  equiva- 
lent to  an  inquiry,  either  after  the  recognized  intensity  and  localization  of 
the  painful  sensations,  which  break  in  upon  the  stream  of  consciousness,  or 
after  the  attendant  rush  of  ideas,  feelings,  and  volitions,  consequent  upon 
the  move  intellectual  apprehension  of  the  meaning  of  the  blow.  To  deny 
that  attention  is  present,  in  either  case,  is  to  limit  the  word  to  a  form  of  men- 
tal life  which  cannot  be  attained  at  all  except  as  a  development  from  that 
more  primary  form  of  the  same  activity  for  which  also  we  imjieratively  need 
the  same  word.  /  attend  to  eveiything  hi  mind,  and  I  mind  everything  to 
ichich  I  cdtend.  Only  if  this  he  so  can  I  learn  to  choose,  witliin  limits,  what  I 
will  mind,  and  really  to  mind  tJiat  to  which  I  choose  to  attend. 

1 12.  We  thus  reach  a  partial  explanation  of  what  has  been  significantly 
called  "attention  as  adjustment,"  or  "expectant  attention."  It  is  no  un- 
meaning paradox  to  say  that  every  more  clearly  discriminating  act  of  atten- 
tion implies  previous  discrimination  by  attention ;  or — to  put  the  truth  in 
the  most  paradoxical  form — there  is  no  attention  without  previous  attention. 
The  various  factors  and  objects  define  themselves  with  a  growing  definite- 
noss  until  they  reach  a  maximum,  and  then  fall  away  in  clearness  and 
intensity,  as  this  particular  state  of  consciousness  passes  into  the  next  one 
following.  Thus  the  birth  and  evolution  of  every  complex  psychic  fact, 
looked  at  on  another  side,  may  be  considered  as  the  arrest,  increased  dis- 
tribution, and  falling  away  of  attention.  In  the  case  of  the  momentary  dis- 
play of  the  disk  (in  the  experiment  already  referred  to),  the  beginning  of  the 
field  of  consciousness,  in  which  several  figures  or  colored  spots  come  to  be 
recognized,  is  one  of  confused  impression  ;  the  subject  of  the  experiment 
feels  himself  to  be  "coming  to"  out  of  this  confusion  into  a  condition  of 
attentive  recognition,  and  this  after  the  disk  has  already  been  covered  up. 
The  same  thing  takes  i^lace  when  one  is  invited  to  "conceive  of"  some  ob- 
ject or  psycliical  state  as  soon  as  possible  after  the  word  for  such  object  or 
state  is  jsronounced.     In  cases  of  perception,  where  a  considerable  amount  of 

1  Tonpsychologie,  II.,  p.  283.    And  see  Sully's  criticism  :  The  Unman  Mind,  I.,  p.  146. 


78  PRIMARY   ATTENTIOlSr 

discriminating  attention  is  reqiiired,  to  exjiect  that  kind  of  an  object,  rather 
than  some  other,  facilitates  the  more  precise  discrimination  of  the  nature  of 
the  object.  Other  things  being  equal,  one  sees  xchat  precise  letters  are  on 
the  disk  more  promptly  and  accurately  if  one  knows  that  it  is  letters 
rather  than  colored  spots  which  are  to  be  displayed.  One  experimenter  '  has 
pointed  out  that,  in  many  cases  of  voluntary  ideo-motor  activity,  the  clear 
mental  representation  in  consciousness  of  a,  for  example,  is  preceded  by 
another  condition  of  consciousness  which,  according  to  its  content,  also  con- 
tains the  (less  clear)  mental  representation  of  n. 

The  foregoing  principle  is  of  the  widest  possible  application.  If  I  have 
expectant  attention  focused  to  hear  some  sound,  then  I  am  ready  to  discrim- 
inate, by  attention,  whether  the  sound  is  a  or  a%  or  whether  it  is  the  sound 
of  a  violin  or  of  a  cornet.  But  if  I  am  adjusted  to  see  something,  then  I  dis- 
criminate the  better  what  ajipears  in  the  field  of  vision.  This  is  very  j^rob- 
ably  the  explanation  of  what  Wolfe  found  to  be  true,  that  the  greatest 
accuracy  for  memory  of  the  pitch  of  tones  was  when  the  two  tones  com- 
pared had  an  interval  of  about  two  seconds.  That  is,  expectant  attention 
was  then  focused  just  right  to  favor  most  accuracy  of  further  discriminat- 
ing attention.  The  physiological  explanation  of  these  facts  would  seem  to 
imjjly,  as  Professor  James  has  claimed,'-  that  a  double  process  of  adjustment, 
both  of  sensory  organ  and  of  ideational  center,  takes  place  ;  indeed,  such  a 
conclusion  follows  almost  necessarily  from  all  we  know  of  brain,  end-organs, 
and  mental  ijhenomeua  alike. 

§  13.  We  now  get  a  clear  preliminary  notion  of  the  nature  of  the  most 
fundamental  processes  of  intellectual  life.  It  has  for  centuries  been  point- 
ed out  that  all  intelligence,  or  '•  understanding,"  involves  analysis  and 
synthesis.  But  all  attention,  considered  as  variously  distributed  degrees 
of  discriminating  consciousness,  consists  in  this  fundamental  process  of 
analysis.  Attention  is  a  process  of  selective  focusing  of  psychic  energy ;  .such 
a  process,  regarded  as  resulting  in  the  growth  of  discrimination — and 
implying,  of  course,  for  all  its  higher  manifestations,  memory  and  purpose- 
ful choice — is  analysis.  This  is  the  primary  condition  of  intelligence.  In  its 
earlier  stages  the  wandering  of  discriminating  attention  is  not  voluntary, 
in  the  full  meaning  of  the  latter  word.  It  is  solicited,  impelled,  forced. 
But  without  attention  in  this  form  the  organization  of  mental  life  cannot  be 
begun  or  carried  forward.  And  as  attention  discriminates  more  and  more, 
the  fusion  of  the  discriminated  elements  and  objects  into  higher  and  more 
complex  forms  (the  intellectual  syntheses  of  the  advancing  organization  of 
experience)  takes  place. 

The  Effect  of  Feeling-  on  Attention  is  one  of  those  imivcrsal 
experiences  to  which  every  man  is  forced  to  g-ive  heed,  not 
simply  in  order  to  nnder-stand  himself  and  his  fellows  scientifi- 
cally, but,  it  might  almost  be  said,  in  order  to  live  at  all.  The 
parent,  the  teacher,  the  speaker  in  public  or  in  private  conver- 
sation, the  writer,  and  not  less  the  merchant  or  street-pedler, 

'  Miiustcrbcrg  :  Die  Willenphandhmg,  etc.,  p.  67. 
"  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  I.,  p.  434. 


ITS    RELATION    TO    FEELING  79 

knows  perfectly  well  that  the  question  of  gaining-  attention  is,  in 
general,  a  question  of  exciting  some  kind  of  feeling.  In  fact,  the 
power  which  different  objects  of  sense  or  ideas  have  to  get 
attention  in  that  '"struggle  for  existence"  which  takes  place  in 
the  stream  of  human  mental  life  is  all  summed  up  in  one  word 
indicative  of  feeling.  Tliis  word  is  the  word  "  interest."  It  is 
acknowledged  by  all  that  different  minds  have  very  different  in- 
terests. But  with  all  this  great  diversity  of  i)articular  interests  it 
is  also  the  acknowledged  universal  rule  that  men  attend  with 
ease  and  effectiveness  to  Avhat  interests  them,  but  only  with 
difficidty  and  reluctance,  or  not  at  all,  to  what  does  not  interest 
them. 

It  has  already  been  said  that  the  very  word  "  interest "  is 
indicative  of  feeling.  To  be  interesting  is  to  excite  feeling. 
The  forms  of  feeling  excited  and  connoted  by  this  one  word  are, 
however,  themselves  very  diverse.  The  very  difficulty  of  giving 
attention,  at  first,  or  the  original  repulsiveness  of  the  object  to 
which  attention  is  asked,  may  be  a  cause  of  arousing  interest  in 
the  man  who  anticipates  that  pleasure  of  triumph  or  of  haif-ethical 
exaltation,  which  conies  from  doing  a  piece  of  difficult  and  dis- 
agreeable mental  work.  In  all  such  experience  the  law  of  haljit 
is,  of  course,  very  influential.  But  scarcely  less  influential  in 
the  more  advanced  stages  of  developed  mental  life  is  the  pres- 
ence of  the  ideals,  however  low  or  high,  narrow  or  expansive, 
which  control  in  a  broad  way  the  stream  of  consciousness. 

Another  remark  of  great  general  importance  is  this  :  all 
excitement  of  feeling,  wrought  by  whatever  object  of  sense  or 
idea  in  the  mental  train,  tends  to  render  such  object  or  idea  a 
matter  of  interest.  In  the  study  of  those  strange  and  obscure 
mental  phenomena  which  psychology  relegates  to  the  depart- 
ment of  feeling,  we  meet  with  many  examples  of  this  truth. 
Arousement  of  feeling,  of  any  kind  and  in  any  degree,  illustrates 
the  general  tendency  of  the  mind  to  "  take  an  interest "  in  what 
arouses  the  feeling.  This  is  as  true  of  those  feelings  which, 
when  they  reach  a  certain  intensity  and  complexity  of  general 
psychical  and  bodily  reaction,  are  noted  by  Avliat  we  call  "  hor-. 
rible,"  "  disgusting,"  "  repulsive,"  as  with  what  we  agree  to  be 
"  pleasant,"  "  agreeable,"  "  attractive."  In  an  extreme  form  the 
truth  of  this  statement  is  illustrated  when  we  see  a  group  of 
children  gazing  with  transfixed  attention  upon  the  most  terrify- 
ing spectacles  ;  or  note  how  the  novel-reader  cannot  tear  herself 
away  from  the  harrowing  story ;  or  when  we  ourselves  revel 
while  protesting  at  the  strange  feeling  of  irresistible  impulse  we 
feel  in  the  horrors  of  the  French  Revolution,  of  the   Spanish 


80  PRIMARY   ATTENTION 

Inquisition,  or  of  tlie  morning  newspaper.  If  we  temporarily  or 
habitually  exclude  these  tliiug-s  from  our  attention  because  we 
will  to  take  no  interest  therein,  then  our  will  and  feeling  have 
been  disciplined  to  a  somewhat  "  unnatural  "  activity  in  the  hi- 
terest  of  higher  ideals. 

Attention  as  correlated  with  feeling  {i.e.,  dependent  for  its 
distribution  and  fixation  upon  the  excitement  of  sensibility  in 
connection  with  the  discrimination  of  different  objects  and  ideas), 
varies  as  respects  intensity,  novelty,  tone  of  pleasure  or  pain, 
refreshment  or  exhaustion  of  accompanying  psychic  energy, 
etc.  The  infinite  variety  and  wonderful  changes  in  the  focusing 
of  attention,  as  thus  considered,  are  well  known,  but  scarcelj' 
admit  of  detailed  description.  A  few  words  on  several  selected 
points  must  sufiice. 

§  14.  "  The  close  dependence  of  attention  on  feeling  wliicli  is  implied 
in  the  idea  of  interest,"  says  Sully, '  "  has  been  remarked  by  more  than  one 
psychologist,  but  has  not  yet  received  adequate  recognition."  The  true 
state  of  the  case  seems  to  be  that  i^sychologists  can  only,  in  this  sphere,  de- 
scribe a  little  more  vividly  and  explain  a  little  more  fully  what  every  one 
knows  from  the  results  of  his  daily  expei'ience.  Accurate  quantitative  deter- 
mination of  the  nature  of  this  dependence  by  experiment  in  the  laboratory 
or  by  collection  of  statistics,  is  a  difficult  or  impossible  thing  to  attain. 
Feeling  enters  into  all  knowledge  in  the  fornl  of  perception  of  things  by  the 
senses.  The  influence  of  feeling  on  the  very  constitution  of  perception  is 
partly  attained  through  its  influence  on  attention.  Within  not  easily  assign- 
able limits  we  see,  hear,  touch,  taste,  smell,  what  we  expect,  fear,  desire, 
hope  for,  or  are  otherwise  interested  in.  The  effect  of  previous  adjustment 
of  attention  in  increasing  the  discernible  intensity  and  quality  of  our  sensa- 
tions and  feelings  has  already  been  shown.  But  an  essential  part  of  this 
very  adjustment  of  attention  is  the  "feeling  of  expectation  "  which  neces- 
sarily accompanies  it.  This  sort  of  attention  may,  indeed,  be  called  e.rpectmU 
attention.  And  since  the  condition  of  expectancy  is  always  one  of  interest, 
we  cannot  fail  to  admit  here  the  dependence  of  attention  on  feeling.  The 
total  mixture  of  feelings  with  which  we  get  ready  to  receive  diff'erent  objects 
and  ideas,  and  so  prepare  the  way  for  further  attention  by  previous  expectant 
attention,  is  in  real  life  extremely  various.  Indeed,  the  whole  bodily  and 
mental  condition  may  become  involved  in  this  way.  Where  the  intensity  of 
feeling,  with  expectant  attention,  becomes  too  great,  it,  of  course,  prevents 
or  confuses  the  subsequent  work  of  discriminating  attention.  We  become 
no  interested  in  some  sort  that  we  cannot  attend  to  the  object  or  idea,  on 
account  of  distraction  from  it  by  our  own  state  of  feeling. 

What  has  not  been  sufliciently  remarked  by  psychologists  is  the  depend- 
ence of  interested  attention  itself  upon  the  condition,  witli  respect  to  atten- 
tion, of  the  discriminating  and  conative  functions  of  the  mind.  It  is  un- 
doubtedly true  that  I  attend  to  what  interests  me  ;  but  it  is  also  equally  true 

I  The  nummi  Mind,  I.,  n.  1C3. 


AS    DEPENDENT   ON    INTEREST  81 

tliut  what  I  voluntarily  attoiul  to,  for  the  realization  of  nearer  or  remoter 
ideal  ideas,  becomes  interesting^.  It  is  also  true  that  I  decide  what  I  will 
mind  ;  and  what  I  will  to  mind  becomes  interesting  and  attracts  further 
attention  to  itself.  Or,  better — to  repeat  the  fundamental  truth — the  ijrimary 
phenomenon  of  attention  partly  consists  in  this  varying  distribution  of  psy- 
chic energy  in  which  the  side  of  "feeling"  in  every  state  of  con.scionsness 
stands  related  to  the  side  of  intellection  and  the  side  of  conation.  This, 
liowovei",  is  far  from  warranting  us  in  saying,  as  Stumpf  '  does  :  "  Attention 
is  identical  with  interest,  and  interest  is  a  feeling." 

§  15.  The  power  which  any  object  or  idea  has  to  attract  and  fixate  the 
attention,  if  it  is  intensely  interesting,  is  intimately  connected  with  the 
explanation  of  many  abnormal  states  of  consciousness.  Students  of  the 
psychology  of  insane  and  hyi)notic  subjects  are  familiar  with  what  are  called 
"fixed  ideas"  [idees  fixes;  Zirangvorstellrmgeyi) .^  These  are  due  to  what 
Kibot,  rather  inaptly,  calls  "  hypertrojihy  of  attention."  They  are  described 
by  the  same  author  as  "the  absolute  predominance  of  one  state  or  group  of 
states  ; "  strictly  interpreted,  however,  such  a  thing  as  this  is  quite  impos- 
sible in  the  mental  life.  In  a  iiiore  correct,  but  highly  figurative  way,  we 
are  told  that  this  condition  does  not  allow  "  the  prolification  of  ideas  save 
in  one  direction,  imprisoning  the  current  of  consciousness  within  a  narrow 
bed  from  which  it  cannot  escape."  But  "  fixed  ideas"  are  fixed,  not  simply 
because  as  processes  of  intellection,  they  have  become  habitual  and  so  con- 
stantly recurrent  under  all  kinds  of  circumstances.  TJ/ej/  are  fixed,  because 
of  the  interest  (which  may  amount  to  a  horrible,  enslaving  fascination) — 
that  is,  of  the  excitement  of  feeling  which  accompanies  them — and  which 
fixates  attention  ui)ou  them.  But  looked  at  from  the  other  and  third  asi)ect 
(the  conative  and  volitional),  these  same  fixed  and  supremely  interesting  ideas 
are  spoken  of  as  due  to  "  disease  of  will." 

I  16.  The  effect  of  the  different  main  kinds  of  feeling  which  render  those 
objects  and  ideas  that  excite  the  feeling  interesting,  and  so  influential  to  at- 
tract and  fixate  attention,  is  too  familiar  to  need  detailed  explanation.  The 
interest  of  novelt;/  may  almost  be  said  to  be  supreme  among  these.  All  feel- 
ings are,  in  themselves,  interesting.  What  in  the  last  analysis  we  are  neces- 
sarily and  forever  interested  in  is  our  feelings.  The  most  absolutely  loath- 
some and  hateful  of  all  conditions  of  mind  is  a  dull  monotone  of  the  affective 
consciousness,  into  which  no  changes  of  feeling  break.  In  its  more  intel- 
lectual and  dilettant  form  this  condition  is  spoken  of  as  the  "feeling  of 
ennui."  But  even  here  it  is  a  relief  to  have  the  attention  attracted  to  the 
feeling  itself,  and  to  its  varying  phases,  as  something  novel  and  so  interesting. 

The  distribution  of  attention  depends  upon  intensity  of  feeling.  This  re- 
lation, as  affecting  the  discrimination  of  the  degrees  and  qualities  of  feeling, 
has  already  been  remarked  upon.  But  feeling  may  rise  to  such  a  high  de- 
gree, and  may  so  spread,  as  it  were,  over  the  entire  area  of  the  conscious 
mental  life  as  to  absorb  in  itself  all  the  energy  of  attention.  In  such  condi- 
tions we  can  scarcely  "be  said  to  attend  even  to  our  own  feelings,  although — 
objectively  considered,  if  this  W£;re  possible — these  feelings  are  the  cxpres- 

'  Tonpsychologie,  I.,  p.  68. 

•'  For  a  popular  account  of  the  subject,  see  Ribot,  The  Psychology  of  Attention,  chap,  iii.;  and 
for  more  thorough  treatment,  see  tho-work?  cited  there,  p.  84. 
G 


82 


PRIMARY   ATTENTION 


sion  of  a  supreme  interest,  for  the  time  being,  in  some  object  or  idea.  lu 
reality,  however,  the  feeling  has  taken  on  the  form  of  an  emotion  and  so 
separated  itself,  in  a  measure,  from  the  process  of  intellection  which  called 
it  forth.  Thus  in  excess  of  rage,  terror,  or  grief,  men  seem  comijletely  to 
"forget  themselves;"  they  scarcely  any  longer  discriminate  as  to  xvhat  they 
are  angry  at,  afraid  of,  or  sorrowing  over.  "When,  then,  we  say  that  a  man 
attends  to  anything,  the  more  he  is  interested  in  that  thing,  it  is  implied  that 
the  intensity  of  the  excitement  of  feeling  shall  be  kept  below  the  highly 
emotional  stage.  Yet  even  in  this  stage  we  recognize  the  blindly  groping, 
forced  attention,  which  lies  at  the  base  of  all  mental  life. 

The  character  of  any  feeling,  as  respects  its  tone  of  pleasure  or  pain,  in- 
fluences the  attention  which  it  invites  and  secures.  Other  things  being 
equal,  the  lower  or  more  moderate  degrees  of  pleasurable  feeling  fixate  the 
attention ;  and  with  the  growth  of  discrimination  and  self-control,  they  are 
likely  to  be  intelligently  and  voluntarily  attended  to,  and  detained,  retained, 
or  reproduced  in  consciousness.  "With  those  feelings  whose  tone  is  one  of 
pain,  the  opposite  effect  upon  attention  may  be  observed.  They  begin,  to  be 
sure,  by  withdrawing  the  attention  of  the  mind  from  other  objects  and  absorb- 
ing it  in  themselves ;  and  if  they  are  intense  and  persistent,  through  causes 
lying  out  of  control,  they  retain  attention  with  more  or  less  of  steady  con- 
straint. But  with  the  growth  of  intelligence  and  self-control,  the  tendency 
is  evoked  by  all  painful  feelings  to  withdraw  attention  from  them ;  not  to 
mind  them  but  to  think  of  and  be  interested  in  something  else.  This  may 
be  cultivated  to  the  degree  which  is  said  to  have  distinguished  the  philoso- 
pher Kant,  who  habitually  paid  no  attention  to  the  jjainful  feelings  in  his 
chest,  although,  whenever  he  did  attend  to  them,  he  always  found  them  there. 
Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  we  have  frequent  cases  where  emotional  states  of  pain- 
ful feeling  overwhelm  the  soul  and  absorb  its  entire  energy  of  attention. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  less  frequent  cases  occur,  where  on  account  of  the 
triumph  of  some  conflicting  state  of  emotion  or  the  voluntary  control  of  the 
mental  train  in  obedience  to  ideal  ends,  attention  is  withdrawn  from  the  most 
painful  feelings  and  directed  to  external  objects  or  to  pleasure-bringing 
ideas.  In  this  way  not  a  few  men  have  attended  to  Work  with  scarcely  dimin- 
ished absorption  in  it  because  of  forgotten  painful  feelings ;  hypnotic  sub- 
jects habitually  fail  to  feel  the  pains  which  it  is  suggested  to  them  do  not 
exist ;  warriors  do  not  notice  the  wounds  they  receive  in  battle ;  and  martyrs 
suffer  burning,  and  at  the  same  time  exult  in  religious  ecstasy.  The  physio- 
logical explanation  of  such  phenomena  undoubtedly  suggests  that,  in  these 
states,  the  functions  of  some  of  the  central  organs  have  been  inhibited  or 
temporarily  paralyzed  by  excessive  nerve-commotion  in  other  central  organs. 
But  the  full  explanation  demands  that  science  should  admit  the  truth  which 
the  popular  language  affirms,  when  it  refers  to  the  almost  incalculably  great 
and  mysterious  influence  of  attention  over  bodily  pains. 

The  relation  of  attention  to  feeling  is  also  dependent  upon  the  general 
condition,  as  respects /re.s7?ne,ss  or  eoclutuMion,  which  characterizes  every  state 
of  consciousness.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  all  the  varying  relations  of  at- 
tention, to  intellection  and  conation  as  well  as  to  feeling.  But  it  is  em- 
phatically marked  in  the  case  of  the  feelings,  because  they  "  exhaust,"  as  we 
say,  the  stores  of  nervous  and  psychic  energy,  with  such  rajiidity.     "While 


ITS    RELATION   TO    CONATION-  83 

then  a  certain  amount  of  excitement  of  feeling,  by  way  of  interest,  fresliens 
and  assists  the  focusing  of  attention,  whether  spontaneous  or  voluntary,  a 
larger  amount  of  excitement,  esjDecially  of  the  same  feeling,  exhausts  the 
energy  of  attention.  A  mild  unemotional  interest,  due  to  moderately  pleas- 
urable excitement  of  feeling,  iu  the  pursuit  of  ideals  to  which  we  have  be- 
come habituated,  and  yet  with  the  variety  of  aspect  which  such  ideals  and 
their  pursuit  admits — all  this  is  most  favorable  to  i)rolonged  and  eflfective  ex- 
ercise of  the  attention.  But  we  are  here  far  away  from  "  primary  "  attention, 
although  we  still  remain  triie  to  its  fundamental  laws. 

The  relation  of  Attention  to  the  Conative  aspect  of  all  con- 
scious activity  has  been  much  emphasized  by  modern  writers  on 
psychology.  This  has  led  certain  English  and  German  authors 
to  treat  of  attention  under  the  general  heading  of  Will.  In  all 
"  voluntary  "  attention,  as  the  very  term  indicates,  the  factor  of 
conation  or  volition  is  esjjecially  obvious.  Ground  for  this 
opinion  is  found  in  the  fact  that  choice  enters  into  voluntary  at- 
tention and  determines  within  narrower  or  wdder  limits  the  direc- 
tion which  attention  takes.  But  voluntary  attention,  like  the 
most  primary  attention,  cannot  be  exercised  without  a  strict  de- 
pendence upon  intellection  and  feeling.  In  the  wider  use  of  the 
word  "  Will,"  we  may  say  that  all  conscious  distribution  of  atten- 
tion, whether  the  change  seems  imjiulsive  and  forced  or  freely 
chosen,  implies  an  act  of  will.  In  order,  however,  to  avoid  mis- 
understanding, we  shall  reserve  this  term  for  the  higher  manifes- 
tations of  this  universal  aspect  of  mental  life.  The  Avord  "  cona- 
tion," or  consciousness  regarded  in  the  aspect  of  spontaneous 
psychical  activity,  will  better  serve  our  present  purpose.  When, 
then,  it  is  affirmed  that  all  attention,  even  the  most  primary,  is 
influenced  by  conation,  it  is  meant  that  attention  rises  and  falls, 
is  distributed  and  redistributed,  in  constant  dependence  upon 
the  varying  amounts  of  psychical  self -activity  which  characterize 
the  difl'erent  mental  states. 

For,  from  the  most  fundamental  point  of  view,  all  psychic 
energy  h  self-activity  ;  it  appears  in  consciousness  as  the  ener- 
gizing, the  conation,  the  striving,  of  the  same  being  which  comes 
to  look  upon  itself  as  attracted  to  discriminate  between  this 
sensation  and  that,  or  compelled  to  feel  some  bodily  pain,  or 
solicited  to  consider  some  pleasant  thought.  This  aspect  of 
conation — the  immediate  awareness  of  being  self-active — belongs 
to  all  passive  or  ihipulsive  or  forced  mental  states,  as  truly, 
though  not  in  the  same  way,  as  to  the  so-called  distinctively 
active  and  voluntary  states.  Expressed  in  popular  and  figurative 
language  it  may  be  said :  if  the  attention  is  impelled  or  forced, 
still  it  is  my  attention  ;  /  yield  to  the  impulse,  /  submit  to  the 


84  PRIMARY    ATTENTION 

force.  And  this  ijsycliical  yielding-  or  submission,  especially 
when  it  is  accompanied  by  the  consciousness  of  striving  to  yield 
or  not  to  yield,  to  submit  or  not  to  submit,  is  the  conative  or 
volitional  aspect  of  all  my  mental  life. 

In  that  constant  distribution  and  redistribution  of  attention 
■which  accompanies  the  changing-  states  of  consciousness,  the 
amount  of  attention  which  every  element  and  object  secures  is 
dependent  upon  its  relation  to  the  conative  nature  of  mental 
life.  The  more  intense,  or  interesting,  or  clearl}^  discriminated, 
any  element  or  object  is,  the  more  of  psychic  energy  in  attention 
does  it  ask  for,  and  ordinarily  get.  But  the  striving  to  yield  or 
not  to  yield  attention,  and  even  the  so-called  passive  energizing 
of  mind  in  attention — its  degree  and  direction  of  conative  energy 
— also  determines  the  intensity,  interest  and  discriminated  qual- 
ity of  every  element  and  object  in  every  psychical  state. 

^  17.  The  full  significance  of  this  way  of  regarding  all  attention  as,  in 
one  aspect  of  the  psychical  life,  an  act  of  will,  can  only  be  seen  after  se- 
veral important  related  topics  have  been  carefully  discussed.  The  English 
physiologist  Foster  has  jDertinently  spoken  of  every  amoeba  as  having  a 
"will  of  its  own."  The  significance  of  tins  statement,  however,  depends 
upon  whether  we  regard  the  amoeba  as  mereb/  an  atomic  mechanism,  or  not. 
Regarded  as  an  atomic  mechanism,  the  amoeba  is  automatic  ;  that  is,  the 
movements  which  it  undergoes  have,  to  the  best  of  our  knowledge,  to  be 
explained  as  ai'ising  not  only  refiexly  in  response  to  external  stimuli,  but  at 
least  partly  from  causes  lying  within.  But  if  these  automatic  changes  have 
any  realbi  psychical  correhite,  i\xen  doubtless  the  amteba  has  a  "  will  of  its 
own,"  in  a  new  meaning  of  these  words.  The  researches  to  which  Binet  and 
others  make  reference  tend  to  show  that  "  the  psychic  life  of  micro-organ- 
isms"' is  indeed  real  and  much  richer  and  more  varied  than  had  formerly 
been  supposed.  However  it  may  be  with  these  minuter  forms  of  animal 
life,  we  know  that  automatic  (centrally  originated)  changes  in  the  nervous 
mechanism  of  the  higher  animals  have  their  psychical  correlates.  In  geuer-_ 
al,  psychical  energizing — the  self-active,  conative  aspect  of  consciousness — 
may  be  taken  as  such  a  distinctive  correlate. 

The  meaning  and  importance  of  that  very  complex  condition  of  our  con- 
sciousness which  is  sometimes  called  the  "feeling  of  eflfort,"  will  become 
clearer  in  due  time.  Perhaps  no  form  of  attention  is  possible  without  admixt- 
ure of  this  feeling;  certainly,  no  prolonged  and  difficult  focusing  of  atten- 
tion is  possible  without  involving  much  of  this  feeling.  Inasmuch  as  part, 
at  least,  of  this  feeling  of  effort  consists  in  sensations  arising  from  the  condi- 
tion of  tenseness  or  strain  that  has  been  produced  by  innervation  of  certain 
muscles  throiigh  the  act  of  attention .  its  connection  Vith  the  conative  aspect 
of  all  conscious  attention  is  obvious. 

It  must  bo  confessed  that  when  we  say  all  attention,  regarded  as  cona- 
tion, implies  psychical  activity  sjjontaneously  arising  from  the  dark  back- 

'  The  Psychic  Life  of  Micro-org;uii.sms.  1S89. 


ATTENTION    AS    ACT   OF    WILL  85 

ground  of  psychical  life  which  we  learn  to  regard  as  "  ours,"  we  have  reached 
the  utmost  limits  of  onr  scientific  exjjlanation.  We  have  simi)ly  come  ujion 
nltiniute  facts.  Ou  occasion  of  certain  presentations  of  sense,  or  certain 
ideas,  with  an  accompaniment  of  feeling,  arising  in  consciousness,  th^  same 
psychical  being,  whose  the  sensations,  ideas,  and  feelings  are  said'^ft)'  be, 
also  regards  itself  as  active  in  selecting  and  appropriating  these  sensations, 
ideas,  and  feelings.  Yet  there  are  not  two  kinds  of  activity  separable  in 
time,  and  regarded  as  distinctly  dilTerent  forms  of  attention,  involved  in 
this.  As  wo  liave  already  repeatedly  said :  Discriminating  consciousness, 
feeling  consciousness,  conative  consciousness,  is  one  and  the  same  state  of 
consciousness,  regarded  in  three  aspects.  And  so  we  do  not,  as  active  be- 
ings, over  and  above  our  so-called  passive  or  impulsive  acts  of  attention, 
always  will  to  attend  to  this  rather  than  the  other  among  the  objects  of  con- 
sciousness. But  attention  which,  in  its  higher  stages  of  growth,  may  reach  the 
conditions  necessary  to  intelligent,  purposeful  choice,  is  present  as  a  Mind  striv- 
ing and  selective,  but  self-originating  activity  in  all  the  lower  forms  of  conscious 
life.  The  fact  that  it  is  so  is  to  bo  accepted  as  fact ;  it  is  ultimate  fact,  and 
can  never  be  wholly  explained  by  anything  in  the  external  conditions  of 
such  conscious  life. 

fMuch  the  best  brief  treatises  on  attention  to  be  found  in  English  are  the  chapters  on 
this  subject  in  the  works  of  Sully  (The  Human  Mind,  I.,  chap.  vi. )  and  .James  (The  Princi- 
ples of  Psychology,  I.,  chap.  xi.).  Other  works  well  worth  consulting  are  Waitz  :  Lehr- 
buch  d.  F.sychologie,  §5.5.  Volkmanu  :  Lehibuch  d.  Psychologic,  I L,  §114.  Wundt: 
Physiolog.  Psychologic,  II.,  chaps,  xv.  and  xvi.  Stumpf  :  Tonpsychologie,  II.,  p  L'iSO  f. 
And  especially  the  monographs  of  G.  E.  Midler  :  Zur  Theorie  d.  sinnlichen  Aufmerksani- 
keit.  Mi'uisterbcrg  :  Beitrage  zur  experimental.  Psychologic,!,  llibot:  La  Psychologie 
de  I'Attention.  Dohrn  :  Das  Problem  d.  Aufmerksamkeit.  Spitta :  Die  Willenbestimmun- 
gen,  etc.] 


part  Secon^ 

THE  ELEMENTS   OF  MENTAL  LIFE 


I 


part  Seconb 

THE  ELEMENTS  OF  MENTAL  LIFE 

CHAPTEK  VI. 
SENSATION:   ITS  NATURE  AND  CLASSES  ^ 

During  all  the  foUowiug  discussion  it  must  ueTer  for  a 
moment  be  forgotten  in  what  meaning-,  if  at  all,  we  can  speak 
of  psychical  "  elements  ;"  whether  the  term  be  applied  to  the 
analysis  of  particular  states  of  consciousness,  or  to  the  total 
complex  evolution  which  we  call  our  mental  life.  Such  elements 
are  never,  of  course,  to  be  regarded  as  actually  separable  by 
analysis,  either  from  each  other  or  from  the  state  in  which  they 
are  said  to  exist.  Neither  are  thej^  capable  of  retention  and 
future  recombination,  with  other  like  or  unlike  elements,  into  a 
new  mental  state.  No  psychologist,  whatever  theory  he  may 
hold  of  the  origin  and  development  of  mind,  thinks  of  maintain- 
ing the  separate  reality  of  the  factors  of  mental  life,^  That  every 
field  of  consciousness,  however  varied  its  content,  is  nevertheless 
a  unity  which  expresses  each  one  of  the  three  fundamental  as- 
pects of  all  psychic  facts,  has  already  been  made  sufficiently 
clear.  But  it  has  also  been  made  just  as  clear  that  the  distribu- 
tion of  discriminating  attention,  not  only  enables  but  even  forces 
us  to  recognize  a  great  variety  of  content,  under  each  of  these 
three  fundamental  aspects,  as  belonging  to  our  conscious  states. 
Regarded  as  subordinate  partial  processes,  the  varying  contents  . 
may  be  recognized  by  introspective  analysis,  as  they  unite  in  the 
general  process  of  mental  life — contributors  in  their  own  way 
to  determine  the  total  complexion  of  the  stream  of  consciousness. 
The  reality  is  this  onflow^ng  stream  of  consciousness  in  which 

'  P*rofessor  James  (see  especially,  I.,  chap,  vi.,  and  pasnim)  is  scarcely  justifiecl  in  arfirning  as 
though  the  explanation  of  complex  mental  states  by  fusion  and  synthesis  of  more  elementary  psy- 
choses were  not  warranted,  because  he  is  able  to  criticise  Mr.  Spencer  and  others  who  have  been 
quite  too  careless  in  speaking  as  though  they  regarded  these  elementary  psychoses  as  being  them- 
selves entities  like  atoms. 


90  SENSATION  :     ITS   NATURE   AND   CLASSES 

there  are  changes  of  function,  but  no  stationary  and  finished  prod- 
ucts. As  entering-  into  and  constituting-  this  stream,  the  subor- 
dinate partial  processes  may  be  called  the  "  elements  of  mental 
life."  Indeed,  it  is  only  by  employing-  this  analytic  manner  of 
study  that  we  can  frame  any  science  of  psycholog-y  at  all. 

But  even  those  partial  i^rocesses,  which  introspection  easily 
detects  by  focusing-  attention  upon  them,  cannot  confidently  be 
spoken  of  as  "  ultimate  "  elements.  However,  experiment  and 
growing  skill  in  analysis  come  to  our  assistance,  and  thus  we 
may  find  our  way  nearer  to  what  appears  to  be  "  ultimate." 
The  overtones,  for  example,  when  once  made  by  skilled  analytic 
attention  to  come  forth  from  the  compound  note  in  whose  timbre 
they  unite,  can  then  be  heard  in  the  same  note  when  it  is  repro- 
duced. Again,  the  particular  tactual  and  organic  sensations 
which  fuse  with  others — retaining-  their  characteristic  quality 
only  in  a  dim,  obscure  way — in  the  production  of  a  general  con- 
dition of  malaise,  when  once  recognized  appear  as  definitely  lo- 
calized painful  feelings — like  noteworthy  waves  in  the  sea  of  our 
discomfort.  Yet  again,  it  is  only  when  we  think  what  we  are 
thinking  about,  that  the  particular  objects  and  processes  going 
to  make  up  our  line  of  thought,  stand  out  as  factors  in  its  com- 
position. We  can,  therefore,  talk  and  argue  about  the  absolutely 
simple  elements  of  mental  life  ;  but  we  can  never  be  sure  that 
we  have  isolated  and  envisaged  any  such  element  in  the  stream 
of  consciousness. 

I  shall  never  discover  myself  having  a  sensation  of  blue,  for 
examjDle,  that  has  no  extension  or  locality,  that  is  not  the  blue- 
ness  of  some  surface  spread  out  somewhere,  as  seen  or  imagined 
in  space.  But  I  may  discuss  the  sensation  of  blue,  simply  as 
this  and  no  other  sensation,  and  as  abstracted  in  thought  from 
all  seen  or  imagined  extension.  I  shall  never  discover  mj^self 
thinking,  without  also  feeling  and  willing  in  the  same  unity  of 
the  conscious  mental  life.  But  I  may  consider  what  it  is  to 
think,  withoiit  taking  into  account  what  it  is  to  feel  or  will ; 
what  it  is  to  think  as  related  to  difieront  changing  phases  of 
feeling  or  will.  I  may  even  abstract  from  the  consideration  of 
the  thinking  process  all  that  seems  to  be  the  result  of  a  develop- 
ment of  the  thinking  function  ;  and  so,  although  I  can  neither 
actually  catch  myself,  or  imagine  myself,  as  exercising  this 
thinking  function  in  a  manner  not  implying  development,  I  may 
discuss  the  nature  of  undeveloped  or  primary  intellection. 

To  this  general  explanation  of  what  is  properly  meant  by  the 
"  elements  of  mental  life  "  the  particular  explanations  belonging 
to  the  different  classes  of  elements  will  appear  in  their  appropri- 


MEANING   OF   THE    WOMD,    "ELEMENTS,"    ETC.  91 

lite  places.     The  waruiiig-  not  to  mistake  the  meaning  of  the 
terms  used  need  not  be  further  dwelt  upon  here. 

Wo  dismiss  this  subject  for  the  present  after  emphasizing^  the 
following-  two  remarks :  (1)  The  words  "  elements,"  "  factors," 
"  fusion  of  factors  "  (or  elements),  etc.,  as  employed  in  psycholog-- 
ical  science,  do  not  indicate  the  same  things  in  reality  as  do  the 
same  words  when  employed  by  i)hysical  science  ;  tliey  are  fitjura- 
live,  and  are  dasigned  to  characterize  the  complex  content  of  con- 
sciousness,— objectively  regarded^  as  it  were.  But  (2)  every  state  of 
consciousness  has  also  its  active  aspect.  It  is  a  complex  psychic 
activity ;  and  in  characterizing-  this  aspect,  we  may,  with  equal 
truthfulness  to  reality  and  less  lig-uratively,  speak  of  "  mental 
activities,"  as  more  or  less  elementary  or  comi^lex,  or  of  "  the 
distinguishable  but  irresolvable  modes  of  mental  life,"  instead 
of  speaking  of  "elements,"  "  factors,"  "fusion  of  elements,"  etc. 

\  1.  Our  conception  of  what  is  meant  by  a  simple  or  uncompounded  ele- 
ment of  mental  life  may  be  further  illustrated,  in  the  case  of  the  sensations, 
by  taking  some  suitable  instance  and  ijerforming  the  required  analysis.  For 
example,  when  we  close  our  eyes  and  allow  the  after-images  of  what  we  have 
just  been  looking  at  to  die  wholly  away,  we  have  before  us  a  sort  of  light- 
and  color-mass,  composed  of  rapidly  shifting  factors  and  having  only  a  vague, 
indefinito  outline  of  extension.  Let  i;s  now  keep  the  eyes  motionless,  and 
abstracting  attention  from  the  other  parts  of  the  field,  fixate  it  upon  some 
portion  of  this  "mass"  which  happens  for  the  moment  to  have  a  similar 
color — e.g.,  the  pinkish  or  purplish  center  of  the  field.  We  shall  never 
see  this  color  otherwise  than  as  "  spread  over"  this  portion  of  the  field  ;  as 
a  qnnlity — that  is  to  say — belonging  to  the  extended  color-mass.  Moreover, 
if  we  focus  discriminating  attention  upon  some  minuter  subdivision  of  the 
central  field,  we  shall  see  it  break  up  into  smaller  and  yet  smaller  subdivis- 
ions which  differ,  not  only  in  their  locality  as  points  within  the  field,  but 
also  in  the  precise  color  which  they  have  as  comiiared  with  other  contiguous 
l^oints.  Abstracting  again  our  attention  from  the  relations  of  locality  and 
similarity  or  dissimilarity  of  color-tone,  we  may  focus  attention  upon  what 
some  one  of  these  minutest  discernible  factors  of  the  color-mass  is,  con- 
sidered not  as  a  local  point  in  the  whole  extended  surface,  but  as  an  affec- 
tion of  our  consciousness — what  it  is  in  itself  as  a  simple  and  jjurely  sub- 
jective modification.  Thus  regarded,  it  may  be  said  to  be  as  near  as  we  can 
come  to  an  introspective  analysis  of  the  simple  sensations  of  color,  regarded 
as  factors,  or  elements,  of  complex  psychical  states. 

And  now  we  may  summon  all  the  resom-ces  of  modern  psycho-physical 
science  to  tell  us  under  precisely  what  conditions  of  })hysioal  stimulus  (wave- 
lengths of  light),  irritation  of  the  retina,  photo-chemical  changes  in  the  pig- 
ments, activity  of  the  rods  and  cones,  of  the  oj^tic  nerve  and  optic  tracts,  of 
the  appropriate  regions  of  the  brain,  etc.,  this  particular  form  of  subjective 
mo^fication  takes  place.  We  may  also  discover  under  what  conditions  it 
fuses  with  other  colors ;  by  what  stages,  and  according  to  what  laws,  it  and 


92 


SENSATION  :     ITS   NATURE   AND   CLASSES 


they  all  come  to  be  regarded,  not  as  subjective  modifications  but  as  qualities 
of  things  ;  and,  finally,  what  are  the  more  general  relations  under  which  the 
entire  experience  of  light-  and  color-sensation  stands  to  our  experience 
through  the  other  senses,  and  to  the  total  development  of  mental  life.  Thus 
does  science  make  use  of  what  it  has  obtained  by  pressing  its  analysis  to  the 
furthest  possible  limit,  in  order  to  discharge  its  duty  as  science  in  the 
explanation  of  the  genesis  and  evolution  of  states  of  consciousness. 

This  illustration,  taken  from  one  form  of  sensation,  involves  nothing 
peculiar  to  the  particular  class  of  sensations  from  which  it  is  taken.  For 
every  "  state  of  consciousness,  as  such,"  comes  before  us  with  the  claim  to 
be  investigated  as  resulting  from  the  synthesis,  or  fusion,  of  an  indefinite 
number  of  the  primary  elements  of  all  mental  life. 


It  follows  from  what  lias  just  been  said  that  a  Simple  Sensa- 
tion is  a  coiivenient  abstraction  of  psycliological  science.  It  is  one 
of  those  theoretical  factors  into  which  analysis — partly  by  in- 
trospection, but  chiefly  by  experiment  and  abstract  reasoning- 
breaks  up  the  complexes  which  have  the  predominating  char- 
acteristics of  all  our  sense-experience.  The  reality  which  corre- 
sponds to  the  term  differs  from  the  somewhat  similar  fiction  (the 
so-called  "  atoms,")  of  physical  science.  The  reality  in  the  case 
of  psychological  analj^sis  is  not  an  assumed  entity ;  it  is  a  partial, 
and  oftentimes  it  may  be,  a  very  obscure  or  sub-conscious  proc- 
ess, which  has  its  being  only  in  the  temporary  contribution 
which  it  makes,  as  such  process,  to  the  total  complexion  of  the 
stream  of  consciousness.  Those  processes  of  our  sense-experi- 
ence which  we  are  unable  in  any  way  to  regard  as  composite,  or 
as  analyzable  into  still  more  nearly  ultimate  factors,  we  are  en- 
titled to  call  "  simple  sensations."  About  them  as  such,  psj^cho- 
logical  investigation  raises  certain  inquiries  as  to  their  nature, 
classification,  organic  and  physical  pre-conditions,  specific  qual- 
ities, changing  quantity,  and  fitness  to  be  objectified  as  sensible 
properties  of  things. 

The  Nature  of  Sensation  must  invariably  be  considered  by 
psychology  from  its  own  independent  point  of  view.  For  this 
science — we  have  seen — takes  account  of  sense-experience  only 
as  it  consists  of  states  of  consciousness,  to  be  described  and  ex- 
plained, as  such.  Only  psychic  factors  can  enter  into  psychic 
states.  Only  mental  j^rocosses  can  be  regarded  as  constituent  ele- 
m(nits  of  the  stream  of  conscious  life.  It  follows,  then,  that  not 
only  the  external  physical  stimuli  which  act  upon  the  organs  of 
sense,  and  the  elaboration  of  such  stimuli  by  these  org-ans,  but 
also  the  nerve-procossos  in  the  organs,  must  all  be  regarded  as 
alike  the  physical  preconditions  of  sensation.  The  sensaf0>vs 
arise  only  in  the  purely  psychical  realm,  as  modifications  of  the 


THE   NATURE   OF   SENSATION  93 

strtiiiin  of  consciousness.  Tlioy  neither  are,  nor  are  like,  the 
stinuili  or  tlie  resulting-  nerve-commotions  which  form  the  ordi- 
nary physical  pre-contlition  of  their  origin.  It  is,  therefore,  not 
only  impertinent  but  even  absurd,  from  the  psychologist's  point 
of  view,  to  speak  of  sensations  as  "  propagated "  from  the  pe- 
ri])heral  organs  to  the  brain,  or  as  "elaborated"  in  either  the 
lower  or  the  higher  regions  of  the  latter  organ.  The  essential 
Jiature  of  sensation  is  understood  only  when  we  make  clear  to 
ourselves  that  it  is  not  a  physical  or  physiological  process. 

Further,  sensations  are  not  regarded  by  psychology  as  prop- 
erties or  (lualities  of  extra-mental  and  extended  things.  How 
tliey  stand  related  to  objects  of  i^erception — to  sensible,  perceived 
things — it  is  the  business  of  psychological  investig-ation  to  dis- 
cover. But,  as  psychology  regards  tlieiu,  sensations  are  in,  and 
of,  the  conscious  mental  life  of  the  perceiver ;  they  are  not  quali- 
ties of  things,  regarded  as  physics  and  chemistry  regard  things, 
in  their  being  as  extended  and  external,  or  out  of  the  perceiving 
mind.  For  this  reason  it  is  that  psychology  has  constantly  to 
contend  for  its  points  of  view,  both  against  those  who  would 
identify  nervous  processes  with  psychical  processes,  and  also 
against  those  who  would  identify  the  sense-experience  of  mind 
with  the  properties  of  extra-mental  realities.  The  psychologi- 
cal point  of  view  differs  both  from  that  of  physical  science  and 
from  that  of  so-called  "common  sense." 

In  all  conception  of  the  nature  of  sensation,  from  the  psycho- 
logical point  of  view,  we  are  obliged  then  to  make  an  appeal, 
either  direct  or  indirect,  to  c6nsciousness.  This  appeal  takes  us 
'in  two'tlirectioris,  according  as  we  emphasize  the  w^ell-known  con- 
ditions under  which  dur  sense-experience  ordinarily. originates  ; 
or,  on  the,other  hand,  emphasize  the  part  which  such  sense-ex- 
perience plays  in  the  development  of  knowledge.  Proceeding  in 
the  former  direction  we  may  say:.  A  sensathm^is  tl tat  peculiar 
modification  of  consciousness  luliich  is  ordinarily  developed  on  occa- 
sion of  the.  excitonerit  of  somh  organ  of  sense  hy  the  actio?i  upon  it  of 
e-rternal  stimidi.  And  liere,^  what  the  peculiar  modification  of 
consciousness  is — the  psychic  fact,  "  as  such  " — can  be  known 
only  by  a  direct  appeal  to  consciousness.  But  if  we  i)roceed  in 
the  direction  of  the  relation  which  our  sense-experience  Sustains 
to  our  knowledge  of  things,  we  may  say,  sensations  are  those  pecul- 
iar modifications  of  our  consciousness  hy  which  the  nature  of  sen- 
sible ohjects  is  made  hioton  to  us.  Subjectively  considered,  my 
sensations  are  m,ine,  affections  of  my  mind  as  truly  as  are  my 
feelings  of  grief,  desire,  weariness,  or  of  patriotism,  benevolence, 
malevolence,  and  the  like.     Subjectively  considered,  their  pecul- 


94  SENSATION  :     ITS   NATURE   AND   CLASSES 

iarity  consists  in  their  dependence,  as  forth-puttings  of  mind, 
upon  the  activity  of  certain  bodily  organs  ;  this  view,  in  its  turn, 
emphasizes  the  passivity  of  the  sensation-processes.  Objectively 
considered,  the  sensations  are  markedly  unlike  my  feelings  of 
grief  or  of  patriotism ;  objectively  considered,  they  are  poten- 
tial factors  of  all  presentations  of  sense— elements  of  mental 
life,  to  be  sure,  which  become  objectified,  as  my  feelings  and 
thoughts  cannot,  in  the  form  of  qualities  of  perceived  things. 

3  2.  No  explanation  or  remonstrance  can  make  the  habit  of  confusing  the 
psycho-physical  conditions  of  sensation  with  the  being  or  nature  of  sensation 
more  inappropriate  than  it  appears  at  first  glance.  This  remark  applies  in 
criticism  not  only  to  those  who,  like  Claude  Bernard  and  Lewes,  speak  of 
the  contraction  of  living  tissue  as  a  "  sentient "  process  ;  or  like  Dr.  Mauds- 
ley  and  Comte  identify  physiology  and  psychology  throughout ;  or,  like  M. 
Gerdy  define  sensation  as  "  the  change  that  takes  place  in  the  organ  aftected 
under  the  influence  of  an  excitation."  It  applies  almost  equally  to  those 
who,  like  Mr.  Spencer,  rely  for  their  explanation  and  description  of  the  sim- 
pler recognizable  sensations,  upon  the  " aggregation  " and  "agglomeration" 
of  "  nerv6u3  shocks,"  after  the  fashion  of  the  combination  of  material  atoms 
into  molecules,  etc.  It  must  be  distinctly  understood  that  whenever  we 
speak  of  the  "fusion"  of  sensations  in  "sensation-complexes,"  we  speak  of 
purely  psychical  processes,  resembling  in  quality  known  phases  of  actual 
states  of  consciousness.  In  other  words,  the  terms  are  psychological  and 
refer  to  relations  accomplished  in  the  stream  of  consciousness,  and  not  in 
the  physical  substratum  by  "  overlappings  "  of  central  nerve-commotions, 
and  the  like. 

Far  less  reprehensible  is  the  jioint  of  view  taken  by  writers  like  Volk- 
mann.  This  author  (I.,  I  32)  regards  sensation  as  a  state  developed  by  the 
soul  (a  forth-putting  of  soul)  in  reaction  upon  entering  into  relation  with 
some  form  of  external  being — the  so-called  stimulus.  This  conception  of 
sensation  assumes,  to  be  sure,  the  existence  of  the  soul  as  a  real  being  cap- 
able of  entering  upon  its  own  place  and  doing  its  own  work,  as  it  were, 
in  the  world  of  real  beings.  On  account  of  its  quasi-metaphysical  implica- 
tions wo  prefer  not  to  introduce  it  in  discussions  that  belong  to  scientific 
psychology.  But  in  so  far  as  the  conception  insists  upon  tlie  puvehi  psi/- 
cliicdl  nature  of  sensation,  it  is  indispensable  to  the  point  of  view  demanded 
by  psychological  science.  We  agree  with  this  author  in  regarding  sensation 
as  a  mental  process,  which  is  not  to  be  identified  with  the  correlated  process 
in  the  nerve-fibers.  And  if  we  raise  the  question  whether  it  is  to  be  con- 
sidered as  activity  or  passivity,  the  answer  may  be  given  in  either  way 
according  to  our  point  of  view. 

Few  words  are  used  in  a  more  confused  and  vacillating  manner  by  jisy- 
chologists  than  the  word  "  sensation."  The  further  exj^lanations  necessary 
to  define  our  use,  and  to  make  clear  the  distinction  between  sensation  and 
sensuous  feeling,  or  between  sensation  and  sensuous  cognition,  etc.,  miast 
await  their  proper  time. 

§  3.  The  twofold  reference  of  every  sensation  —  as  a  state  induced  in  us 


THE   NATURE   OF   SENSATION  96 

by  the  action  of  stimuli  upon  the  organs  of  sense,  and  also  as  an  item  of  in- 
formation concerning  the  qiiality  belonging  to  the  object  of  sense — must  be 
recognized  by  all  psychological  theory.  Thus,  as  Kabier  says : '  "It  has 
been  customary  to  understand  by  sensation  the  tout  ensemble  of  psychical 
])henomena  (repi'esentative  or  aftective,  with  little  or  no  distinction)  which 
results  immediideh/  from  an  impression  made  upon  the  organs  of  sense." 
And  a  German  writer,"  who  sets  out  to  establish  a  new  doctrine  of  mind  upon 
a  physiological  basis,  reminds  us  that  sensation  is  "no- mere  passivity,  but  a 
reacting  impulse."  Still  another  author,''  after  incautiously  defining  sensa- 
tion as  "  the  becoming-conscious"  of  organic  impression,  goes  on  to  say  that 
this  becoming-conscious  itself  presupposes  that  the  organic  impression 
arouses  or  solicits  the  soul  to  acti\aty.  "  This  arousenient  of  the  Pnyche  it 
is  which  we  designate  as  sensation." 

By  our  recognition  of  both  the  passive  and  the  active  side  of  eveiy  i^roc- 
ess  of  sensation  we  get  a  completer  view  of  the  nature  of  all  sensation. 
Every  sensatipn  is  a  i^sychieal  act,  conditioned  upon  the  senses  being  affect- 
ed by  external  stimuli  in  a  particular  way.  Thus,  though  we  are  active  in 
having  the  sensation,  and  the  sensation  is,  in  its  essential  nature,  a  psychical 
activity,  it  is  also  of  the  nature  of  an  "  impression  "  made  upon  us  through 
changes  in  that  which  is  not  our  activity.  This  twofold  nature — this  capac- 
ity to  be  regarded  either  as  an  impression  received  from  without,  or  as  a 
peculiar  activity  arising  from  within — belongs  to  all  our  sense-experience. 

§  4.  It  is  by  no  means  without  significance  that  sensations  have  been  de- 
scribed as  those  peculiar  modifications  of  consciousness  which  are  '^ordi- 
narily "  developed  in  dependence  lapon  the  excitement  of  the  end-organs  of 
sense  by  external  stimuli.  Further  detailed  investigation  shows  that  the 
appropriate  excitement  of  the  central  organs  is  the  real  and  final  physiologi- 
cal precondition  of  sensation.  For  if  the  sensory  tracts  h'ing  between  the 
organs  of  sense  and  the  brain  are  impaired,  no  psychical  impression  is  made, 
no  psychical  activity  arises  corresponding  to  the  peculiar  function  of  the 
organs  of  sense.  The  excited  eye  cannot  arouse  the  sensations  of  color, 
unless  the  optic  tracts  are  entire  ;  the  irritated  ear  causes  no  sensations  of 
sound,  unless  the  auditory  tracts  are  capable  of  action.  Moreovei\ experi- 
ments in  extirpation  upon  the  brains  of  the  low-er  animals,  and  obsCTvation 
of  the  effects  of  disease  in  fnan,  show  that  to  disturb  or  to  destroy  certain 
cerebral  centers  is  to  disturb  or  to  destroy  the  capacity  for  certain  classes 
of  sensations.  Still  further  the  excitement  of  the  brain  by  internal  stimuli 
— as  alcohol,  narcotic  drugs,  etc.,  or  the  changed  character  of  the  blood 
through  the  decomposition-products  of  fever — results  in  hallucinations  ;  but 
hallucinations  are  sensation-states  having, '  wholly  or  in  part,  the  "objec- 
tivity" ordinarily  obtained  only  by  irritation  of  the  end-organs  of  sense  by 
external  stimuli.  And,  finally,  in  certain  dreams  and  other  vivid  activity  of 
the  image-making  faculty,  all  discernible  distinction  disappears  between 
sensations  peripherally  excited  and  mental  images  originating  in  internal 
stimulation.  Indeed,  the  very  boundaries  between  sense  and  memory  and 
memory  and  imagination  will  be  seen  to  be  shifting  and  stretched  over 
debatable  ground. 

'  Lcf-ons,  etc.  I.  Peychologie,  p.  91  f.         '  Honvicz  :  Psychologische  Analyeen,  i,  p.  305  f. 
3  Kaulich  :  Ilandbuch  d.  Ppychologie,  p.  20  f. 


96  SENSATION  :     ITS   NATURP:   AND   CLASSES 

A  preliminary,  gross  Classification  of  tlie  Sensations  may  best 
be  made  on  the  basis  of  the  particular  org-aus  iu  whose  activity 
those  nerve-processes  originate  which  furnish  the  ordinary  physi- 
cal conditions  of  sensation.  Hence  the  i^opular  classification 
leading  to  the/y<?  senses  of  smell,  taste,  hearing,  sight,  and  touch 
— or  sensations  of  the  nose,  mouth,  ear,  eye,  and  skin  (especially 
of  the  hand  in  active  touch).  Even  in  such  imperfect  and  pre- 
liminary classification,  however,  two  things  of  importance  must 
be  recognized.  First,  the  combined  activity  of  several  of  these 
organs  results  in  the  simultaneous  production  of  several  kinds 
of  sensation  which  fuse  together  in  the  total  result  ascribed  to 
each  organ.  This  is  always  the  case  with  two  or  more  organs 
whose  activity  is  excited  in  close  local  or  temporal  connection. " 
For  example,  a  large  part  of  the  "  taste  "  of  sapid  substances  re- 
ceived into  the  mouth  is  really  smell  (is  due  to  activity  of  the 
adjoining  nasal  organ);  and  in  many  instances,  tactual  and  mus- 
cular sensations  form  no  unimportant  factor  of  our  "  sensation- 
complexes  "  referred  to  taste.  In  particular  what  we  see,  re- 
garded merely  as  sensations  received  through  activity  of  the  eye, 
is  far  more  than  mere  light  and  color.  Here  again,  tactual  and 
muscular  sensations  blend  with  those  sensations  which  are  more 
ol)viously  ascribed  to  the  visual  organ.  But,  second,  modern 
l)sychology — especially  in  the  interests  of  a  satisfactory  theory  of 
perception  by  the  senses — finds  it  necessary  to  extend  the  pop- 
ular classification,  even  while  keeping  it  upon  a  similar  basis. 
This  is  done  by  recognizing  fundamental  distinctions  in  the  sen- 
sations ascribed  to  the  skin  ;  and  also  by  adding  at  least  two 
other  classes  of  sensations  orginating  in  activity  of  organs  not 
recognized  by  the  popular  division.  Thus  we  have  sensations 
of  temperature,  of  the  muscles,  and  of  the  joints. 

The  Causes  of  the  different  Classes  of  Sensations,  so  far  as 
we  can  discover  them  at  all,  are  partly  physical  and  physiologi- 
cal, partly  psychical.  So  far  as  they  belong  to  the  former  order 
they  are  (1)  the  physical  constitution  of  the  organ,  which  enables 
it  to  transmit  and  modify  appropriately  some  particular  kind  of 
physical  stimulus  (light,  sound,  heat,  mechanical  pressure, 
chemical  changes,  etc.) ;  (2)  the  histological  structure  and  pecul- 
iar x)h>'siological  function  of  the  truly  nervous  parts  of  the  pe- 
ripheral organ — which  parts  receive  the  modified  stimiTlus  and 
convert  it  into  a  nervous  process,  a  nerve-commotion,  that  origi- 
nates in  the  end-organs  and  is  capable  of  proi:)agation  along  the 
nerve-tracts  to  the  central  organs ;  and  (3)  the  histological 
structure  and  peculiar  physiological  function  of  the  central  or- 
gans,  which   receive   the   incoming  nerve-processes   and  pro- 


CLASSIFICATION   OF   SENSATIONS  97 

fouiulh'  modify  them,  by  central  processes  of  elaborating,  inhi- 
bitinu",  combining-,  adjusting,  etc.  It  is,  then,  as  has  alread}'  been 
intimated,  to  the  ditiering  processes  in  the  brain  that  we  must 
look  for  the  ^finai'  phj'siological  explanation  of  the  difierent 
kinds  of  sensation. 

The  psychical  causes  of  the  different  kinds  of  sensation  are 
to  be  found  in  mental  habit,  varying  distribution  of  attention, 
acuteness  of  the  power  of  discriminating  judgment,  etc.  But 
below  and  behind  all  kinds  of  explanations  stands  the  unex- 
plained. In  our  attempts  to  give  causes  for  the  different  kinds 
of  sensations  we  soon  came  upon  ultimate  facts,  for  which  no 
cause  can  be  given.  It  is  a  fact  that  when  certain  nerve-proc- 
esses, the  nature  of  which  we  can  guess  at  with  more  or  less  con- 
fidence, take  place  in  the  brain  center  X,  the  sensations  S  (A), 
which  we  call  "  auditor}',"  arise  in  consciousness  and  run  through 
a  series  of  changes,  such  as  S  (A),^  S  (A)-  S  (A),''  etc.  It  is 
also  a  fact  that  when  other,  presumably  different,  nerve-proc- 
esses arise  in  another  brain-center  y",,tlie  totally  different  sen- 
sations ^S  /  F";j,  v?hich  we  call  "  visual,"  arise  in  consciousness 
and  run  through  a  series  of  changes,  such  as  S  (V)a.,  S  (  Vj/3, 
S  (  T  ^y,  etc.  '  But  why  nerve-processes  of  the  order  X,  in  one 
cerebral  center,  should  give  rise  to  the  kind  of  sensations, 
»  8  fA),  and  its  peculiar,  series,  and  nerve-processes  of  the  order 
Y.  in  aiiother  cerebral  center,  should  give  rise  to  another  kind 
of . sensation,  S  fVj,  and  its  peculiar  series;  why  also  cerebral 
processes  should  give  rise  to  psychical  processes  of  sensation, 
at  all — these  are  questions,  about  the  answer  to  which  we,  at 
present,  know  nothing  whatever ;  nor  does  it  seem  in  the  least 
degree  likely  that  we  shall  ever  know  the  answers  to  questions 
like  these.. 

^  5.  It  should  he  understood  in  tliis  connection,  in  a  preliminary  wav, 
that  the  different  sensations  stand  in  very  different  relations  to  the  develoi^- 
ment  of  sensati«m^xi:)5H-ience.  Iti  the  origin  andgro.wth  of  this  form  of 
mental  life*;  the  tactual  and  mnscnlar  sensations  are  fundamental  and  uni- 
versally present.  T^iology  is  accustomed  to  refer  this  fact  to  the  character 
of  the  evolution  of  animal  species.  And  certain  it  is  that  some  kind  of  sen- 
sitive integument  responding"  to  external  stimuli  (an  ectnsarc,  or  rudimentaiy 
skin)  belongs  to  the  very  lowest  kinds  of  animal  and  psychical  life.  In  that 
line  of  development  in  which  man  belongs,  a  muscular  system,  under  the 
responsive  control  of  will  and  by  its  activity  completing  the  trijile  action 
of  the  reflex  mechanism,  seems  equally  indispensable.  Presumably,  the 
human  embryo  begins  its  conscioiTS  life,  its  first  rudimentary  organization 
of  sense-experience,  upon  a  basis  of  tactual  and  muscular  sensations  only. 
That  tactual  and  muscular  sensations  are  evoked  by  the  activity  of  all  the 
organs  of  sense,  and  that  they  enter,  in  an  important  way,  into  the  complex 
7 


98  SENSATIO;^  :     ITS    NATURE    AND    CLASSES 

resultant  of  the  activity  of  these  organs,  will  be  made  i:)erfectlv  clear  by 
subsequent  discussion  of  the  origin  and  development  of  perceptive  faculty. 

g  G.  In  the  case  of  man,  and  of  all  highly  organized  animals,  the  greater 
bulk  of  the  end-organs  of  sense — especially  of  the. eye  and  ear — has  a  me- 
chanical significance  only.  That  is  to  say,  the  sense-organ  is  chiefly  an  in- 
genious contrivance  for  modifying  the  external  stimulus,  and  for  conveying 
it  to  the  nerve-elements  in  such  manner  as  to  excite  them  to  their  peculiar 
nervous  function.  Biologically  considered,  the  end-organs  [epidermis  and 
most  important  parts  of  the  special  organs  of  sense)  develoj)  from  the  same 
embryonic  layer  ("epiblast")  from  which  come  the  central  organs  of  the 
nervous  system.  With  respect  to  its  minute  structure  and  function,  every 
organ  of  sense  may  be  considered  as  a  sjiecial  modification  of  the  sui^erficial 
cells,  adapting  them  to  the  diflferent  kinds  of  stimuli.  Every  such  organ, 
therefore,  looks  both  outward  and  inward  ;  it  is  a  "mediator"  between  the 
nerve-commotion  of  the  nervous  system  and  the  various  forms  of  physical ' 
energy  which  are  to  be  adapted  so  as  to  excite  this  system. 

§  7.  It  may  be  assumed  that  the  nerve-tracts,  which  lie  on  the  way  to 
the  higher  central  organs,  do  not  modify  the  nature  of  the  nerve-process 
which  gives  rise  to  sensations.  But  what  is  called  the  "localization  of 
cerebral  function  "  has  shown  that  the  different  areas  of  the  brain  have  dif- 
ferent relations  to  the  diflferent  kinds  of  our  sensation-experience.  For 
example,  the  "optic  thalami"  in  the  lower  regions  of  the  brain,  and  the 
"superior  occii)ital  convolutions"  in  the  cerebral  hemispheres,  sustain  a 
peculiar  relation  to  the  origin  and  development  of  visual  sensations.  Phys- 
iological science  is  beginning  to  connect  different  portions  of  the  general 
visual  brain-area  with  particular  portions  of  the  retinal  field.  We  know 
also  what  regions  of  the  hemispheres— namely,  those  about  the  "  Fissure  of 
Sylvius  " — are  chiefly  concerned  in  the  elaboration  of  impressions  that  give 
rise  to  the  sensations  of  hearing.  Nay,  more,  this  science  differences  the 
psychical  functions  employed  in  the  utterance  or  interpretation  of  thought 
as  expressed  in  language,  and  "  locates  "  the  areas  chiefly  concerned  in  each 
of  these  different  psychical  functions.  Sensations  of  touch,  taste,  smell, 
and  temperature,  are  also — though,  as  yet,  with  less  of  certainty  and  exact- 
ness— being  "localized."  This  is  all  to  be  understood  simply  as  pointing 
out  those  particular  regions  of  the  brain  where  the  physiological  pre-con- 
ditions or  causes  of  the  diflferent  sensation-processes  are  fulfilled.  Sensa- 
tions themselves  remain  as  trialy  psychical  and  distinguishable,  in  kind,  only 
by  a  process  of  pure  introspection  as  they  ever  were. 

Meantime,  inquiry  goes  on  as  to  the  peculiar  nature  of  those  processes  in 
which  the  "  physical  basis"  of  the  diflferent  kinds  of  sensation  is,  as  it  were, 
laid.  But  here  the  results  of  experimentation,  observation,  and  application  of 
general  biological  facts  to  the  particular  case  of  the  human  brain,  have  re- 
sulted in  little  really  scientific  information.  We  know  far  better  than  we 
knew  twenty  years  ago  where  in  the  different  regions  of  the  brain,  some  pe- 
culiar process  called  a  "  nerve-commotion "  takes  place  when  each  of  the 
different  main  classes  of  sensations  "occupies"  the  field  of  consciousness. 
But  wo  know  sc^arcely  any  better  than  we  did  twenty  years  ago  preciseh/  what 
takes  place  in  the  diflferent  brain -areas,  and  forms  the  common  basis  for  our 
sensation-experience.     Wo  do  not  know  at  all  in  what  respect  the  nerve-proc- 


SENSATIONS   OF   SMELL  99 

esses  corresponding  to  sensations  of  color  differ  from  those  corresponding 
to  sensations  of  sound.' 

g  8.  Tlio  realm  of  the  unexplained,  the  realm  of  mystery  consisting  in 
actual  and  acknowledged  fact,  spreads  widely  over  this  whole  subject  of  in- 
vestigation. •The  reasons  why  inif  centntl  nervous  system  should  be  excited, 
through  the  end-organs  of  sense,  by  acoustic  waves  lying  within  a  certain 
range,  and  not  by  those  lying  beyond  this  range,  by  vibrations  of  luuiiuiferous 
ether  so  many  billions  to  the  second,  and  not  by  a  smaller  or  greater  number 
of  vibrations,  by  etHuvia  of  a  certain  unknown  constitution,  and  not  by  others 
of  a  dirterent  constitution,  etc.,  are  doubtless  to  be  found  in  the  molecular 
structure  of  the  nervous  organism  itself.  But  why  /should  resjjond  in  one 
instance  with  the  sensation  of  red,  in  another  with  the  sensation  of  yellow, 
etc.  ;  or  now  with  a  sensation  of  a\>,  and  now  with  a  sensation  of  ctr;  or 
should  put  forth  the  sensation  called  "  smell  of  a  rose  "  when  I  hold  in  my 
hand  one  flowei",  and  "  smell  of  a  heliotrope  "  when  I  approacli  another 
flower — all  this  must  be  accepted  as  inexplicable  matter  of  fact.  Nor  do 
the  attemjits  thus  far  made  to  reduce  these  facts  to  any  system  under  the 
terms  of  "  mechanics  of  the  sensations  "  seem  at  all  likely  to  succeed.^ 

Sensations  of  Smell  are  those  peculiar  modifications  of  con- 
sciousness which  are  the  characteristic  result  of  exciting-  the  end- 
org-ans  of  the  nose.  In  g-eneral,  bodies  which  excite  these  sen- 
sations must  give  off  some  form  of  effluvia  or  odorous  reek.  The 
stimulus  of  the  organs  is  then  applied  as  it  is  borne  to  them  in 
g-aseous  form — usually  the  current  of  air — and  is  made  with  more 
or  less  force  to  pass  over  them,  almost  exclusively  in  the  act  of 
inspiration.  Smells  are  g-enerally  said  to  be  "  unclassifiable  "  ; 
that  is  to  say,  each  smellable  object  has  its  own  peculiar  smell, 
and  consequently  we  can  only  describe  the  smell  by  reference  to 
the  object.  We  cannot  "  sort  out  "  smells  into  classes,  as  we  can 
colors  into  red,  green,  blue,  and  the  like.  Recent  investigations 
point  in  the  direction  of  a  possible  classification  of  smells  on  the 
basis  of  the  chemical  constitution  of  the  objects  occasioning-  them. 
It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  even  thus  we  should  not 
classify  the  sensations,  "  as  such."  No  symbolism,  such  as  that 
of  the  line,  the  triangle,  etc.,  is  applicable  to  the  sensations  of 
this  sense.  In  all  our  actual  experience,  however,  the  sensations 
of  smell — and  especially  when  they  are  at  all  intense — are  fused 
with  more  or  less  wide-spreading-  tactual,  muscular,  and  organic 
sensations — the  latter  often  reaching  well  down  the  digestive 
canal. 

J  9.  More  precisely  the  end-organs  of  smell  are  certain  nervous  struct- 
ures scattered  over  the  mucous  membrane  in  the  upper  region  of  the  nasal 

»  On  all  these  and  other  connected  subjects,  see  the  author's  Elements  of  Physiological  Psy- 
chology, pp.  1-302. 

2  Comp.  Medeni's  Grundziige  einer  esacten  Psychologie,  I.,  Die  Mechanik  der  Empfindungen. 


100  SEISTSATION"  :     ITS   NATURE   ATSTD   CLASSES 

cavity  (the  regio  olfactoria).  Here  the  efHuvia  contained  in  the  inspired  cur- 
rent of  air  are  forced  against  the  processes  of  the  olfactory  cells  and  start  in 
them  the  nerve-commotion  which  is  propagated  along  the  olfactory  tracts  to  the 
appropriate  lobes  of  the  brain.  That  fluids  applied  immediately  to  the  olfac- 
tory regions  cannot  be  smelled  has  been  asserted,  but  is  probably  not  strictly 
true.  Gold  fish,  it  is  said,  will  not  touch  eggs  when  saturated  with  olive-oil 
or  asafoetida.'  It  is  doubtful  whether  these  sensations,  jiroper,  can  be 
excited  by  electrical  stimulation.  Subjective  sensations  of  smell— some- 
times symptomatic  of  oncoming  insanity — are  possible  ;  and  inability  to 
smell  may  be  due  either  to  the  condition  of  the  end-orgaa  (as  in  the  well- 
known  case  of  "  loss  of  smell,"  with  a  "  cold"),  or  to  atrophy  of  the  connect- 
ing nerves  and  brain-center.^ 

Since  the  interesting  discovery  of  Eomieu,  in  1756,  that  very  small  bits 
of  cami^hor  on  the  surface  of  water  have  a  curious  rotary  motion,  the  same 
j)henomenon  has  been  noticed  by  a  number  of  observers  in  several  hundred 
odorous  substances  of  either  vegetable  or  animal  structure.  This,  of  course, 
strengthens  the  belief  that  the  stimulus  of  smell  is  thrown  off  from  these 
substances  in  the  form  of  invisible  and  imponderable  particles.  If  pajier  be 
tied  in  front  of  the  nostrils  of  dogs,  they  cannot  "  track  "  game  or  follow 
their  masters  by  the  sense  of  smell. 

The  difficulty  of  classifying  smells,  chemically,  is  enhanced  by  the  fact 
that  chemists  differ  much  concerning  the  smell  of  the  same  substances. 
Moreover,  only  a  few  of  the  elements  have  any  characteristic  smell ;  and, 
perhaps,  not  these  when  in  a  perfectly  pure  state.  It  is  said  that  artificial 
perfumes  are,  in  general,  binary  and  tertiary  compounds,  in  which  the  num- 
ber of  the  equivalents  of  hydrogen  diminishes  in  relation  to  the  number  of 
equivalents  of  carbon.^  Products  less  rich  in  hydrogen  form  an  "  aromatic 
series."  On  the  other  hand,  substances  not  analogous  in  chemical  composition 
are  sometimes  alike  in  smell.  Thus,  vapor  of  arsenic  smells  like  garlic  ;  and 
triturated  emeralds,  rubies,  and  pearls,  give  off  an  odor  of  violets. 

In  general,  this  lowest,  most  animal,  least  intellectual  of  the  sensations  is 
peciiliarly  baffling  of  all  attempts  to  reduce  it  to  terms  of  science.  In  the 
developed  and  cultivated  human  species,  smell  has  come  to  be,  for  the  most 
part,  of  the  nature  of  an  fosthetical  advantage  or  affliction,  rather  than  a 
means  of  accurate  knowledge.  But  in  the  lower  and  less  cultivated  phases 
of  animal  life  it,  by  the  prompt  and  accurate  information  it  furnishes,  serves 
as  a  most  im})ortant  factor  in  the  preservation,  projiagation,  and  evolution 
of  the  individual  and  of  the  species. 

Our  scientific  knowleclg-e  of  Sensations  of  Taste  is  somewhat 
more  capable  of  being- satisfactorily  exhibited  than  that  of  the  ol- 
factory sensations.  The  org-an  by  whose  activity  these  sensa- 
tions are  occasioned  is  the  ton2:ue  and — at  least  in  some  cases — 
the  anterior  portions  of  the  soft  palate.     In  g-eneral,  onl}'^  fluid 

'  See  the  jTronncls  on  which  Aronsohn  disputes  tho  accepted  conclusions  of  Weber  and  others. 
Archiv  f.  Anat.  u.  Physiol.,  1S8G,  pp.  321-57. 

-  See  Dr.  Donaldson,  on  the  brain  of  Laura  Bridgman,  reprinted  from  the  American  Journal  of 
Psychology. 

^  See  M.  Henry  :    Les  Odeurs,  etc.    Paris.  1892. 


SENSATIONS   OF   TASTE    ■  101 

bodies,  or  sucli  as  fire  to  some  deg-ree  soluble,  excite  the  end- 
org-aus  of  taste.  All  gustatory  sensatious  are,  ou  account  of  the 
very  organic  activity  on  which  they  are  dependent,  connected 
with  sensations  of  smell,  touch,  muscular  sensations,  and  organic 
sensations  arising-  from  irritation  of  diU'erent  depths  of  the  diges- 
tive canal.  The  application  of  the  gustatory  stimulus  is  ordinarily 
made  by  pressing-  it  against  the  end-org-aus,  after  it  has  been 
rendered  fluid  in  the  saliva  or  in  some  other  menstruum.  What 
it  is  in  tastable  substances  which  enables  them  to  excite  the 
different  kinds  of  tastes  is  quite  unknown ;  investigation,  how- 
ever, seems  to  point  in  the  direction  of  connecting  their,  gusta- 
tory character  with  their  chemical  constitution. 

The  four  principal  kinds  of  taste  usually  recognized  are  the 
sweet,  the  bitter,  the  salt,  and  the  sour.  To  these  Wundt  would 
add  the  alkaline  and  the  metallic.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
all  the  "  tastes  "  of  gustable  substances  with  which  our  daily  ex- 
perience makes  us  familiar  are  compounds  ;  many  of  these  com- 
pounds may  be  regarded  as  resolvable  into  these  six  so-called 
simple  tastes.  The  peculiar  "  shading  "  of  sensation  which  a 
large  number  of  substances  produce,  when  introduced  into  the 
mouth,  is  due  to  the  smell  they  excite.  Yet  we  agree  with  those 
who  deny  that  all  kinds  of  taste,  even  after  abstracting  the  sen- 
sations of  smell  with  which  they  are  fused,  can  be  brought  under 
these  six  classes.  The  number  of  kinds  of  taste  is  thus  some- 
what indefinite  ;  although  gustatory  sensations  lend  themselves 
to  classification  much  better  than  do  the  kindred  sensations  of 
smell. 

OO.  The  special  end-organs  of  taste  are  certain  "  gustatory  flasks  "  or 
"  bulbs  "  contained  in  pa^iVte  that  are  scattered  over  the  regions  already 
mentioned.  1  Gustable  substances  when  brought  near  these  papillae  excite 
secretion  of  the  glands  which  serves  for  continual  cleansing  of  the  papillae 
and  for  washing  away  the  dissolved  substances.  The  question  whetlt^r 
tastable  substances  excite  the  same  sensations  When  applied  to  diifereut  parts 
of  the  tongue  lias  been  made  a  subject  of  much  experiment ;  it  is  a  difficult 
question  to  answer  satisfactorily.  Many  seem  to  taste  sweet  and  sour  chiefly 
with  the  tip  of  the  tongue,  bitter  and  alkaline  with  its  roots."  A  certain  de- 
rivative of  saccharine  was  found  to  produce  sensations  of  bitter  when  applied 
to  the  back  part  of  the  tongue,  and  of  sweet  when  applied  to  the  tip  and  bor- 
ders of  the  anterior  half.^ 

1  The  Transactions  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  at  Cracow,  1S88  (see  Centralblatt  f.  Physiol. 
No.  12)  report  that  a  patient,  whose  whole  tousrue  had  been  removed,  retained  some  taste  caused  by 
touching  the  back  of  the  throat  or  the  mucus  of  the  stump. 

-See.  however,  Rittmeyer's  experiments  (Geschmackspriifungen,  QOttingen,  1885),  which  con- 
cluded that  the  root  loses  its  perception  of  taste  least  readily  under  drugs,  and  retains  the  power  to 
taste  bitter  best  of  all. 

2  Studies  from  the  Biolosical  Laboratory  of  Johns  Hopkins  University,  June,  1887. 


102  SKlsTl-SATION  :     ITS   NATURE   AND   CLASSES 

Some  experimeuters  have  claimed  that  they  could  taste  perfectly  dry 
gases ;  or  that  mechanical  excitation  by  rubbing,  pressing,  or  pricking,  excit- 
ed gustatory  sensations.  Both  claims  are  doubtful.  On  the  other  hand,  elec- 
trical stimulation  of  the  different  areas  of  the  tongue  does  seem  to  cause 
sensations  of  taste.  It  has  been  claimed  by  Haycraft  {Brain,  July,  1887)  that 
tastable  bodies  are  surrounded  by  an  atmosphere,  as  it  were,  of  vibrating 
matter;  and  that  the  peculiar  character  of  the  sensation  aroused  depends 
upon  the  pitch  and  complexity  of  these  vibrations.  Moreover,  all  the  solu- 
ble chlorides  are  said  to  have  a  salt-like  taste  ;  and  this  becomes  more  saline 
and  develops  into  a  bitter  with  the  higher  members  of  the  group.  But  the 
carbon  compounds  have  in  general  an  acid  taste ;  and  many  sweet  sub- 
stances are  alcoholic  bodies  and  contain  the  radical  CH2  OH.  Hence  we  are 
led  to  the  theory  that  similar  sapid  compounds  vibrate  in  similar  complex 
ways,  and  thus  occasion  similar  sensation-complexes  of  taste.  About  all 
this,  however,  we  are  still  much  in  the  dark. 

I  11.  It  is  altogether  too  customary  with  psychologists  to  assume  that  all 
sensations  of  taste  may  be  regarded  as  resultants  of  the  fusion  of  a  few  kinds 
of  sensation  of  this  sense  with  one  another  and  with  the  indefinite  kinds  of 
sensation  belonging  under  the  sense  of  smell.  On  the  contrary,  Horwicz  ' 
holds  that  a  large  number  of  gustatory  sensations — for  example,  like  the 
taste  of  meat,  milk,  coffee,  etc. — cannot  be  explained  in  this  way.  In  this 
opinion  we  believe  him  to  be  correct,  as  against  the  somewhat  widely  ac- 
cepted classification  of  other  psychologists. 

Sensations  of  Sound  are  those  peculiar  modifications  of  our 
sense-consciousness  wliicli  arise  when  the  auditory  nerve  is  irri- 
tated through  acoustic  waves  striking-  upon  the  ear.  This  whole 
organ  is  composed  of  three  easily  distinguishable  i^arts,  which 
are  called  respectively,  the  outer,  the  middle,  and  the  inner  ear. 
All  of  the  two  former,  and -a  large  part  of  the  latter  portions  of 
the  auditory  organ  are  serviceable  only  in  a  mechanical  way. 
They  serve,  that  is,  to  transmit  the  acoustic  excitement  while  re- 
ducing it  from  waves  in  the  air,  which  have  a  small  intensity  and 
a  great  amplitude,  to  waves  in  the  fluids  of  the  inner  ear,  which 
have  a  comiDaratively  high  intensity  but  exceedingly  small  am- 
plitude. The  inner  ear  in  which  the  specific  end-organs  of 
sound  are  situated,  is  a  very  minute  structure,  but  even  more 
complicated  and  wonderful  than  the  eye.  Besides  those  sensa- 
tions which  originate  in  stimulus  from  the  surrounding  air, 
"  entotic  "  sounds  are  by  no  means  infrequent.  These  are  due  to 
changes  going  on  within  our  own  body,  vibrations  from  which 
are  propagated  to  the  end-organs  of  the  inner  ear,  for  the  most 
part  through  the  middle  ear.  Among  them  may  be  instanced 
the  sound  of  the  beating  of  the  heart,  the  crackling  noise  some- 
times produced  by  yawning,  the  ringing  in  the  ears  when  we 

•  Ppycbolog'.sche  Analysen,  iii.,  p.  94  f. 


SENSATIONS   OF   SOUND  103 

have  taken  quinine,  the  soft  murmur  of  our  own  respiration,  or 
the  low  musical  tone  heard  when  we  press  our  ting-ers  in  our 
ears  and  set  the  muscles  of  the  jaws  to  vibrating  intensely. 

All  sounds  may  be  divided  into  two  classes — tones,  or  musi- 
cal sounds,  and  )iolse8.  The  two  are,  indeed,  apt  to  be  blended  in 
all  our  ordinary  experience  with  sounds.  Few  players,  if  any,  on 
the  violin  produce  a  perfectly  pure  note,  free  from  all  admixture 
of  scraping-  noise  ;  and  we  are  all  familiar  with  the  fact  that  the 
ax  "  rings  "  in  a  semi-musical  way,  when  it  strikes  the  tree,  and 
even  the  slamming  door  awakens  and  absorbs  musical  tones. 
The  question,  whether  one  part  of  the  inner  ear  (the  "  vesti- 
bule ")  is  the  specific  organ  of  noise,  and  another  part  (the 
"  cochlea ")  the  specific  organ  of  musical  tones,  was  for  some 
timt^.  answered  affirmatively.  And  there  is  much  in  the  structure 
of  the  two,  especially  of  the  cochlea  with  its  obvious  arrange- 
ments for  accurate  analysis  and  for  a  "  scale "  of  sensations, 
which  favors  this  view.  Since,  however,  we  can  g-et  musical 
tones  by  repeating-  noises, — e.g.,  exploding  soap-bubbles  of  hy- 
drogen, or  forcing  a  stopper  out  of  lead  pipes  of  different 
lengths,  etc. — some  investigators  have  recently  been  led  to  ar- 
gue that  we  hear  tones  and  noises  with  the  same  organ.^  More- 
over, a  series  of  short,  sharp  noises  like  a  watchman's  rattle 
can  be  made  as  many  as  six  hundred  times  a  second,  without 
producing-  a  note,  if  only  all  extra  accompanying  sounds  are 
dampened.  The  two  classes  of  sounds  can  thus  be  made  to  pass 
into  each  other  by  insensible  gradations. 

The  musical  sounds  of  oijr  ordinary  experience  are  themselves 
compound — "  sensation-complexes  "  resulting  from  a  fusion  of 
simple  sensations  in  such  a  manner  as  to  be  indistinguishable 
without  specially  trained  powers  of  analysis.  They  are  termed 
"  clangs  "  by  the  German  psychologists.  They  have  the  quality 
called  "  pitch,"  and  are  capable  of  being  arranged  in  a  scale, 
according  to  the  character  of  a  so-called  "  fundamental "  tone, 
the  lower  (in  the  scale)  and  stronger  one  of  the  sensations  of  mu- 
sical sound  which  are  fused  in  each  particular  "  clang."  They 
are  also  said  to  have  "  tirSbre,"  which  is  the  peculiar  mixture  of 
quality  dependent  upon  the  number,  relative  intensity,  and  pitch 
of  simple  tones  which  fuse  in  the  compound  tone.  It  is  by  its 
timbre  that  the  note  a\  when  sounded  on  the  piano,  differs  from 
the  same  note  when  sounded  on  the  violin  or  by  some  human 
voice. 

The  pitch  of  tones  depends  upon  the  rapidity  of  the  periodic 

1  So  Exner  concluded  in  1S7G,  and  CrTicke  has  recently  confinnod  the  view.  (See  Wien. 
Sitzgsbr.,  3d  Abth.,  1884.) 


104  SENSATION  :     ITS   NATURE   AND   CLASSES 

vibrations  (the  number  in  a  given  unit  of  time)  whicli  occasions 
them;  or — what  is  the  same  thing — upon  the  length  of  their 
acoustic  waves.  Objectively  considered,  tones  and  noises  differ 
in  that  the  former  result  from  a  periodic  regularity  of  stimula- 
tion ;  while  such  periodicity  is  wanting  to  the  stimulation  which 
occasions  sensations  of  noise.  Subjectively  considered,  the  pe- 
culiar quality  of  tones  is  in  the  pleasant  modification  of  con- 
sciousness connected  with  the  variations  in  their  pitch  and  tim- 
bre. The  sub-classes  of  tones  are  derived  from  this  quality  of 
timbre  which  all  musical  clangs  possess  ;  and  it  is  the  posses- 
sion of  this  quality  which  makes  it  possible  to  arrange  the  tones 
in  musical  "  scales  "  where  each  tone  has  its  appropriate  place 
relative  to  other  contiguous  or  remote  tones.  But  noises,  con- 
sidered apart  from  the  tones  which  blend  with  them,  lack  this 
IDeculiar  pleasant  feeling  ;  cannot  be  arranged  in  scales  accord- 
ing to  timbre  but  only  according  to  intensity  ;  and  must  be  clas- 
sified, if  at  all,  as  "  crashing,"  "  crackling,"  "  hissing,"  or  those 
very  disagreeable  "  beats  "  which  disturb  the  jaurity  of  musical 
tones. 

g  12.  The  inner  ear,  to  which  the  branches  of  the  auditory  nerve  are  dis- 
tributed and  in  which  the  nervous  end-organs  of  hearing  are  situated,  con- 
sists of  two  portions  (the  "cochlea"  and  the  "  vestibule,"  with  the  latter 
of  which  the  "semicircular  canals"  may  be  considered  as  one).  The  gene- 
ral i^roblem  which  this  organ  has  to  solve  may  be  said  to  be  a  "  problem  in 
analvsis."  In  that  most  complicated  portion  of  the  cochlea,  called  the 
"  organ  of  Corti,"  some  three  thousand  fibers  are  arranged  in  row's  upon  a 
membrane,  somewhat  like  the  keys  of  a  i^iano-forte.  Now  if  these  are  dis- 
tributed over  seven  octaves  we  have  about  thirty-three  for  each  semitone. 
Helmholtz,  therefore,  suggested  that  these  rods  are  the  organs  of  musical 
sound.  But  the  "rods  of  Corti"  do  not  seem  well  adapted  to  vibrate; 
and  birds  which  do  not  have  them,  are  capable  of  appreciating  mu^^ical  tones. 
Hensen  has  shown  that  the  membrane  (called  "  basilar  ")  on  which  the  rods 
are  set  is  itself  graded  to  pitch ;  its  individual  radii  may  therefore  act  like 
stretched  strings  to  respond  to  the  different  tones,  from  the  lowest  to  the 
highest.  Still  more  recent  investigations  '  have  led  to  the  view  that  certain 
exceedingly  minute  arches,  in  the  organ  of  Corti,  which  at  the  base  of  the 
cochlea  are  small  and  little  spread,  and  at  the  ujiper  end  are  larger  and 
much  spread,  vibrate  to  the  strings  of  the  membrane,  like  the  sounding- 
board  of  a  piano  to  its  different  strings.  What  is  certain  is  that  the  cochlea 
is  equipped  with  a  mechanism  for  analysis,  althoiigh  the  precise  action  of 
this  mechanism  is  not  yet  perfectly  understood.  Still  further,  since  we  can 
hear  some  five  hundred  or  more  times  in  a  second  (the  crackle  of  electric 
sparks  with  an  interval  of  2  a),  an  apparatus  for  promptly  "damping"  the 
sound  must  be  provided  in  the  ear. 

I  13.  The  sub-classification  of  musical  sounds,  or  the  arrangement  of  tlie 

'  See  the  rcseai-ches  of  Dr.  C.  Bruckner,  Virchow's  Archiv,  csiv..  Heft  2. 


SENSATIONS   OF   LIGHT   AND   COLOU  105 

great  variety  of  tones  disceruibly  diflferent  as  respects  quality,  requires,  of 
cH)urse,  more  or  less  of  trained  appreciation  of  ditierences  and  habitual  exer- 
cise of  the  power  of  discrimination  u^jon  one  general  form  of  sense-experi- 
ence. It  is  matter  of  fact,  however,  that  all  adults  who  are  not  tone-deaf 
seem  to  have  some  power  of  judging  differences  of  quality  in  pitch,  purely 
as  such.  The  number  of  qualitatively  unlike  sensations  of  musical  sound 
of  which  each  individual  is  capable  is  determined  by  this  power.  Such 
judgment  is,  without  doubt,  ordinarily  much  assisted  by  an  appeal  to  other 
sensations— muscular,  tactual,  even  visual — which  blend  in  our  sense-ex- 
perience with  sensations  of  musical  sound.  We  imagine  how  we  should 
sound  the  note  by  lifting  up  or  depressing  the  larynx  and  other  organs  of 
vocalization.  But  even  Jenny  Lind  could  with  difficulty  sing  in  quarter 
tones ;  while  ordinary  discrimination  of  kinds  of  pitch  and  timbre  goes 
further  than  this,  and  the  discrimination  of  trained  musicians  far  exceeds 
these  limits.  Here,  as  in  all  similar  cases,  the  general  principle  is  :  Sensa- 
tions cannot  be  discriminated  as  different  which  have  not  been  heard  as  different. 
The  natural  way  to  arrange  a  so-called  "musical  scale"  is  as  follows  : 
Given  two  tones,  as  m  and  n,  which  are  separated  by  a  plainly  discernible 
interval  (that  is,  are  known  to  be  considerably  unlike  in  kind),  one  is 
required  to  put  another  tone  in  between  them.  Between  this  newly  placed 
tone — we  will  say,  m  or  n  —and  either  vi  or  n,  one  is  now  required  to 
place  another  tone  disceruibly  different  in  kind ;  and  so  on  until  a  limit 
is  reached.  This  natural  and  inevitable  way  of  arranging  our  sensations 
of  musical  sound  may  be  pictorially  represented  by  diflferent  positions,  as- 
signed to  the  diflferent  so-called  "notes,"  along  an  uninterrupted  straight 
line;  or — as  in  writing  music — on  and  between  the  "bars"  of  modern 
musical  symbolism.  Unlike  our  experience  with  colors,  we  find  in  musical 
sounds  only  one  way  of  getting  at  the  position  of  any  particular  member  of 
the  scale ;  that  is,  we  must  slide  along  in  the  one  direction  of  the  scale. 
Whereas  there  are  two  ways  of  going  from  blue  to  yellow  {i.e.,  through  blue- 
green  and  green,  or  through  \dolet,  red,  and  orange),  there  is  only  one  way 
of  going  from  a'  to  a",  or  from  cS  to  b\>  in  the  same  octave.  We  sjieak  then, 
in  some  sort  according  to  their  very  nature,  when  wg  regard  our  various 
kinds  of  sensations  of  tone  as  constituting  a  series,  constant  and  yet  indefi- 
nite, as  respects  both  its  upper  and  its  lower  limits,  and  also  as  resjjects  the 
diflferences  discernible  by  diflferent  individuals  between  the  contiguous  mem- 
bers of  the  series. 

Sensations  of  Light  and  Color  are  tlie  characteristic  modifi- 
cations of  consciousness  occasioned  by  stimuk^ting"  the  expan- 
sion of  the  optic  nerve  within  the  ball  of  the  eye.  The  org-an  of 
vision  is  itself  largely  a  mechanical  contrivance  adapted  to  trans- 
mit and  modify  the  waves  of  light  so  that  they  may  serve  as 
proper  excitants  of  the  true  nervous  end-organs  of  sight.  The 
primary  problem  for  this  organ  is  the  formation  of  an  "  image  " 
upon  the  retina.  In  terms  of  mechanics,  then,  we  may  describe 
the  eye  as  a  water  camera  oh^cura,  with  a  self-adjusting  lens,  and 
a  concave,  sensitive  membrane  as  a  screen  on  which  the  image  is 


106  SENSATION"  :    ITS   NATURE   AND   CLASSES 

formed.  The  formation  of  the  image  is  accomplished  by  carry- 
ing the  rays  of  light  reflected  from  the  external  object  through 
a  series  of  refracting  media  and  bringing  them  to  a  focus  on 
the  screen.  The  rays  of  light  do  not,  however,  immediately 
excite  the  fibrils  of  the  optic  nerve  as  these  fibrils  are  spread 
over  the  front  part  of  the  retina.  They  pass  through  the  front 
layers  of  the  retina,  and  produce  upon  the  back  part  of  this  mem- 
brane certain  obscure  photo-chemical  changes  ;  it  is  these  photo- 
chemical changes  which  are  the  more  immediate  excitants  of  the 
nervous  elements  of  the  organ  (the  "  rods  "  and  "  cones,"  and 
through  them  the  nerve-cells  and  nerve-fibers,  of  the  retina). 

In  all  ordinary  sense-exi^erience  with  the  eye,  sensations  of 
light  and  color  are  blended  together.  Or,  to  speak  popularly, 
every  particular  color  is  more  or  less  bright  and  pure ;  and  all 
degrees  of  brightness  and  purity  have  some  particular  color- 
tone.  Pure  grays,  or  admixtures  of  white  and  black  that  are  not 
colored  with  any  yellow,  red,  blue,  etc.,  are  rarely  or  never  seen 
in  ordinary  vision.  In  order,  however,  to  illustrate  the  difi^erence 
between  sensations  of  light  and  sensations  of  color,  we  may  pre- 
pare a  series  of  sense-experiences  occasioned  by  blending  differ- 
ent areas  of  pure  black  and  pure  white  on  rapidly  revolving 
disks,  when  looked  at  in  perfectly  white  light ;  or  we  may  try  to 
abstract  attention  from  the  brightness  of  the  colors  as  we  focus 
attention  upon  the  different  shades  of  the  same  color,  or  run 
through  in  their  natural  succession  the  color-tones  of  the  spec- 
trum. To  account  for  these  two  different  but  blended  kinds  of 
sensations  through  the  eye  we  cannot,  as  in  the  case  of  the  ear, 
refer  to  difierent  separable  portions  of  the  one  organ.  Both 
kinds  of  sensation  originate  through  excitation  of  every  portion 
of  the  retinal  area.  The  attempt  has  therefore  been  made  to  ac- 
count for  this  difference  in  our  visual  sensations  by  conjectured 
differences  in  the  processes  in  which  the  two  kinds  of  excitement 
consist.  And  since  sensations  of  light  vary,  in  intensity,  all  the 
way  from  black  to  white  through  many  shades  of  gray,  and  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest  degree  of  brightness  which  any  color 
can  have  ;  while  sensations  of  color  vary  in  those  peculiarities  of 
quality  which  an  inspection  of  the  lines  of  the  spectrum  distin- 
guishes, a  difference  in  the  nature  of  the  two  processes  would 
seem  to  bo  cleai-ly  marked.^     But  as  to  the  exact  nature  of  this 

•  On  these  and  other  prouncla  Wuiult  has  conohidcd  that  in  every  excitation  of  the  retina  two 
different  processes  are  set  np— a  "chromatic  "  (which  Rives  us  color-tones)  and  an  "achromatic" 
(wliich  gives  us  different  degrees  of  brightness  and  darkness").  The  former  he  would  describe  as  a 
"  multiform  photo-chemical  process,"  which  changes  continuously  with  the  wave-lengths  of  light ; 
the  latter  as  a  "  uniform  photo-chemical  process,"  which  reaches  its  maximuni  at  green  and  falls 
pfC  toward  both  ends  of  the  spectrum.— Physiolog.  Psychologic  (4th  ed.),  I.,  p.  529  f. 


SENSATIONS   OF   LIGHT   AND   COLOR  107 

diftorcnce  we  cannot,  as  yet,  be  said  to  have  attained  scientific 
kuowledg'e. 

More  detailed  attempts  to  classify  sensations  of  color  intro- 
duce certain  very  curious  relations  wliich  exist  among-  them. 
Every  color-sensation,  among  the  many  thousand  distinguish- 
able but  similar  modifications  which  the  stimulation  of  the  ret- 
ina occasions,  appears  in .  consciousness  as  an  indivisible  unity. 
We  cannot  analyze  the  colojr-tones  as  we  can  the  tones  of  sound  ; 
even  with  the  assistance  of  experimental  means  we  cannot  always 
bring-  out  the  various  simpler  elements  which  combine  to  pro- 
duce them.  Yet  these  peculiar  modifications  of  consciousness, 
in  which  the  essence  of  the  color-sensations  consists,  can  them- 
selves be  produced  by  combining  different  forms  of  stimulation. 
All  artificial  production  of  colors  is  dependent  on  such  facts  as 
the  following :  When  the  wave-lengths  of  the  two  colors  mixed 
vary  but  slightly  (a  few  billions  of  oscillations  in  a  second)  from 
each  other,  the  color  resulting  from  the  mixture  lies  between  the 
colors  mixed,  and  may  be  regarded  as  a  "  shade  "  of  one  or  the 
other  of  the  two  ;  and  thus  by  selecting  colors  that  lie  apart  at 
different  distances  along  the  spectrum,  an  indefinite  number  of 
impressions  of  color  may  be  obtained.  But  these  mixed  impres- 
sions of  color  do  not  all  difi'er  from  each  other  ;  indeed,  the  as- 
tonishing and  important  fact  is  that  they  may  all  be  obtained  by 
mixture  of  a  very  small  number  of  so-called  "  fundamental "  colors. 
The  theory,  propounded  by  Young  and  elaborated  by  Helm- 
holtz,  reduced  these  fundamental  colors  to  tlivee  (green,  red  or 
carmine,  and  blue  or  indigo-blue) ;  it  assumed  that  in  every  por- 
tion of  the  retina  there  exist  three  kinds  of  nervous  elements,  by 
simultaneous  excitation  of  which  in  varying  proportions  all  the 
phenomena  of  color-sensations  may  be  explained.  More  recent 
investigations  have  thrown  great  doubt  over  this  theory ;  they 
have  led  to  the  assumption  of  at  least  four  fundamental  colors 
(green  and  red,  blue  and  yellow),  in  addition  to  white  and  black, 
which  are  also  to  be  considered  as  genuine  color-sensations. 
But  even  the  assumption  of  six  fundamental  colors  does  not 
serve  to  account  for  all  our  experience  with  color-sensations. 

In  our  cftbrts  to  classify  our  indefinitely  numerous  color-sen- 
sations, two  other  important  facts  are  brought  out.  First,  as  has 
already  been  indicated,  we  can  pass  in  either  one  of  two  opposite 
directions  by  shading  the  color-tone  from  one  color  to  another 
widely  different  color.  For  example,  if  we  pass  from  green 
through  blue  to  indigo  and  violet,  a  tendency  to  come  around  to 
red  again  is  visible  when  we  reach  the  violet ;  but  red  can  alsD 
be  reached  by  iDroceeding  from  green  through  yellow  and  orange. 


108 


SENSATION  :     ITS   NATURE  AND   CLASSES 


For  this  reason  tlie  proper  sj'mbolism  of  color-sensations  is  not 
a  continuous  line  like  that  of  musical  tones,  but  a  curve  which 
shows  a  tendency  to  return  upon  itself,  or  a  triangle  with  its 
base  partly,  perhaps,  invisible.  Second,  white  can  be  produced 
by  mixing-  an  indefinite  number  of  pairs  of  colors  which  lie  at 
some  distance  from  each  other  in  the  spectrum.  Colors  which, 
by  their  admixture,  produce  white,  are  called  "  complementary  " 
to  each  other.  Neither  the  physiological  nor  the  i^sychological 
explanation  of  this  form  of  our  sense-experience  is  clear,  but  it 
may  be  symbolized  by  the  accompanying  scheme '  in  which  each 
color  in  either  of  the  two  concentric  circles  corresponds  to  the 
complementary  circle  of  the  other,  and  the  possibility  of  move- 
ment to  the  same  end  in  the  two  opposite  directions  is  illustrated. 

I  14.  The  parts  of  the  eye  which  are  of 
most  interest  to  the  psychological  theory  of 
vision  are  these  three — the  retina,  the  mus- 
cles which  move  the  eyeballs,  and  the  self- 
adjusting  lens.  The  sensations  occasioned 
by  the  activity  of  the  last  two  are,  of  course, 
muscular  and  tactual.  They  are  qualita- 
tively of  an  entirely  different  order  from 
the  sensations  of  light  and  color ;  and  yet 
in  all  vision  with  the  adult  eye  they  are 
co-active  with  the  retinal  sensations  ;  for 
perception  is  accomplished  onhj  as  the  differ- 
FiG.  1.  ent  classes  of  sensation-series  are  fused  into 

one  continuous  sense-experience.  In  order 
to  understand  this  fusion  it  is  important  to  know  that  the  centers  of  the  brain 
in  which  the  cerebral  control  of  the  muscles  of  the  eye  is  located,  are  closely 
connected  with  those  tracts  and  areas  where  elaboration  of  the  visual  impres- 
sions takes  place.  This  local  connection  and  simultaneous  activity  are  the 
physical  basis  of  the  psychical  fusion  which  takes  place  between  the  light- 
and  color-sensations  and  the  tactual  and  muscular  sensations  of  the  eye. 

The  retina  is  a  wonderful  nervous  mosaic,  having  its  various  elements 
arranged  in  some  nine  or  ten  layers.  In  one  of  these  layers  a  great  multi- 
tude of  elongated  bodies  are  arranged  side  by  side,  like  rows  of  palisades, 
with  their  largest  extension  in  the  radial  direction.  These  are  called  "  rods  " 
and  "  cones,"  and  in  the  jjlace  of  clearest  vision  (the  "yellow-spot"),  where 
only  cones  appear,  not  less  than  one  million  are  supposed  to  be  set  in  a 
square  -j^o  inch.  The  retina  of  the  eye  thus  appears  adapted  to  an  astonish- 
ingly minute  work  of  analysis,  but  of  a  diflferent  character  from  that  per- 
formed by  the  organ  of  Corti  in  the  ear. 

While  we  are  confident  that  in  the  excitation  of  the  optic  nerve,  through 
the  rods  and  conns,  chemical  changes  in  the  pigments  of  the  eye,  under  the 
action  of  the  light  upon  them,  bear  an  important  i)art,  the  exact  number  of 


"  Taken  from  Wuudt,  and  see  my  Elements  of  PhyBiological  P?j-chology.  p.  338  f. 


TTIKOKY    OF   COLOU-SENSATION  109 

those  visual  substances,  and  the  precise  nature  of  the  cliange  wrought  in  them 
and  of  the  infiucnco  they  exert  upon  the  nervous  elements  of  the  retina,  are 
still  matters  of  doubt. 

Other  forms  of  stimulation  l)esides  light  (objective)  excite  sensations  of 
this  class.  Among  them  are  various  mechanical  and  electrical  stimuli,  such 
as  any  shock  to  the  eye  by  a  blow,  moderate  pressure  on  a  limited  area  of 
the  eyeball  by  the  finger-nail  or  by  a  blunted  stick  (the  disks  of  light  with 
darkly  colored  edges,  called  pltosplienex),  or  a  weak  electrical  current  sent 
through  tlie  eye.  Moreover,  the  changing  blood-supply  excites  the  nervous 
elements  of  the  retina  so  that  they  are  rarely  or  never  inactive  ;  and  thus  the 
most  varied  and  gorgeous  cotoring  is  often  seen  with  the  eyes  closed  in  a 
darkened  room  (the  so-called  "own  light,"  or  Eigenlicld,  of  the  retina). 

I  15.  Sensations  of  color-tone  are  said  to  be  "pure"  or  "saturated," 
wlien  they  are  free  from  all  admixture  of  other  color-tones,  Sucli^^re  colors 
can  be  obtained  only  by  irse  of  the  spectnUn  ;  and,  speaking  with  the  utmost 
strictness,  i)robably  not  even  spectral  colors  are  perfectly  pure,  since  they 
can  be  made  to  appear  somewhat  brighter  by  looking  at  tliem  with  an  eye 
already  fatigued  by  a  complementary  color.  Some  of  the  colors  may  be  said 
to  be  "naturally"  more  bright  than  others.  On  account,  j^robably,  of  some 
l^eculiarity  of  the  retina,  or  of  inherited  faculty  of  discrimination,  the  green- 
yellow  of  the  spectrum  makes  most  impression  at  any  given  degree  of  objec- 
tive intensity.  According  to  one  authority,'  crimson  light  has  to  have  one 
hundred  thousand  times  more  energy  than  green,  in  order  to  give  light 
enough  to  read  by  it. 

It  is  not  quite  true  to  say,  as  is  ordinarily  said,  that  the  composite  colors 
of  our  ordinary  experience  cannot  be  analyzed  at  all  by  introspective  con- 
sciousness. To  be  sure,  they  cannot  be  analyzed  precisely-  as  nlusical  clangs 
can.  But  then  the  analysis  performed  by  the  eye  is,  in  general,  different 
from  that  performed  'by  the  ear.  One  can,  however,  distinguish  whether  a 
particular  shade  of  green  is  hliie-green  ov  T/ellow-gveen,  and  joerhaps  also  re- 
gard either  one  of  these  three  colors  as  giving  the  fundamental  color-lone  to 
the  complex  color-clang,  as  it  were.  It  would  seem  also  as  though  an  ob- 
server who  had  never  before  seen  orange,  would  detect  both  the  yello^tand 
the  red  in  the  mixture,  as  well  as  the  blue  and  the  red  which  enter  into 
violet.  I  have  never,  however,  found  any  one  who,  prior  to  experiment, 
could  tell  what  color  will  emerge  on  a  rapidly  revolving  white  disk  when 
small  sections  of  black  and  of  orange  are  intermingled  with  it  (namely, 
"seal-brown").  And  that  a  mixture  of  purple  and  green,  or  orange  and 
blue,  or  violet  and  yellow-green,  should  result  in  white,  would  seem  to  be 
quite  beyond  any  power  of  analytic  consciousness  to  predict. 

§16.  The  "Young-Helmholtz  theory  "  of  color-sensations  is  customa- 
rily spoken  of  in  England  and  this  country  as  though  it  were  established 
science.  This  is,  however,  by  no  means  true.  Among  the  facts'which  mili- 
tate against  it  are  many  like  the  following  :  the  more  nearly  we  can  stimu- 
late singly  the  particular  elements  of  the  retina,  the  less  "pure"  is  the 
sensation  we  obtain.  But  this  is  precisely  the  opposite  of  what  we  should 
expect  from  the  theory.  Moreover,  red  and  green,  which  are  together — ac- 
cording to  the  theory — necessary  for  yellow,  appear  singly,  when  seen  on 

'  Professor  Langley,  see  Am.  Journal  of  Science,  3d  series,  X3:xvi.,  p.  839. 

TY 


110  SENSATION  :    ITS   NATURE   AND   CLASSES 

the  periphery  of  the  retina,  to  be  yellow.  Nor  does  it  seem  as  though  all  the 
cases  of  color-blindness  could  be  accounted  for  by  dropping  out  one  kind  of 
nerve-elements,  as  the  theory  would  have  us  suppose. 

Other  similar  objections  may  be  urged  against  the  theories  of  investiga- 
tors, like  Hering  and  Hess,  who  advocate  at  least  three  pairs  of  fundamental 
colors  and  six  corresponding  i^rocesses.  The  more  investigation  into  this 
very  interesting  subject  progresses,  however,  the  more  apparent  do  these 
three  things  become :  (1)  The  phenomena  of  color-sensations,  psychologi- 
cally considered,  are  extremely  complex,  and  a  larger  number  of  j^hysiologi- 
cal  components  or  processes  seems  constantly  to  be  demanded  for  their 
explanation ;  (2)  a  great  variety  of  individual  experiences,  and  even  many 
idiosyncrasies,  have  to  be  admitted ;  and  (3)  any  particular  sensation  is  the 
resultant  as  respects  its  quality,  of  a  number  of  concurrent  causes,  among 
which  the  brain-center  (and  not  the  retina  alone)  and  the  psychological 
habits  and  training  (and  not  the  quality  of  the  external  stimulus  alone) 
bear  an  important  part. ' 

The  Sensations  evoked  by  stimulating  the  Skin  are  varions  ; 
and  some  of  them  are,  as  respects  quality,  exceedingly  obscure 
in  origin  and  character.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  however,  as  to 
the  very  important  part  which  these  sensations  bear  in  the 
growth  of  our  sense-experience.  In  this  general  organ  (the  sMn 
or  membrane  which  covers  the  iDeripheral  parts  of  the  body  and 
lines  certain  internal  organs)  a  variety  of  specially  diiferen- 
tiated  end-organs  is  found.  But  although  the  diiferelit  areas  of 
the  skin  have  different  degrees  of  sensitiveness  to  particular 
forms  of  stimulation,  and  although  different  minute  spots  seem 
to  respond  to  any  form  of  stimulation  with  only  one  of  the 
several  kinds  of  skin-sensations,  we  are  as  yet  unable  to  assign 
the  different  sensations  to  the  different  forms  of  the  end-organs. 

Many  of  the  more  vague  and  obscurq  sense-impressions 
derived  through  the  skin  are  exceedingly  complex.  Not  only 
do  they  result  from  the  fusion  of  qualitatively  different  sen- 
sations, but  they  also  depend  for  their  character  upon  appre- 
ciable changes  which  take  place  in  time.  This  is  true  of 
"  sensations  of  motion,"  and  of  sensations  like  those  of  "  tick- 
ling," "  thrilling,"  and  of  other  forms  of  dermal  sense-experience 
which  are  difficult  to  describe.  Two  kinds  of  sensations  are, 
however,  awakened  by  stimulation  of  this  organ  which  are  of 
perfectly  unique  and  incomparable  quality.  These  are  (1)  sen- 
sations of  pressure  and  (2)  sensations  of  temperature.     For  al- 

'  For  the  more  recent  elaborate  researches  into  the  constitution  and  explanation  of  color-sensa- 
tions see  von  Krios  :  Archiv  f.  Anat.  u.  Physiol,  1S82,  Appendix  and  1887.  Hering :  Sitzfrsbr.  d. 
Wlen.  Acad.,  1872-74,  and  Plliiger's  Archiv,  xlii.  and  xliii.  Wundt :  Physiolos;.  PsycholoErie 
(4th  cd.),  I.,  482  f.;  and  Philosoph.  Studien,  1887,  i v.,  Heft  .S.  Uess  :  Archiv  f.  Ophthalmologie, 
1890,  pp.  1-32.  Kirschmaun :  Philosoph.  Studien,  1892,  viii.,  Heft  2  ;  and  various  articles  in  these 
and  other  similar  periodicals. 


SENSATIONS   OF  THE   SKIN  111 

though— as  we  are  accustomed  to  say — we  cau  "feel,"  in  the 
same  state  of  cousciousiiess,  the  same  thiug  to  be  both  smooth  or 
roug-h  and  warm  or  cold,  the  sensations,  on  the  basis  of  which  we 
know  the  former  qualities,  as  sennatlons,  in  no  respect  resemble 
the  sensations  on  the  basis  of  which  we  know  the  latter  quali- 
ties. Moreover,  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  important  of 
modern  psycho-physical  discoveries  shows  that  all  the  areas  of 
the  skin  have  a  larger  or  smaller  number  of  both  "  pressure- 
spots  "  and  "  temperature-spots."  It  also  seems  probable  that 
the  entire  nervous  mechanism  concerned. in  touch  is  more  or  less 
distinct  from  that  concerned  in  temperature.  But  whetlier  the 
histological  and  physiological  distinction  can  be  clearly  estab- 
lished or  not,  the  psychical  distinction  between  pressure  and 
temperature  is  jDerfectly  clear. 

While,  however,  the  analysis  which  discriminating  conscious- 
ness can  make  divides  clearly  between  sensations  of  pressure  and 
sensations  of  temjjerature,  within  each  of  these  classes  -diiier- 
ences  of  intensity  rather  than  differences  of  kind  are  most  easily 
distinguished.  Further  analysis  does  reveal,  hoAvever,  two  wholly 
different  kinds  of  temperature-sensations — namely,  sensations 
of  heat,  and  sensations  of  cold.  If  physics  considers  "  cold  "  and 
"heat"  as  mere  matter  of  "degrees,"  physiology  and  psychol- 
ogy regard  them  as  wholly  distinct  in  kind.  Whether  the  dif- 
ferent degrees  of  each  of  these  two  temperature-sensations  are 
not  also  qualitatively  unlike  may,  perhaps,  admit,  of  doubt.  In 
our  judgment  consciousness  gives  an  affirmative  answer  to  this 
inquiry.  But  that '  different  light-pressure  •  sensations  '  differ  in 
quality  as  well  as  in  degree,  is  a  fact  of  indispensable  importance 
for  the  entire  theory  of  perception  by  the  senses. 

g  17.  Histology  shows  that  the  sensoiy  nerves  -which  are  distributed 
to  the  skin  terminate  in  one  of  two  ways,  either  in  free  end-fibrils  or  in 
special  structures  called  "tactile  coi-puscles"  or  "end-bulbs."  The  different 
varieties  of  these  structures  ("  coqiuscles  of  Pacini,"  "end-bulbs  of 
Krause,"  "  corpuscles  of  Wagner  ")  are  essentially  alike  ;  they  are  capsules 
of  connective  tissue  surrounding  exceedingly  minute  threads  of  nervous 
matter,  and  are  designed  to  modify  and  multiply  the  effect  of  the  stimulus 
upon  the  nerves  of  sense.  But  since  the  surface  of  the  skin  is  sensitive, 
both  to  light  pressure  and  to  temperature,  in  areas  where,  these  Corpuscles 
are  not  found,  they  cannot  be  the  sole  end-organs  of  these  sensations.  The 
fact  that  the  special  end-organs  are  most  constant  and  numerous  in  those 
parts  of  the  body  most  employed  in  active  discriminating  touch  seems  to  in- 
dicate that  they  have  a  special  connection  with  that  form  of  mental  function. 

The  evidence  that  the  apparatus  in  the  skin  which  is  concerned  in  the 
production  of  these  three  kinds  of  sensation  (heat,  cold,  pressure)  differs 
for  each  of  the  three,  will  be  adduced  later  on.    It  belongs  to  physiology,  of 


112  SENSATIOX  :     ITS   NATURE   AXD   CLASSES 

course,  to  show  how  far  the  three  travel  by  diflferent  paths  along  the  spinal 
cord  and  lower  regions  of  the  brain.  The  general  area  of  the  cerebral  hemi- 
spheres concerned  in  tactile  sensibility  seems,  as  we  might  expect,  to  "  lie 
about  and  coincide  to  some  extent  "  with  the  areas  concerned  in  motor  control 
of  the  members  of  the  body.  So-called  "  temperature-centers"  in  the  lower 
and  liigher  regions  of  the  brain  are  being  discovered.  From  the  psycholo- 
gist's point  of  view  such  investigations  are  especially  interesting  on  account 
of  the  phenomena  of  tactile  ansesthesia  (or  loss  of  sensitiveness  to  light 
pressure)  and  of  disturbances  of  the  self-consciousness,  through  missing  or 
abnormal  sensations  of  the  skin.  Psychology  has  to  recognize  that  what  I 
am,  as  feeling  "natural,"  or  "  strange,"  or  "quite  unlike  myself,"  is  to  no 
small  extent  a  question  of  changes  in  the  sensation -complexes  of  the  skin. 
So  that  the  fundamental  importance,  for  the  entire  mental  life,  of  this  organ, 
whose  structure,  when  compared  with  that  of  the  eye  or  the  ear,  seems  so 
simple,  and  whose  intellectual  and  spiritual  uses  and  abuses  are  often  so 
little  considered,  becomes  more  and  more  obvious. 

Sensations  of  Pressure  or  light  touch  are  ordinarily  excited 
by  contact  of  the  skin  with  some  external  object ;  although,  like 
all  our  sensations,  they  may  also  be  occasioned  by  intra-organic 
changes.  In  passive,  but  more  especiallj"  in  what  is  known  as 
"  active,"  touch  these  sensations  are  combined  with  those  arising 
through  irritation  of  the  muscles  and  joints.  Sensations  of  press- 
ure are  apt,  like  all  sensations  of  this  order,  to  be  characterized 
by  a  strong  tone  of  feeling.  Although,  in  our  adult  experience 
familiarity  and  the  superior  interest  we  take  in  obtaining  a 
knowledge,  by  touch,  of  external  objects,  make  us  overlook  the 
minuter  distinctions  in  quality,  yet  a  revival  of  discriminating 
attention  confirms  the  demands  of  the  theory  of  perception  ; 
thus  we  are  able  to  say  that  sensations  of  joressure  differ  indefi- 
nitely in  quality  ;  and  this  happens  chiefly  on  account  of  the 
difference  in  the  areas  of  the  skin  by  whose  stimulation  they  are 
occasioned.  Indeed,  exjDeriment  shows  that  clear-cut  and  defi- 
nite sensations  of  pressure  are  occasioned  only  hj  exciting 
certain  minute  areas  of  the  skin — the  so-called  "  pressure-spots." 
These  pressure-spots,  although  they  are  found  all  over  the  body, 
are  differently  distributed  in  different  places  ;  they  also  differ  in 
sensitiveness,  for  some  are  much  more  easily  excited  than  others. 

^  18.  Most  psychologists  have  distinguished  active  foucJn  from  sensations 
of  pressure  as  differing  in  kind.  But  so  far  as  we  do  not  introduce  other 
sensations  connected  with  the  onovevient  of  the  organ,  the  difference  is  one  of 
degree  only.  If  a  fine  point  of  metal,  wood,  or  cork,  be  moved  lightly  over 
the  skin,  it  will  awaken  definite,  and  "content-full"  sensations  of  pressure 
only  at  certain  minute  spots  in  any  given  area  of  the  skin.  "When  sensations 
of  this  order  are  awakened  by  stimulating  the  intervening  spots,  they  may 
be  described  as  comparatively  dull,  indefinable,  "  content-less."  ' 
>  See  the  article  of  Goldscheider,  Archiv  f.  Anat.  u.  Physiol.,  1885. 


SENSATIONS   OF   TEMPERATUHE  113 

The  avranpcement  of  the  pressuro-f5pots  is  in  chains,  as  it  were,  which 
ordinarily  radiate  from  a  kind  of  central  point,  and  run  in  such  directions 
as  to  form  either  circular,  longitudinal,  or  pyramidal  figures.  It  need 
scarcely  be  said  that  sjiots  of  the  higher  degrees  of  sensitiveness  are  more 
minierons  in  those  areas  of  the  skin  which  are  most  discriminating  in  touch. 
The  accompanying  figure  shows  the  arrangement  of  pressure-spots  on  the 
hack  and  side  of  the  first  i)halanx  of  an  index  finger. 

Sensations  of  Temperature — and  this  is  one 
of  the  most  astonisliiug-  discoveries  of  mod- 
ern experimental  psycholog}' — have  their  ori- 
liin  in  the  irritation  of  definite  spots  on  the 
skin.  Moreover,  the  existence  of  "  heat-spots  " 
and  "  cohl-spots  "  (or  minute  localities  of  the 
organ  that  are  sensitive  to  heat  and  not  to  fig.  2.— Arrangement  of 
cold,   and    conversely)    seems    demonstrable.  preFPure-ppotF  (Goid- 

'  55         T    1  echeider). 

These  "  temperature-spots  and  those  of  press- 
ure appear  never  to  be  superimposed.  The}'  are  not  located 
alike  on  the  sj^mmetrieal  members  of  the  same  body,  or  on  the 
corresponding  parts  of  different  individuals.  Heat-spots  are, 
on  the  whole,  less  abundant  than  cold-spots;  but  in  parts  of 
the  body  where  the  skin  is  most  sensitive  to  either  heat  or  cold, 
the  correspondiiig  class  of  "spots  "is  relatively  frequent.  Dif- 
ferent spots  of  both  kinds  have  different  degrees  of  sensitive- 
ness, according  to  the  amount  5f  reaction  which  they  show  to  a 
given  amount  of  stimulus.  In  certain  minute  areas  sensations 
of  temperature  are  roused  only  by  excessive  temperatures. 
The  same  object  feels  only  cool  to  one  spot,  and  ice-cold  to 
another. 

Apparently,  any  form  of  stimulation  which  excites  the  nerve- 
endings  in  the  temperature-spots  calls  out  the  appropriate  form 
of  sensation — whether  it  be  the  electrical  current  or  the  temper- 
ature of  a  body  in  contact,  or  changes  going  on  in  the  tissue  of 
the  skin  itself.  The  exact  manner  in  which  changes  of  temper- 
ature act  upon  the  thermic  apparatus  in  the  organ  is  not  known. 
The  theory  of  physics,  that  heat  and  cold  are  only  relative  terms 
indicative  of  different  degrees  of  one  mode  of  motion,  not  only 
does  not  explain  the  physiology  and  psychology  of  temperature- 
sensations,  but  squarely  contradicts  the  facts  to  ])e  explaijied. 
Physiologically  and  psychologically,  heat  and  cold  are  qualita- 
tively unlike  sensations.  With  the  accompaniment  of  feeling 
which  they  have.  hoAvever,  they  may  be  traced,  through  different 
degrees,  down  to  a  so-called  "  zero-point,"  or  "  point  of  indiffer- 
ence ;  "  this  means  that  no  temperature-sensation  is  called  out 
by  certain  low  desrrees  of  stimulus. 


114  SENSATION  :    ITS   NATURE   AND   CLASSES 

§  19.  Recent  investigations '  have  found  the  temperature-spots  relatively 
insensible  to  pain  (a  needle  can  be  run  into  them  without  being  felt),  even 
to  the  pain  of  temperature.  Mapping  out  the  different  areas  of  the  skin 
shows  that  the  spots  generally  radiate  from  centers  coincident  with  the  roots 
of  the  hairs,  where  such  appendages  are  found.  The  lines  they  form  run  so 
as  to  cross  each  other  and  make  figures  of  various  shapes— triangles  with 
rounded  corners,  etc.  The  accompanying  figure  shows  the  arrangement  of 
(.4)  the  heat-spots  and  of  (B)  the  cold -spots  on  a  portion  of  the  palm  of 
a  left  hand. 

A  B 


Fig.  3. — Arrangement  of  Temperature-spots.      A,  Heat-spots,  and  R,  Cold-spots— from  the 
palm  of  the  left  hand  (Goldscheider). 

g  20.  By  the  "zero-point"  of  any  part  of  the  skin  we  understand  that 
degree  of  objective  temperature  which  may  be  applied  to  the  part  with- 
out producing  any  sensation  of  temperatiire  whatever.  This  is  difficult  to 
find,  is  different  for  different  areas,  •  and  constantly  changing.  Some 
observers,  following  E.  H.  Weber,  have  held  that  all  rising  of  the  temper- 
ature of  the  skin  is  felt  as  heat,  and  all  sinking  of  its  temperature  as  cold. 
In  evidence  such  experiments  as  the  following  classical  one  are  adduced  : 
If  we  immerse  the  hand  for  some  time  in  water  at  the  temperature  of  55" 
Fahr.,  and  then  put  it  into  water  of  65°  Fahr.,  the  latter  will  feel  warm  at 
first,  although  it  will  feel  cold  to  the  hand  which  retains  its  normal  temper- 
ature of  skin.  Other  investigators  hold,  with  Hering,  that  it  is  not  the  ris- 
ing or  sinking  of  the  temperature  of  the  skin,  but  the  being  stimulated  by 
something  whose  temperature  is  above  or  below  the  present  zero-point  of 
the  skin,  which  causes  the  thermic  aj^paratus  to  react  in  either  direction. 
Thus  they  would  explain  the  phenomena  of  temperature-sensations  not  only 
by  contact  with  extra-organic  objects,  but  also  by  intra-organic  changes,  sucl 
as  increase  and  lessening  of  the  interior  warmth  of  the  body,  etc.^ 

Here,  however,  we  are  met  by  'the  apparent  fact  that,  in  certain  cases  (of 
disease,  or  when  a  limb  is  "asleep")  sensitiveness  to  heat  can  be  retained 
after  sensitiveness  to  cold  has  been  lost.  The  infinite  variety  of  psychical 
life,  and  its  physiological  conditions,  is  thus  again  seen  to  be  much  beyond 
the  power  of  physics  to  deal  with  it.      Es2:)ecially  does  it  appear  that  tem- 

'  Blix,  Ooldschcider,  Donaldson,  et  alt.  ;  and  see  the  author's  Elements  of  Physiological  Psy- 
chology and  the  citations  there,  p.  .^8  f. 

2  A  later  conjecture  is  that  the  nerves  of  temperature  end  in  different  kinds  of  tissue  which  have 
different  characteristics  of  "  temperature  contraction."  Thus,  the  heat  tissues  may  be  actively  con- 
tracting when  the  cold  tissues  are  either  passive  or  actively  expanding,  and  vice  versa.  Each  of 
these  tissues,  moreover,  may  be  conject\ired  to  have  its  range  of  temperature  activity ;  and  each 
range  to  be  complementary  to,  and  exclusive  of,  the  other.  (See  art.  by  Dr.  II.  Nichols,  Philosoph. 
Rev.,  July,  1892,  p.  427  f.)' 


THE   MUSCULAR  SENSATIOJS^S  115 

I^erature-sensations,  like  all  classes  of  psychic  facts,  are  incapable  of  expla- 
nation in  isolation  from  the  stream  of  consciousness.  They  are  what  they 
are,  only  as  discriminating  attention  is  applied,  and  intellectual  processes  of 
memory,  ideation,  contrast,  etc.,  are  admitted  into  our  explanation  of  them. 

The  fate  of  those  Sensations  which  it  is  customary  to  call 
"  Muscular,"  has  been  somewhat  peculiar.  For,  on  the  one  hand, 
some  psychologists  have  considered  those  modifications  of  sense- 
experience  which  are  directly  due  to  changes  in  the  mtiscular 
tissue  as  among-  the  most  fundamental  and  influential  of  our 
entire  mental  life ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  other 
modern  jisycholog-ists  who  still  persist  in  denying  the  very 
existence  of  muscular  sensations.  The  truth  is  with  neither  of 
these  extreme  views.  Nor  does  the  truth  lie  between  the  two 
extremes.  The  muscular  sensations  taJce  tJmr  place  in  our  mental 
life  as  factor's  hJended  with  others  i?i  the  complex  resultant  of^the 
activity  of  all  our  sense-organs. 

That  there  are  sensory  nerves  which  stand  in  the  proper  his- 
tological relations  with  the  muscular  tissue,  to  be  excited  by  the 
change  which  takes  place  in  this  tissue,  seems  to  admit  of  little 
doubt.  Consciousness  gives  quite  clear  testimony  to  the  exist- 
ence of  distinct  and  peculiar  modifications  of  our  sense-experience 
which  can  arise  only  in  the  activity  of  the  muscles.  The  evi- 
dence from  pathology  points  in  the  same  direction  ;  for  it  shows 
that  the  loss  of  tactual  or  joint  sensations  does  not  necessarily 
involve  the  loss  of  the  sensations  ordinarily  attributed  to  the 
muscles.  Experiment,  on  the  whole,  confirms  the  testimony  of 
discriminating  introspection,  and  of  pathology.  While  the 
theory  of  perception,  especially  in  the  case  of  the  so-called 
"  geometrical  "  senses  of  sight  and  touch,  almost  imperatively  de- 
mands the  admission  of  this  class  of  sensations.  Finally,  the 
most  general  biological  view  of  the  conditions  of  the  develop- 
ment of  all  mental  life  seems  to  require  such  a  fundamental 
connection,  as  it  were,  of  the  factors  of  sensation  and  motion. 
Unless  we  "  sense,"  or — to  iise  the  term  of  Bain — "  feel,"  our  own 
muscles,  it  is  difficult  to  explain  how  we  can  know  ourselves  as 
"  bodies,"  in  any  intelligible  meaning  of  this  word. 

As  to  the  question,  whether  there  exist  sub-classes  of  muscu- 
lar sensations,  as  respects  their  quality,  we  find  it  more  difficult 
to  reply.  The  massiveness,  or  depth,  of  our  sense-experience 
undoubtedly  varies  according  to  the  amount  of  muscular  tissue 
either  actively  or  passively  involved.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  in- 
crease in  intensity  is  interpreted  as  a  spreading,  in  all  directions, 
of  extension.  But  how  far  this  is  due  to  changes  in  quality  of 
the  muscular  sensations  themselves  rather  than  to  changes  in 


116  SENSATIOX  :     ITS   NATURE   AXD   CLASSES 

the  quality  of  the  accompanying-  sensations  of  the  skin,  is  not 
easy  to  determine.  The  iniluence  of  centrally  (or  in  the  brain) 
originated  modifications  of  consciousness,  which  blend  with  those 
originating  in  strained  muscles  and  tightened  skin,  and  joints 
pressed  together,  and  form  the  exceedingly  complex  and  impor- 
tant "  feeling  of  effort,"  must  also  be  admitted.  It  is  a  general 
principle,  however,  that  changes  in  the  quantity  of  any  sensation 
occasion  changes  in  its  quality,  and  that  both  kinds  of  change 
are  inseparably  connected  with  our  en.tire  process  of  localizing 
sensations,  w^hether  within  the  body  or  on  its  surface.  We  seem 
justified,  then,  in  holding  to  certain  rather  gross  differences  in  the 
quality  of  the  muscidar  sensations  of  the  larger  masses  of  the  body. 
A  much  greater  power  of  discrimination,  both  as  respects  qual- 
ity and  quantit}^  undoubtedly  belongs  to  the  muscles  of  the 
eye.  The  reason  why  we  do  not  ordinarily  notice  qualitative 
differences  in  our  muscular  sensations  are  these  three  :  (1)  The 
differences  themselves  are  gross  and  less  important  for  nice  dis- 
crimination ;  (2)  these  sensations  are  ordinarily  buried  in  the 
purposeful  perception  of  the  object,  or  the  doing  of  the  work,  on 
which  the  muscles  are  employed  ;  (3)  they  are  thoroughly  fused 
with  general  tactual  and  other  specific  sensations  which  are 
more  clearly  distinct  or  obtrusive  as  respects  differences  in 
quality. 

^  21.  For  a  loug  time  it  was  disputed  wliether  sensory  nerve-fibrils  are  so 
connected  with  the  muscular  tissue  as  that  its  contraction  or  compression 
can  irritate  them.  But  Sachs,  in  1874,  announced  the  discovery  of  the 
apparatus  which  seemed  necessary  for  specific  muscular  sensations.  More 
recent  investigations  have  changed  his  view  as  respects  the  jorecise  manner 
in  which  the  last  subdivisions  of  the  neives  are  related  to  the  tissue  of  the 
miiscle.  Moreover,  the  comiilex  resultant,  in  consciousness,  of  the  move- 
ment of  the  muscles  is  ordinarily  also  dependent  upon  accompanying  excita- 
tion of  nerve-endings  in  the  tendons  and  adjoining  membranes  covering  the 
bones.  But  all  this  does  not  diminish  the  evidence  in  favor  of  the  conclu- 
sion, that  the  muscles  also  contribute  to  our  sense-experience.' 

^  2'2.  We  may  bring  out  the  testimony  of  analytic  introspection  to  the 
existence  of  muscular  sensations  by  various  simple  experiments.  For  ex- 
ample, let  one  rest  as  lightly  as  jiossible  the  tij)  of  the  index  finger  against 
some  firm  object,  and  consider  only  the  sensations  of  light  pressure  which  he 
localizes  there.  Then  let  one  slowly  increase  the  pressure  until  one  is  press- 
ing "with  all  one's  might"  against  the  object,  meanwhile  carefully  Avatohing 
the  changes  which  take  place  in  the  stream  of  consciousness.  (1)  The  skin- 
sensations  will  expand  over  wider  and  wider  areas,  change  the  qnalitios  of 
their  mixtui-e  and  their  locality,  as  they  creep  up  the  arm  and  spread  down 
the  sides  and  back.     (2)  The  sensations  of  squeezing  at  the  joints  will  be 

'  On  the  entire  subject  of  the  mus-cular  eensntious,  see  Bciunis  :  Les  Sensations  Intcrncp,  chap, 
viii.— xiv 


SENSATIONS    OF   THE   JOINTS  117 

evoked  in  the  finger,  wrist,  elbow,  auJ  shoulder  joints.  (3)  The  complex 
feeling  of  exerting  one's  self  will  grow  until  one's  whole  interior  strength 
and  very  self  seems  entering  into  the  exertion  against  the  resisting  object. 
But  (4)  certain  sensations,  difl'eriug  from  those  attributed  to  skin  or  joints, 
will  be  discerned,  which  also  spread  u^j  the  arm  and  down  the  sides  and 
back,  but  which  seem  to  lie  much  deejjer  than  the  skin  under  which  they 
are  localized.  Again,  every  one  who  has  begun  gymnastic  exercise  too  sud- 
denly, or  tried  to  lift  unaccustomed  weights,  knows  how  peculiar  are  the 
sensations  evoked  which  make  him  (urure  of  the  existence  and  activity  of  the 
deeper  lying  and  hitherto  unused  muscular  tissues. 

In  spite  of  the  fact,  moreover,  that  cutaneous  anjesthesia  and  jiaralysis 
of  muscular  sensibility  often  go  together,  cases  arise  where  one  occurs  and 
the  other  not.  Muscular  sensibility  is  sometimes  preserved,  as  shown  in 
the  ability  to  discriminate  weights  when  the  muscles  are  called  into  play, 
after  cutaneous  sensibility  is  lost ;  and  muscular  sensibility  is  sometimes 
lost  when  cutaneous  sensibility  is  retained  or  even  increased.  M.  Beaunis 
found  that  a  singer  could  sing  almost  as  accurately  as  before,  when  the 
sensibility  of  the  mucous  membrane  of  the  larynx  and  vocal  coids  had  been 
destroyed  by  cocaine.  This  performer  must,  then,  have  guided  himself  by 
muscular  sensibility.  Lussana  found  a  patient,  who  had  lost  the  skin  en- 
tirely over  an  area  of  10  x  12  ctm.,  without  any  inii)airment  of  the  muscular 
sensibility  of  the  subjacent  contractile  parts. 

The  use  which  a  satisfactory  theory  of  perception  makes  of  the  muscular 
sensations  in  acquiring  knowledge  of  the  character,  position,  and  movements 
of  our  own  bodies  and  of  all  other  bodies  which  call  the  muscles  into  play, 
will  appear  later  on.  Some  writers  go  so  far  as  to  maintain  that  the  intimate 
connection  of  sensation  and  motion  in  the  use  of  the  muscles  {MiisJcel-Gefuhl) 
is  the  one  simple  element  out  of  which  all  psychic  processes  are  constituted 
by  rejietition  and  combination.'  Another  writer"  maintains  that,  with  the 
entrance  into  consciousness  of  every  sensation  of  a  special  sense,  there  oc- 
curs a  no  less  great  throng  of  motor  sensations.  Thus  the  nerves  of  motion 
lose  their  one-sided  character  and  indirectly  take  part  in  all  our  sense-con- 
sciousness as  "nerves  of  an  active  sense"  {Muskelsmnes).  Yet  another 
authority  *  would  have  us  believe  that,  whenever  any  sensory  impulse  stirs 
the  mind  to  perception,  a  reaction,  consisting  of  certain  involuntary  changes, 
states  of  tension,  and  tendencies,  takes  place.  In  this  way,  not  only  is  the 
organ  disposed  in  a  way  appropriate  to  the  intuition  of  the  object,  but  the 
character  of  the  sense-experience  is  determined. 

The  pai-t  which  Sensations  of  the  Joints  pLiy  in  our  sense- 
experience  has  recently  been  (sufficiently  or  even  over-much) 
insisted  upon.  These  portions  of  the  body  also  are  found  to 
have  their  necessary  equipment  of  nervous  apparatus.  "With 
what  other  forms  of  sensations  (tactual  and  muscular  chiefly) 
the  articular  sensations  are  chiefly  connected  has  already  been 
explained.     Their  usefulness  as  sense-elements  in  the  perception 

>  Horwicz  :  I>83cholog.  Analysen,  i,  p.  202.       ^  Fortlage :  Beitrage  zur  Psychologic,  p.  235. 
3  Esser  :  Peycbologie,  §  11. 


118  SENSATION  :     ITS   NATURE   AND   CLASSES 

of  the  position  and  movements  of  our  own  bodies  is  undoubted; 
but  this  is  not  so  to  be  understood  or  explained  as  to  sacrilice  to 
them  either  the  muscular  or  the  cutaneous  sensations.  Skin, 
muscles,  and  joints,  all  three — it  is  by  sensation-complexes  aris- 
ing in  them  that,  without  sight,  we  know  how  to  orient  ourselves, 
whether  passively  or  actively,  with  reference  to  the  different 
members  of  our  body,  as  related  to  each  other  and  to  surround- 
ing" objects. 

^  23.  The  osseous  extremities,  lieriosteum,  ligaments,  aud  synovial  mem- 
branes are  rich  in  nerves ;  and  special  end-organs  resembling  those  of  touch 
("corpuscles  of  Pacini")  have  been  found  in  the  neighborhood  of  all  the 
joints.  Goldscheider '  found  that,  with  the  hand  held  fast  in  a  plaster  cast, 
the  least  angular  bending  of  the  finger's  first  joint  could  be  perceived.  But 
if  the  joint  was  rendered  antesthetic,  then  the  finger  must  be  bent  far  more 
to  be  perceived  than  before.  Cases  have  been  reported  where  those  suffering 
with  loss  of  cutaneous  sensibility  were  very  sensitive  to  pressure  on  the 
joints ;  and  ataxic  persons  have  been  found  who  were  able  to  recognize 
slow  movements  of  the  limbs,  with  short  excursions,  if  the  movements  were 
accompanied  by  pressure  on  the  joints,  but  otherwise  not.  Consciousness 
confirms  pathology  aud  experimentation  by  calling  attention  to  the  different 
"  feelings"  which  -we  localize  in  the  joints,  according  as  they  are  set  tightly 
together  or  not,  aud  are  bent  more  or  less  strongly  and  rapidly. 

It  has  been  the  custom  of  psychologists  to  recognize  so- 
called  "  Organic  Sensations  "  as  constituting  a  class  by  them- 
selves. There  can  be  no  doubt  that  peculiar  forms  of  sense-expe- 
rience originate  in  the  condition  and  changes  of  the  internal 
organs  (heart,  viscera,  lungs,  etc.).  These  are  not,  however,  to 
be  explained  as  involving  any  new  kinds  of  simple  sensations. 
They  are  rather  specific  combinations  of  tlie  simple  sense-factors 
already  examined,  and,  especially  as  characterized  by  tones  of 
feeling — mostly,  if  not  wholly,  disagreeable — due  to  the  charac- 
ter of  the  stimulation  which  excites  the  sensations.  Tempera- 
ture-sensations and  sensations  of  pressure  or  of  the  muscular 
sense,  as  well  as  sensations  of  motion,  are  not  essentially  differ- 
ent when  they  originate  and  "  fuse"  in  consciousness  on  account 
of  organic  changes  Ijang  deep  within  the  body.  The  so-called 
"  organic  sensations  "  are  therefore  more  appropriately  referred 
to  (so  far  as  is  desirable  in  any  brief  account  of  the  mental  life) 
in  other  connections. 

Substantially  the  same  thing  is  true  of  such  so-called  sensa- 
tions as  Hunger,  Thirst,  sexual  and  other  Appetite,  Nausea, 
Repletion,  and  scores  of  other  less  well-known  but  highly  com- 

'  See  art.  Ueber  Ataxic  u.  Muskclsiuu  :  Verhandlungeu  d.  phyaiolog.  OcscUsch.  Uerliu,  Aug.. 
188T. 


CLASSIFICATION    OF    SENSATIOMS  119 

plex  and    yet   comparatively  "  couteutless  "  aud    obscurely  lo- 
calized sensations.' 

By  introducing  different  principles  of  classification,  it  is,  of 
course,  possible  to  arran<::e  the  foregoing*  kinds  of  simple  sen- 
sations according  to  a  variety  of  schemes  ;  but  such  schematic 
arrangement  neither  increases  nor  diminishes  the  number  of 
fundamentally  different  classes.  Thus,  if  we  regard  the  amount 
of  assistance  which,  by  movement  intelligently  directed,  the 
organ  can  give  to  discriminating  consciousness,  we  may  divide 
into  the  following  three  classes: 

(I.)  Sight,  (II.)  Taste,  (III.)  Hearing, 

(Active)  Touch,  Smell,  Temperature, 

Muscular  Sense.  Joint-Sensations.  (Mere)  Pressure. 

In  the  first  of  these  classes  the  moving  and  active  organ  large- 
ly controls  the  amount  and  kind  of  sensation  which  can  be  dis- 
criminated ;  in  the  second  it  does  this  to  a  less  degree,  and  the 
passive  character  of  the  sensations  produced  becomes  more  prom- 
inent ;  in  the  third  class  the  contribution  made  by  controllable 
activity  of  the  external  organ  sinks  to  a  minimum  or  is  wholly 
lost. 

Our  subsequent  study  of  the  development  of  perception  by 
the  senses  will  lead  us  to  emphasize  the  important  difference 
between  those  senses  which  maybe  called  "  geometrical "  (pre- 
eminently the  eye,  skin,  aud  muscles)  and  those  which  are,  at 
least  relatively,  if  not  absolutely,  non-geometrical ;  while  a  per- 
sistent opposition  between  Sight  and  Hearing  has  its  basis  in 
the  fact  that  one  is  preeminently  the  ^pa(?6^-sense  and  the  other 
the  ti7)ie-se\\iie. 

[For  the  physiology  of  sensation  and  the  sense-organs  see,  besides  the  ordinary  trea- 
tises on  physiology,  Wnndt  :  Physiolog.  Psychologie  {4th  ed.),  I._,  chap.  vii.  Ladd  :  Ele- 
ments of  Physiological  Psychology,  i.,  chap,  v.,  and  ii.,  chaps,  iii.,  iv.  And  Hermann  : 
Handbuch  d.  Physiologic,  II.,  1,2,  and  III..  1.  2.  Bernstein's  Five  Senses  of  Man  gives 
a  brief  popular  treatment.  For  more  advanced  aiul  detailed  study  the  great  monographs 
of  Helmholtz:  Physiologische  Optik,  and  Tonempfindimgen.  Stumpf  :  Tonpsychologie. 
E.  Gurney :  The  Power  of  Sound.  And  scores  of  minor  monographs  and  ai-ticles  may 
be  consulted.] 

'  The  reader  who  desires  a  detailed  description  of  these  sensation-complexes  fused  with  feeling, 
may  consult  works  like  Bain  :  Senses  and  Intellect,  pp.  104-136,  and  240-320. 


V 


^i 


CHAPTEE  VII. 
SENSATION:    ITS    QUALITY    AND    QUANTITY 

By  au  act  of  mental  analysis,  wliicli  all  readily  learn  to  per- 
form, different  sense-experiences  are  known  to  differ  as  respects 
both  quality  and  quantity.  Every  sim^jler  sensation  discernibl«i 
in  the  general  field  of  sensuous  consciousness  ajopears  capable 
of  being  related  to  others  as  like  or  unlike  it  in  kind,  and  as 
equal  to,  or  less  than,  or  greater  than,  others  in  amount  or  in- 
tensity. Indeed,  how  I  feel,  and  Jiow  much  I  feel,  are  popularly 
supposed  to  be  questions,  the  answers  to  which  are  not  even 
necessarily  connected.  For,  as  most  untrained  observers  would 
say  :  Is  not  a  very  sour  taste  more  unlike  a  bitter  taste  than  is  a 
moderate  degree  of  sourness  ?  Or  :  Is  not  bright  red  more  clearlj- 
distinguishable  from  bright  yellow,  or  a  loudly  sounded  a  jjl 
from  c,  than  an  exactly  like  sensation  of  color  or  musical  tone 
which  has  onl}^  a  weak  intensity  ? 

The  distinction  between  quality  and  quantity  does,  indeed, 
really  belong  to  all  our  sensations,  and  is  not  merely  put  into 
them,  as  it  were,  by  our  choosing  to  regard  them  in  one  "as- 
pect "  rather  than  another.  But  careful  ps3'chological  investi- 
gation shows,  what  the  popular  judgment  only  very  imperfectly, 
or  not  at  all  recognizes,  namely,  the  intimate  and  inseparable 
dependence  of  quantity  and  quality  upon  each  other.  Althougli 
quality  and  quantity  of  sensation  are  not  the  same,  and  the  ex- 
perience which  enables  us  to  answer  the  question,  "What  kind? 
differs  from  that  which  enables  ns  to  answer  the  question,  How 
much?  yet  changes  in  one  probably  always  involve  changes  in 
the  other. 

The  description  of  the  minuter  differences  in  the  quality  of  sen- 
sations has  comparatively  little  interest  for  psychological  science. 
What  is  desirable  to  ascertain  precisely  is  rather  this  :  On  what 
conditions,  and  according  to  what  laws,  do  the  many  varieties  of 
sensation  arise,  endure,  and  fade  away  in  the  stream  of  conscious 
mental  life  ?  In  other  words,  we  seek  to  discover  the  more 
general  principles  which  explain  the  various  kinds  of  our  sense- 
experience.     So,  too,  in  discussing  the  quantity  of  sensation  :  it 


DISTINCTION    OF    QUALITY    AND    (JUANTITY  121 

woiild  be  tedious  and  profitless  to  describe  the  indefinite  gradu- 
tions  in  intensity  throus'h  "vvliicli  every  kind  of  sensation  may 
pass,  all  the  way  from  a  maximum  down  to  zero.  Here  ai^ain  we 
wish  rather  to  know,  if  jjossible,  the  general  conditions  on  Avhich, 
and  laws  according-  to  which,  sensations  gain  their  diliering 
degrees  of  intensity.  And,  finally — since,  as  has  just  been  said, 
changes  in  quality  and  changes  in  quantity  are  interdej)endent — 
we  wish  to  ascertain  the  uniform  relations  between  these  two 
classes  of  variation. 

g  1.  According  to  Sully  : '  "Quality  is  clearly  distinct  from  quantity,  and 
may  in  general  be  regarded  as  independent  of  it.  That  is  to  say,  we  can 
vary  intensity  without  affecting  quality.  This  would  ajjpear  to  follow  from 
the  assumed  dissimilarity  of  the  underlying  nervous  conditions."  On  the 
contrary,  that  would  appear  to  follow  from  the  known  connection  of  both 
the  peripheral  and  the  central  nervous  conditions  which  we  find  to  be  true 
by  experiment  :  namely,  we  cannot  vary  intensity  without  affecting  quality. 
But  other  writers  go  quite  too  far  in  the  efibrt  to  minimize  the  distinction 
between  intensity  and  quality.  For  example,  Miinsterberg  declares  ^  that 
'•quality  and  intensity  are  not  two  particular  jsroijerties  of  the  one  sensa- 
tion, but  only  the  directions  in  which  the  one  sensation  can  be  comimred 
with  other  sensations."  Although,  however,  the  two  "properties" — quality 
and  intensity — are  particular,  and  although  the  "  one  sensation  "  to  which 
they  belong  is  one  sensation,  and  not  two  sensations,  yet  discriminating  con- 
sciousness, by  changing  the  focus  of  attention,  as  it  were,  can  regard  one  of 
these  two  properties  to  the  partial  or  total  exclusion  of  the  other.  Tims, 
for  example,  if  I  am  going  toward,  or  away  from,  a  bell  which  is  being  struck 
periodically,  or  if  I  strike  with  varying  degrees  of  strength  the  same  note 
on  the  piano -forte,  I  am  likely  to  attend  only  to  the  changes  of  intensity. 
So,  too,  the  familiar  objects  in  my  room  do  not  seem  to  change  their  color- 
tone  as  the  intensity  of  the  sun-light  which  falls  upon  them  changes.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  I  wish  to  discriminate  nicely  the  quality  of  a  sensation  of 
musical  sound  or  of  color,  I  have  to  make  jDrovision  for  a  uniform  intensity 
of  stimulus  to  secure  an  exact  comparison.  One  does  not  venture  to  select 
one's  wall-paper  without  considering  the  amount  of  light  which  is  to  be 
reflected  from  its  dilfeient  areas  ;  and,  when  it  is  laid,  one  begins  to  notice 
how  agreeably  or  disagreeably  different  are  the  ui)per  from  the  lower  por- 
tions of  the  walls,  the  corners  from  the  middle  surfaces,  etc.  The  violinist 
who  wishes  to  give  the  right  qualitative  effect  to  his  jiart  in  the  quartette 
knows  that  he  must  play  neither  too  loudly  nor  too  softly. 

1 2.  Strictly  speaking,  the  number  of  qualities  which  the  sensations  of 
some  of  the  senses  may  assume  is  incalculable  ;  not  because,  of  course,  the 
number  is  infinite,  but  because  it  is  indefinite  and  dei^endent  upon  a  variety 
of  concurrent  conditions.  For  example,  the  number  of  color-sensations 
distinguishable  in  quality,  with  all  kinds  of  admixture  and  all  degrees  of 
brightness,  has  been  given  at  different  figures  from  five  thousand  to  many 
millions.     Hersehel  thouglit  that  the  workers  on  the  mosaics  of  the  Vatican 

'  The  Huiuau  Mind,  I,  p.  93.  "  Beitragc,  iii.,  p.  10. 


l'2'2  SENSATION  :     ITS   QUALITY   AND   QUANTITY 

must  have  distiuguisbed  thirty  thousand  different  colors.  Von  Kries  found 
himself  able  to  recognize  two  hundred  and  thirty  spectral  tints.  The 
number  of  recognizable  different  musical  sounds  ranges  through  some  eleven 
octaves,  in  some  portions  of  which  trained  ears  can  distinguish  over  three 
thousand  notes,  where  the  piano-forte  gives  only  24.  '  When  we  multiply 
these  numbers  by  the  possible  differences  in  timbre,  we  find  the  variety  in 
qualities  of  sound  rising  into  the  thousands.  Of  smells,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  no  one  knows  how  many  varieties  there  are ;  nor  is  the  number  of 
different  possible  tastes  easy  to  state.  Sensations  of  touch,  we  may  find  our- 
selves comf)elled  to  admit,  are  as  many  as  are  the  distinguishable  areas  of  the 
body  when  subjected  to  being  touched.  That  all  muscular,  temperature, 
and  joint  sensations  are  qualitatively  alike,  it  is  perhajis  easier  to  persuade 
one's  self.  But  even  here  we  have  seen  that  a  somewhat  indefinite  variety 
of  quality  seems  to  demand  recognition. 

The  Conditions  wliicli  determine  the  Quality  of  Sensations 
vary,  in  many  particulars,  for  the  different  classes  of  sensations. 
There  are,  however,  certain  general  conditions  upon  which  by  far 
the  greater  number  of  all  our  sensations  of  every  sense  dejDend 
for  the  determination  of  their  quality.  The  more  important  of 
these  are  the  following  : 

In  the  first  place,  the  Quality  of  Sensations  varies  in  depend- 
ence upon  the  original  or  acquired  Characteristics  of  the  Organ- 
ism through  whose  excitement  the  sensations  originate.  To  know 
that  blind  men  cannot  see,  and  deaf  men  cannot  hear,  needs  no 
appeal  to  psychological  science.  It  is  matter  of  popular  infor- 
mation also  that  certain  persons  are  more  or  less  color-blind, 
others  more  or  less  tone-deaf,  others  more  or  less  defective  in 
power  to  taste  and  smell,  and  still  others  relatively  lacking  in 
nicely  graded  cutaneous  and  muscular  sensations.  More  detailed 
scientific  observation  and  experiment  enable  us  to  go  beyond  all 
this.  The  sense-experience  of  every  individual  is,  so  far  as  rajige  of 
quality  in  each  of  the  senses  is  considered,  peculiar  to  that  indi- 
vidual ;  taken  as  a  whole,  it  may  be  said  to  be  unique. 

This  "  individuality  "  of  all  sense-experience  is,  in  part  at  least, 
determined  by  the  individual  characteristics  of  the  different  j^arts 
of  the  sensorium,  especially  of  the  end-organs  of  sense  ;  and 
such  organic  characteristics  may  result  either  from  inheritance 
or  from  the  modifying  influences  of  the  dift'eront  forms  of  en- 
vironment. Less  obvious,  but  not  less  real,  is  the  dependence 
of  the  quality  of  sensations  upon  the  peculiarities  of  the  central 
and  cerebral  mechanism. 

§3.  The  temiiorary  effect  of  functional  disturbance  of  the  end-organs, 
by  inflammations,  congestions,  etc.,  in  impairing  the  number  and  distinctness 

•  Cattell.  in  Mind,  Jan..  18S«,  p.  43. 


QUALITY    AND   OKGANLSM  123 

of  smells  and  tastes,  needs  only  to  be  mentioned.  Soaking  the  end-organs 
of  smell,  and  drying  the  end-organs  of  taste,  destroys  wholly  or  partially 
the  qualities  peculiar  to  difterent  substances  when  tested  by  these  organs. 
Many  i)ersons  are  habitually  quite  incapable  of  having  olfactory  and  gusta- 
tory sensations  with  the  qualities  of  which  others  are  perfectly  familiar.  If 
we  might  i)ress  so  far  the  figure  of  si)eech,  wo  should  say  :  they  are  i)sychi- 
cally  "deaf"  or  "blind"  to  the  various  "  tones"  and  "colors"  of  things 
as  tasted  and  smelled.  The  delicately  shaded  qualities  of  dermal  sensations 
"  with  which  some  persons  respond  to  stimulus  of  the  skin  are  a  perfectly 
unknown  experience  to  others.  Thus  Stumpf  tells  of  a  student  of  music  in 
a  German  conservatory  who  could  not  learn  to  play  correctly  on  the  violin 
— not  because  he  was  deficient  in  "  ear  "  for  tone-colors,  but  apparently  be- 
cause, through  some  obscure  defect  in  the  end-organs,  ho  could  not  evoke 
the  necessary  variety  of  tactual  and  muscular  experience. 

In  sensations  of  sound  there  is  the  widest  "  range  "  of  characteristic 
defects  or  excellences  as  respects  variety  of  qirality.  While  Helmholtz,  for 
example,  ceased  to  hear  a  musical  sound  below  34  vibrations  jier  second 
(about  C  in  the  contra-octave),  Preyer  could  hear  the  octave  below.  "While 
most  persons  failed,  in  Turnbull's  experiments,  to  hear  tones  above  iV  or  e' 
(about  twenty  thousand  vibrations  per  second),  others  can  hear  the  octave, 
above  or  even  higher.  Thus,  what  is  heard  by  one  listener  as  a  weak  drone 
is  heard  by  another  as  a  deep  bass  note  ;  and  what  is  heard  by  one  as  a 
very  higli  tone  is  rather  felt  by  another  as  piercing  pain  or  arouses  no 
sensation  at  all.  So,  too,  by  natural  and  acquired  differences  in  "  sensitive- 
ness "  to  pitch,  while  some  are  "  tone-deaf  "  (do  not  "  know  one  note  from 
another,"  cannot  distinguish  semi-tones  or  even  thirds),  others  can  recog- 
nize one  hundred  or  two  hundred  distinctions  of  pitch  between  the  succes- 
sive tones  of  the  ordinary  scale. 

The  interesting  phenomena  of  color-blindness  have  received  much  atten- 
tion of  late.  Through  defective  structure  of  the  retina,  certain  i^ersons  are 
deficient  in  power  to  see  certain  of  the  many  spectral  colors.  In  many 
cases  the  defect  amounts  to  a  partial  or  total  insensitiveness  to  the  red 
rays ;  these  rays  are  then  liable  to  be  confused  with  dark  green  or  yellow. 
The  spectrum  is  thus  said  to  be  shortened  for  these  sufierers  at  its  red  end. 
Cases  of  so-called  "  violet-blindness  "  have  also  been  reported.  In  total 
color-blindness,  shades  of  gray  from  black  to  white  constitute  tlie  total  sen- 
suous outfit,  as  it  were,  produced  by  excitations  of  the  retina.  The  most 
recent  investigations  seem  to  show  that — whatever  theory  of  color-blindness 
we  may  bo  inclined  to  adopt — the  phenomena  are  much  more  complicated 
than  has  ordinarily  been  supi^osed.  We  can  scarcely,  then,  divide  all  color- 
blintl  persons  into  two  groups  only:  namely,  the  "red-blind"  and  the 
"violet-blind"  or  "green-blind."'  At  least  one  case  of  monocular  partial 
color-blindness  is  on  record,  whore  violet,  green,  yellow,  and  all  interme- 
diate colors  were  wanting,  and  only  red  and  blue  remained.^  An  indefinite 
variety  of  partial  deficiencies  must  i)robably  be  recognized.  Even  so-called 
"  normal "    eyes   respond  to   the   same   objective   stimulus   with   different 

'  So  KOuig  and  Dieterici  ;  an  opinion  which  the  Am.  Journal  of  Psychology  Beeras  rather  too 
l)roinpt  to  declare  proven.    See  February  number,  p.  311,  1S88. 

'See  the  article  of  Kirschmann  :  Philosoph.  Studien,  viii.,  Heft  2  (1S92).  And  comp.  a  case 
raported  by  Vintschgau  :    Pfluger's  Archiv,  1891,  p.  431  f. 


124  SENSATION:     ITS   QUALITY   AND   QUANTITY 

qualities  of  sensation,  as  any  observer  knows  who  has  tborouglily  tested  tlio 
matter. 

§  4.  The  effect  of  practice  in  increasing  the  power  of  making  distinctions  in 
quality  is,  of  course,  closely  connected  with  the  subject  now  under  discus- 
sion. Sucl^  differences  are  mainly  developed  in  the  cerebral  processes 
by  rei)eated  action  of  the  stimulus.  But  the  training  and  modification  in 
minute  structure  and  functions  of  the  end-organs  is  not  to  be  left  entirely 
out  of  account. 

In  this  connection  also  should  be  mentioned  the  cases  of  those  persons 
who  have  a  range  of  qualitatively  different  sensations  quite  beyond  all  or- 
dinaiT  experience.  What  is  called  the  "  Reichenbach"  experiment,  for  ex- 
ample, appears  to  show  that  a  halo  may  be  seen  above  magnets,  when  the 
electrical  current  is  passing  through  them,  by  a  favored  few.  In  the  hypnotic 
state,  too,  all  the  variety  of  olfactory  sensations  which  belongs  to  some  of  thie 
lower  orders  of  animals  seems  sometimes  to  be  developed  in  man  ;  and  the 
subject  becomes  able  to  assign  to  each  one  of  a  score  of  owners,  by  smell, 
his  peculiar  belongings.  Cases  are  also  on  record  of  persons  who  could  de- 
tect the  sex,  or  even  the  personal  idiosyncrasies  of  others  present,  by  the  sense 
of  smell ;  by  the  same  sense  physicians  recognize  at  a  distance  small-pox  or 
other  diseases.  In  all  these  cases  perceptive  discrimination  is  of  course  in- 
volved ;  but  the  basis  for  such  intellectual  activity  must  be  laid  in  unusual 
natural  wealth  of  sensations.  Wealth  of  minutely  shaded  sensuous  impressions 
and  trained  tact  go  together. 

The  Quality  of  Sensations  depends,  second,  upon  tlie  pai-ticu- 
lar  Part  of  the  external  Organ  to  which  the  organic  stimulus  is 
applied.  In  the  gross,  as  it  were,  each  entire  organ  seems  to  act 
as  a  totality  in  the  production  of  sensation.  But  more  careful 
analytical  investigation  shows  that  this  way  of  stating  the  case 
is  not  satisfactory.  No  organ  can  be  considered  in  the  gross, 
and  at  the  same  time  as  afibrding  an  explanation  of  the  variety 
of  the  sensations  which  its  excitement  occasions.  In  truth,  evejy 
cnyan  is  a  composiie  of  a  iKist  7iumber  of  nerve-elements  ,*  and  this 
fact  corresponds  (at  least  in  some  general  way)  to  the  variety  of 
the  scjisuous  impressions  ichich  its  excitement  occasions. 

§  5.  In  the  case  of  smell,  experiment  has  not  succeeded  in  pointing  out 
any  changes  in  quality  of  sensation,  which  plainly  depend  xipon  the  portion 
of  the  olfactor}'  membrane  excited  by  the  effluvia.  Whether  this  is  due  to 
the  apparent  impossibility  of  applying  the  ai)propriate  stimulus  in  a  strict- 
ly limited  May,  or  to  the  nature  of  smell  as  exceptional,  we  cannot  say.  As 
to  the  fact  that  variations  in  the  qualities  of  tastes,  tones,  touches,  tem- 
peratures ("  heat-spots  "  and  ' '  cold-spots  "),  and  nuiscular  sensations  are  con- 
nected with  the  part  of  the  organ  to  which  the  stimulus  is  ap]>lied,  enougli 
has  already  l)een  said.  The  case  of  sensations  of  color  remains  ;  and  this 
illustrates  the  law  by  a  great  number  of  phenomena.  For,  if  we  divide  th(^ 
entire  field  of  the  retina  into  three  zones — polar,  middle,  and  perii^heral  — 
we  iind  that  the  same  objective  stimulus  regularly  produces  different  kinds 


QUALITY   AND   ORGANISM  125 

of  color-sensations  according  as  it  falls  within  one  or  the  other  of  these 
three  zones.  In  strict  fact,  no  clearly  divided  "  zones  "  can  be  discovered  ; 
l)ut  as  the  stimiilns  travels  over  the  retina  from  center  to  ijei'iphci-y,  it 
evokes  difterent  sensations  for  the  diflferent  points,  provided  they  are  far 
enough  from  each  other.  Thus,  at  a  certain  distance  from  the  center,  blue 
and  yellow  are  the  only  colors  seen  ;  farther  away,  none  at  all.  Kays  which, 
when  falling  on  the  polar  zone,  make  an  impression  of  red,  yellow,  or 
green,  oil  make  an  imi)ression  of  yellow  a  few  millimeters  from  the  center  of 
the  retina  ;  and  this  yellow  is  tlie  paler,  tJie  greener  the  im})rcssion  on  the 
l)olar  zt)ne.  One  observer  '  found  that,  on  movement  from  center  to  periphery, 
red  became  orange,  violet,  then  blue.  Another  observer  found  that  only 
yellow,  green,  and  blue  change  in  saturation,  on  movement  toward  the 
periphery.  The  ditFerent  parts  of  the  retina  are  also  differently  sensitive  to 
l)rightness  (or  light)  ;  and  this  sensitiveness  is  diflferent  for  different  eyes. 
In  general,  distinctions  of  quality  fade  out  or  fade  into  each  other — qualities 
of  color-tones  become  fewer  and  die  out— as  the  stimirlus  travels  from  center 
to  periphery  of  the  retina. 

The  Quality  of  Sensation  depends,  third,  upon  the  Condition 
of  the  Organism,  as  due  to  previous  excitement,  at  the  time 
when  it  is  stimuhited  for  the  i^roduction  of  any  g'iven  sensation. 
This  hiw  appears  to  be  true  for  both  the  end-organs  and  the  cen- 
tral organs  of  sense.  It  is  connected  closely  with  a  general 
psychological  principle  which  we  shall  find  entering  profoundly 
into  all  the  activity  and  development  of  mental  life.  No  factor 
of  any  complex  state  and  no  individual  state  in  the  onflowing 
stream  of  consciousness  can  be  considered  as  respects  the  ques- 
tion, What  is  it?  in  isolation  from  contemporaneous  and  im- 
mediately preceding  factors  and  states.  Each  factor,  each  state, 
is  determined  to  be  what  it  really  is,  by  its  relations  to  the 
contiguous  totality  of  which  it  forms  a  part. 

This  general  "  principle  of  relativity  "  is  provided  for  by  the 
very  structure  and  functions  of  the  organism.  Under  no  ordi- 
nary circumstances,  and  scarcely  under  any  circumstances  which 
can  be  artificially  secured,  can  one  element  alone  of  the  organism 
l)e  excited.  Nearly  contiguous  elements  must  be  simultaneous- 
ly excited,  alfhough  in  less  degree  and  in  a  somewhat  differ- 
ent way.  Moreover,  every  particular  excitation  breaks  in  upon 
the  stream  of  nerve-commotion  in  which  the  organism  is  con- 
tinually found,  only  on  condition  that  it  shall  enter  into  con- 
nection and  fuse  with  what  it  finds  already  there.  This  is 
true  even  of  the  most  quiescent  of  the  end-organs  of  sense.  The 
end-organs  of  every  sense  are  ceaselessly  in  process  of  nerve- 
commotion.     But  particularly  is  this  true  of  those  central  or- 

^  See  Kirschmann:  Ueber  die  Helligkeitserapflnduug  im  indirecten  Sehcu— Philosoph.  Stud., 
v.,  Heft  3,  pp.  44T-497.    And  comp.  Hess,  in  Graefe's  Archiv  f.  Ophthalniologie,  xxxv..  Heft  4,  1889. 


126  SENSATION  :    ITS   QUALITY   AND   QUANTITY 

g-ans  of  the  brain  that  are,  without  pause  day  or  nio-ht  for  a 
single  fraction  of  a  second,  reverberating-,  as  it  were,  to  count- 
less voices  which  call  to  them  from  every  part  of  the  i^eriph- 
ery,  and  which  call  back  and  forth  between  these  centers  them- 
selves. 

Yet  this  ceaselessly  inter-responsive  molecular  mechanism 
is  only  the  physical  correlate  of  the  interaction  which  takes 
place  between  the  different  factors  of  each  mental  state  and 
between  all  the  successive  states.  Psycholog-y  has  been  Avont  to 
recognize  this — although  only  very  imperfectly — in  the  form  of 
a  theory  of  "  the  association  of  ideas,"  or  of  "  the  relativity  of 
knowledge."  But  the  principle  is  absolutely  without  exception, 
and  applies  to  the  qualities  of  the  sensational  factors  themselves. 
To  explain  fully  the  qnality  of  every  sensation,  ice  viust  understand, 
hoth  physiologically  and  psycholoyically ,  the  quality  of  the  imvudi- 
ately  preceding  and  contemporaneous  sensations. 

I  6.  That  smells  aud  tastes,  wlieu  closely  successive,  influence  each  other, 
eveiy  one  knows.  Indeed,  many  of  the  most  disagreeable  experiences  we 
have  with  these  sensations  depend  upon  this  principle.  "After-images"  of 
smell  and  taste  (to  apply  to  these  senses  a  mode  of  speech  borrowed  from 
our  experience  in  sight)  linger  and  modify  the  effects  of  all  forms  of  stimu- 
lation in  exciting  further  sensations.  Owing  to  the  nature  of  the  organs, 
different  qualities  of  the  sensations  of  these  senses  cannot  readily  be  simulta- 
neously evoked.  In  the  case  of  two  simultaneous  odors,  the  stronger  over- 
whelms the  weaker  ;  but  sometimes  by  absorption,  as  it  were.  Certain  tastes 
compensate  each  other.  Briicke  held  that  the  sour  of  the  lemon  and  the 
sweet  of  the  sugar  neutralize  each  other  in  the  brain.  We  have  already  seen 
how  sensations  of  temperature  are  often  relative  to  the  condition  of  the  organ- 
ism at  the  time  when  the  heat-spots  or  cold-spots  are  stimulated.  How  a 
surface  feels  as  rough  or  smooth  to  us  depends — at  least  to  some  extent — 
upon  the  state  of  the  organ  when  applied,  after  being  engaged  in  more  or 
less  qualitatively  different  sensations.  In  the  case  even  of  that  sense  which 
is  most  prompt  abovit  clearing  up  past  impressions  and  receiving  new  ones. 
in  a  perfectly  unprejudiced  way — namely,  the  ear — the  sensations  fall,  as 
respects  quality,  under  the  same  principle.  Thus,  an  imperfect  consonanct^ 
which  follows  a  discord  is  itself  more  "  harmonioiis "  than  one  which  is 
brought  into  immediate  proximity  to  a  perfect  consonance.  Nor  does  the 
sensation  which  responds  to  any  particular  note  seem  to  be  precisely  the 
same  when  we  take  it,  first,  as  the  "sharp"  of  the  note  below,  and  then 
again  as  the  "  flat "  of  the  note  above  (even  on  the  piauo-forte,  where  exact 
accuracy  of  pitch  cannot  be  secured). 

§  7.  It  is  in  the  phenomena  of  light  and  color,  however,  that  we  obtain 
the  most  numerous  and  striking  illustrations  of  the  same  principle.  The 
previous  condition  of  the  whole  retina,  and  the  contemi^oraneous  condition 
of  parts  of  the  retina  contiguous  to  those  on  which  the  light  falls,  influence 
profoundly  the  character  of  the  sensation  produced  by  any  particular  form  of 


I 


QUALITY    AND   ORGANISM  127 

stimulus.  The  phenomena  of  "inertia,"  "exhaustion,"  and,  less  purely,  of 
"contrast,"  fall  under  this  principle.  If  we  close  the  eyes,  after  looking 
intently  for  a  few  seconds  at  a  bright  object,  we  find  its  image  remaining  for 
some  time,  and  only  slowly  fading  out  of  sight.  Such  an  after-image  is 
called  "positive,"  and  is  said  to  be  due  to  the  inertia  of  the  retinal  elements. 
But  if  a  white  positive  after-image  be  watched,  it  will  be  seen,  by  a  normal 
eye,  to  pass  quickly  through  greenish-blue  to  indigo-blue  and  then  to  violet 
or  rose-color.  Such  an  after-image  is  called  "negative,"  and  is  said  to  be 
due  to  exhaustion  of  the  retina.  If  we  look  for  a  long  time  steadily  at  a 
small  black  square  lying  on  a  white  sufuce,  and  then  turn  the  eyes  off  to  a 
white  background,  a  bright  squaic  will  appear,  and  then  slowly  fade  away. 
But  if  the  square  looked  at  be  green,  then  the  after-image  will  be  reddish. 
In  general,  the  color  of  the  image  will  be  the  "  complementaiy  "  of  the  color 
of  the  object.  These  phenomena  also  are  said  to  be  due  to  exhaustion  of  the 
retina.  Whatever  explanation  of  them  be  given,  they  illustrate  the  depend- 
ence of  the  color-sensations  on  the  previous  condition  of  the  organ. 

g  8.  Althoiigli  the  complete  explanation  of  the  phenomena  of  "  contrast  " 
is  doubtful,  they  do  undoubtedly  fall  to  a  certain  extent  under  this  same 
principle.  Such  phenomena  may  be  divided  into  two  classes  :  contrast  of 
brightness,  and  contrast  of  color-tone.  Every  bright  object  appears  brighter 
with  surroundings  that  are  darker  than  itself,  and  every  dark  object  appears 
darker  with  surroundings  brighter  than  itself.  Under  this  principle  of  con- 
trast, phenomena  similar  to  those  of  complementary  colors  are  obtained. 
For  example,  a  small  square  of  white  on  a  surface  of  gi'een,  when  covered 
with  transparent  tissue-paper,  appears  as  red  on  a  surface  of  whitish  hue ; 
on  a  red  ground  it  appears  as  green,  on  a  blue  as  yellow,  and  vice  versa. 
That  is,  each  color-sensation  tends  to  modify,  in  the  direction  of  its  own 
complementary  color,  the  other  color-sensation  on  which  it  acts.  More 
recent  experiments  show  that  even  the  most  saturated  color-tones,  when 
seen  without  any  opportimity  to  compare  them  with  other  surrounding  colors, 
lose  in  a  measure  their  distinctive  quality. 

To  account  for  these  and  similar  interesting  phenomena,  two  theories 
have  been  proi:)Osed.  The  former  emphasizes  the  truth  stated  as  follows  by 
Wundt :  "The  sensation  which  arises  through  the  stimulation  of  any  given 
part  of  the  retina  is  also  a  function  of  the  state  of  other  contiguous  parts." 
But  by  Helmholtz  such  phenomena  are  treated  as  deceptions  of  judgment, 
like  those  to  which  we  are  accustomed  in  our  estimates  of  distances.  The 
former  has  been  called  the  physiological,  the  latter  the  psychological  theoiT. 
"We  cannot  discuss  in  detail  these  theories.  Undoubtedly  all  explanation  here 
must  be  both  physiological  and  psychological ;  and  probably,  in  the  physio- 
logical explanation,  both  retinal  processes  and  cerebral  process  are  involved. 
All  exi^lanations  of  the  phenomena  of  contrast,  however,  illustrate  our 
principle:  "  Tlie  quality  of  every  sensation  is  dependent  upo7i  the  condition  of 
the  organism  and  of  the  correlated  stream  of  sense  -  expei-ience  at  the  time  when 
the  effective  excitation  of  the  organism  takes  place. ' 

'  The  phenomena  of  "  contrast  "  have  been  much  discussed.  In  addition  to  references  already 
made,  the  reader  may  consult  Helmholtz  :  Physiolog.  Optik  (2d  ed.),  p.  560  f.  Fick,  in  Hermann's 
Handb.  d.  Physiol.,  IH..  1,  p.  231  f.  Hering :  Sitzgsbr.  d.  Wien.  Acad.,  June,  18T2  and  Dec,  1873, 
and  four  papers  in  Pfliiger's  Archiv,  xl.,  xli.,  xliii.  Ebbinghaus  :  Sitzgsbr.  d.  KOolich.  Prenes. 
Acad.,  Dec,  1887.    Delabarre  :  Am  Journal  of  Psych.,  Aug.,  1889,  p.  636  f. 


128  SEINTSATION  :     ITS    QUALITY    AND    QUAiS'^TITY 

Fourth  :  The  Quality  of  Sensations  depends  upon  the  varjdng- 
Qualities  of  the  Stimulus.  This  follows  of  necessity  from  the . 
nature  of  the  process  of  perception  itself.  In  the  case,  particu- 
larly, of  sight  and  touch,  the  sensations,  "  as  such,"  are  habituall}'- 
disregarded,  and  attention  is  paid  rather  to  the  things  knowTi 
through  the  changing  qualities  of  sensation.  In  our  experience 
we  attribute  our  diU'eriug  sensations  to  changes  in  the  tempera- 
ture, feel,  color,  and  brightness  of  the  things  which  produce 
them.  To  a  less  degree  this  is  true  also  of  tastes,  smells,  and 
sounds. 

For  purposes  of  psychological  science  the  external  stimuli 
may  be  divided  into  two  classes  —  mechanical  and  chemical. 
The  stimuli  of  hearing  and  touch  are  mechanical ;  those  of  sight, 
smell,  taste,  and  temperature  are  ordinarily  declared  to  be 
chemical.  But  temperature  is  doubtful ;  and,  in  all  cases,  even 
in  touch  and  hearing,  the  mechanical  application  of  the  stimulus 
probably  produces  accompanying  chemical  changes  which  affect 
the  character  of  the  excitement  produced  in  the  end-organ.  It 
follows  from  this  view  that  the  ]:>ecnJ'iar  characteristics  of  our  sense- 
ej'perience  depend  upon  the  differing  hinds  and  amounts  of  the 
-molecular  changes  which  irritate  the  end-organs  of  sense. 

?  9.  Little  need  be  added,  to  what  was  said  in  the  last  chapter,  for  the 
further  illustration  of  this  point.  In  the  case  of  sound  and  sight,  however, 
somewhat  more  of  detail  seems  desirable.  When  the  periodic  vibrations, 
which  act  through  the  outer  and  middle  ears  U])on  the  organ  of  Corti,  reach 
the  number  of  from  about  16  to  about  34,  they  jjroduce  in  most  persons  that 
jieculiar  modification  of  our  acoustic  consciousness  which  we  call  the  lowest 
possible  "  musical"  sound.  As  the  number  of  vibrations  of  the  stimulus  in- 
creases, the  modification  of  sensuous  consciousness  changes  ;  our  sensations 
run  through  what  we  call  "a  scale"  of  tones  (from  lower  to  higher,  with  a 
greater  or  smaller  number  of  members  to  the  scale,  according  to  individual 
peculiarities  and  training).  At  from  20,000  to  40,000  vibrations  all  sensations 
of  musical  sound  cease.  If  now  we  take  a  given  number  of  vibrations,  as  440 
l)er  second,  in  the  German  musical  scale,  and  observe  carefully  the  jirecise 
quality  of  the  sensation  evoked  by  it,  we  may  fix  one  note  in  our  scale  (the  a'  of 
the  musical  scale).  It  will  then  bo  found  that  for  ears  which  are  not  tone- 
deaf  and  arc  even  moderately  cultivated,  the  other  sensations  of  musical 
sound  will  arrange  themselves,  with  reference  to  this  iixed  note  and  to  one 
another,  in  a  peculiar  way.  Notes  caused  by  twice  the  number  of  vibrations 
of  other  notes  cause  a  peculiar,  jileasant  relation  of  sensations — similar  and 
yet  different — when  sounded  successively ;  they  are  octaves  above,  and  the 
octave  is  the  most  "  perfect  harmony,"  as  we  say.  In  general,  it  will  be 
found  that  the  "  clangs  "  have  their  jjeculiar  tone-color  in  accordance  with 
the  mathematical  relations  of  the  partial  tones  which  enter  into  them. 
Within  any  octave  in  the  musical  scale  the  eight  different  notes  stand  in  the 
following  ratios  to  each  other  : 


B   ; 

;  C 

la  . 

:    2 

15  : 

;  IG 

QUALITY   AIS'D   TIMK  129 

Name C:D:E:      F:G:     A 

Relation  of  single  vibrations 1  :     -,  :    ^  :        ;*,  :    :j  :      ^ 

Kelative  number  in  a  unit  of  time 8  :    9  :  10  :    10 j :  12  :  13^ 

Thus  the  timbre  of  each  clang  and  its  place  in  the  "scale"  is  seen  to 
cloiieud  on  the  form  of  a  complex  sound-wave.  Moreover,  wheu  two  or 
more  clangs  are  sounded  together,  the  resulting  sensation-complex  is  either 
a  pleasant  or  an  unpleasant  modification  of  sense-experience,  called  a 
"  chord  "  or  a  "  discord."  But  chords  and  discords  are  determined  by  the 
mathematical  relations  in  which  the  sound-waves  occasioning  the  clangs 
that  compose  tliem  stand  to  each  other.  The  simpler  these  relations,  the 
more  perfect  the  consonance  :  Thus,  Octave  (1  :  2)  ;  Twelfth  (1  :  3j ;  Fifth 
(2:3);  Fourth  (3  : 4)  ;  Sixth  (3:5);  Major  Tliird  (4:5);  Minor  Third  (5  :  G). 

In  the  case  of  color-sensations,  variations  in  quality  run  through 
the  tints  of  the  si^ectrum  in  dependence  upon  the  number  of  the  oscilla- 
tions of  the  rays  of  light  which,  by  falling  upon  the  retina,  occasion  them. 
If  we  use  Fraunhofer's  lines  to  mark  those  portions  of  the  spectrum  where 
its  princii^al  colors  apjjear  jjurest  to  the  central  portion  of  the  normal  eye, 
and  then  number  the  oscillations  in  billions,  we  have  the  following  scale  : 
B  (450) ;  C  (472) ;  D  (526)  ;  E  (589)  ;  F  (G40)  ;  G  (722)  ;  H  (790).  That  is  to 
say,  the  rays  of  light,  so  far  as  they  affect  us  at  all,  up  to  and  somewhat  be- 
yond 450  billions,  occasion  the  various  shades  of  Bed;  beyond  470  billions 
the  sensation  takes  on  a  yellowish  tone  (Orange-yellow),  and  at  about  52G 
billions,  becomes  what  we  call  Yellow.  The  yellow  grows  greenish,  and  at 
about  589  billions  Green  definitely  appears  ;  the  green  turns  bluish,  and  at 
G40  billions  Blue  begins  to  be  seen.  From  here  uj)  to  about  722  bill- 
ions the  colors  between  blue  and  violet  are  run  through;  then  Violet  ap- 
pears ;  and  beyond  the  violet,  to  some  eyes  a  glimmer  of  lavender-gray. 
But  in  the  case  of  colors,  as  in  the  case  of  sounds,  the  different  shades  of 
color  are  not  sharply  separated,  but  pass  gradually  into  each  other  ;  the 
Jioio  of  qualitative  differentiation  is,  however,  fai-  less  smooth  and  uniform  in  the 
case  of  colors  than  in  that  of  7nnsical  sounds. 

Fifth :  The  Quality  of  Sensation  depends  upon  the  Time  dur- 
ing Avhich  the  stimulus  acts  upon  the  org-anism  for  the  produc- 
tion of  the  sensation.  In  appreciating  the  bearing  of  this  condi- 
tion upon  our  sense-experience,  several  considerations  must  be 
taken  into  account.  The  "  inertia  "  of  all  the  end-organs  is  such 
that  a  certain  minute  time  is  always  required  for  bringing  them, 
under  the  action  of  the  stimulus,  to  their  maximum  of  intensity  and 
definiteness  of  response.  The  time  consumed  by  the  end-organ 
of  sense  does  not  exactly  correspond  to  that  necessary  for  start- 
ing and  stopping  the  resulting  sensory  processes  in  the  brain  ; 
and  it  is  on  the  basis  of  the  latter,  of  course,  that  the  different 
psychological  conditions  of  sense-experience  immediately  repose. 
If,  now,  we  turn  to  the  psychical  side,  we  find  that  no  sensation, 
as  such,  reaches  its  maximum  of  intensity  and  perfectly,  as  it 
were,  defines  its  quality,  without  lapse  of  time.     We  may  say 


130  SENSATio:^ :   its  quality  and  quantity 

even  of  dimple  sensations  :  however  instantaneously  they  appear  to 
rise  in  consciousness^  they  are  really  groivths  or  developments.  And 
in  this  brief  i^rocess  of  growth,  which  all  simple  sensations  un- 
dergo, they  pass  through  dijfeveni  phases. 

\  10.  The  "  inertia "  of  the  nervovis  mechanism  follows  as  a  necessary 
deduction  from  its  molecular  physical  constitution.  Connected  with  this 
jiroperty  is  what  the  German  investigators  have  called  the  '■' Ankliiujea  "  and 
'■'■  AlMbigp.n  "  of  nervous  excitement.  But  the  inertia  of  different  end-organs 
of  sense  is  extremely  different.  Under  extraordinary  circumstances  some 
five  hundred  sensations  of  sound,  due  to  the  crackling  of  an  electric  spark, 
and  about  the  same  number  of  sensations  of  touch,  due  to  contact  with  the 
teeth  of  a  revolving  wheel,  can  be  kept  apart  (without  "  fusing,"  as  we  say) 
in  consciousness.  The  inertia  of  the  end-organs  of  smell  and  taste  is  enor- 
mously greater  than  this.  The  inertia  of  the  organ  of  color-sensations 
stands  between  these  extremes ;  it  is  somewhat  different,  however,  for  the 
different  colors.  Thus  Oattell  '  found  that  the  length  of  time  necessary  to 
distinguish  the  color-tones  from  a  shade  of  gray  corresponding  in  bright- 
ness, nine  out  of  ten  times  of  trial,  was  :  for  red,  1.28  o- ;  for  orange,  0.87  a  ; 
for  green,  1.42  a- ;  for  blue,  1.21  «■;  for  violet,  2.32  u.  The  minimum  of  all 
was  0.6  w  for  orange  and  yellow;  tlie  maximum,  2.75  o-  for  violet.  This 
amount  of  time,  it  was  held,  must  represent  inertia  in  the  nerve-tracts  and 
in  the  brain  as  well  as  in  the  retina. 

\  11.  All  know  that  different  smells  and  tastes  require  considerable  time 
to  define  their  respective  qualities.  Of  course,  in  the  active  and  continuous 
use  of  the  organs  of  these  sensations,  what  takes  place  is  really  a  succession 
of  sensuous  impressions  or  states,  iu  which  one  qualitative  factor  rises  more 
and  more  clearly  above  the  others  in  discriminating  consciousness.  The  same 
thing  is  true  when  we  try  to  discriminate  the  full  and  precise  quality  of  a 
sensation  of  touch,  or  of  musical  sound,  or  of  color,  by  dwelling  upon  it. 
But  over  and  above  all  this  is  the  fact  proved  by  experiment,  that  changes 
of  color-tone  take  place  when  the  time  of  the  action  of  the  light  is  reduced 
to  a  minimum.  Or,  in  general,  we  may  say  that  time  makes  up  to  some  extent 
for  (I'lficiencii  in  the  intensiti/  of  the  stimulus.  All  such  experience  is,  of  course, 
connected  with  the  necessity  for  time  in  all  acts  of  discriminating  judgment, 
and  in  the  cerebral  processes  which  accompany  such  acts.  Moreover,  our 
self-conscious  experience  with  these  sensations  is  that  they  do  actually  grow, 
in  time,  into  the  qualities  they  really  have.  The  fact  that  reaction-time  is 
lengthened  when  we  have  to  recognize,  not  .simply  some  sensation,  but  a  sen- 
sation qualitatively  defined  as  a,  rather  than  b,  points  to  the  same  truth.  And 
if  we  are  forced  to  make  an  exception  in  the  case  of  rapidly  succeeding  sen- 
sations of  hearing  noises  or  being  touched,  we  must  remember  that  almost 
all  concrete  quality  is  then  lacking  to  the  sensation,  and  consciousness  has 
sunk  to  its  most  purely  passive  or,  as  respects  quality,  least  discriminating 
form  of  manifestation. 

Finally,  the  Qiiality  of  every  Sensation  depends  n]ion  the 
Intensity  of  the  Stimulus  which  occasions  it,  and  thus  upon  the 

'  Sec  Thilosoph.  Studien,  iii.,  Heft  1,  pp.  94-127.     And  Brain,  viii.,  pp.  295-312. 


»# 


QUALITY   AND   INTENSITY  131 

resulting'  amount  of  nerve-commotion  set  up  in  the  organism. 
The  etiect  of  increasing-  the  stimulus  upon  the  changes  of  qual- 
ity in  the  resulting  sensations  is,  doubtless,  connected  with  the 
spreading  of  the  nerve-commotion  over  contiguous  minute  areas 
of  the  nervous  apparatus.  Brighter  lights,  louder  sounds, 
stronger  tastes,  smells,  and  pressures  upon  the  skin,  severer 
pulls  upon  the  tendons  or  crowding  together  of  the  joints,  and 
more  strenuous  use  of  the  muscles,  all  involve  a  greater  exten- 
sion of  excitement  within  both  end-organs  and  brain.  Such 
spreading  of  the  excited  areas  mingles  new  factors  with  the  re- 
sulting sensations,  and  so  gives  to  the  complex  result  a  different 
shading  of  quality,  if  not  markedly  new  characteristics.  It\  (jen- 
eral,  and  hi  all  oar  sense-exj)erie7ice,  as  we  are  ahle  to  evoke  and 
observe  it,  the  rale  that  quality  depends  on  intensity  seems  to  hold 
true. 

.  \  12.  Even  in  those  cases  to  which  we  appeal  most  confidently  for  our 
impression  as  to  the  separableness  of  the  quantity  from  the  quality  of  sensa- 
tion, the  principle  that  the  latter  depends  upon  the  former  seems  to  hold 
true.  By  changing  the  intensity  of  a  musical  sound,  its  timbre  is — as  we 
have  already  seen— made  to  change.  Let  any  one  experiment  by  watching 
the  alteration  in  the  quality  of  his  sense-experience  as  he  sweeps  a  violin- 
bow  over  an  open  string  with  varying  degrees  of  pressure.  The  more 
nearly  "  contentless "  the  sound  becomes — for  example,  a  mere  noise  not 
loud  enough  to  occasion  a  decided  tone  of  feeling — the  less  obvious  this 
principle  of  dependence  becomes.  "Intense"  sweet  or  sour,  and  "strong" 
bitter  or  salt,  we  really  different  sorts  of  sensations  from  those  which  we 
characterize  by  the  same  nouns  when  the  adjectives  "  faint  "  or  "  moderate  " 
precede  them.  The  same  thing  seems  true  also  of  sensations  of  temperature 
and  pressure  ;  although  in  the  case  of  all  these  experiences  we  have  no  lan- 
guage with  which  to  mark  those  delicate  shadings  of  quality  which  arise 
when  the  amounts  of  stimulus  are  increased.' 

Here  again,  however,  it  is  the  case  of  the  so-called  "  geometrical "  senses, 
and  especially  of  sight,  which  offers  the  most  obvious  application  of  the  prin- 
ciple, A  white  of  less  intensity  is  not  simply  less  white  :  it  is  a  shade  of  gray. 
And  by  constantly /liminishing  the  intensity  of  the  light,  we  can  shade  the 
series  through  all  grades  of  gray  to  black,  which  is  certainly  not  a  "less  de- 
gree "  of  the  same  quality  of  sensation  as  white.  Important  changes  in  qual- 
ity also  take  place  in  all  the  color-tones  when  the  intensity  of  the  light  ap- 
proaches either  a  maximum  or  a  minimum.  On  the  way  to  the  maximum,  red 
and  green  pass  over  into  yellow  ;  and  when  the  maximum  is  reached  all  colors 
cease,  and  even  homogeneous  rays  appear  white.  At  the  minimum  intensi- 
ties of  light  every  color-tone,  except  pure  red  of  spectral  saturation,  appears 
colorless.     If  we   puncture  a  very  fine  hole  in  a  piece  of  paper  and  look 

'  M.  Bergson  maintains  (Les  Donnees  immediates  de  la  Conscience,  p.  35)  tliat  "a  heat  more 
intense  is  really  another  heat."  We  call  it  more  intense  because  we  have  a  thousand  times  experi- 
enced the  same  change  when  we  have  approached  a  source  of  heat,  or  when  a  larger  portion  of  our 
bodies  was  impressed  with  the  sensation  of  temperature. 

a;?  I, 
r  > 


132  SE]!TSATION  :     ITS   QUALITY   ATSTD   QUANTITY 

througli  it  at  a  colored  surface  some  six  or  seven  meters  distant,  the  color  of 
the  surface  cannot  be  seen.  But  by  increasing  the  number  of  holes  at  con- 
tiguous points,  so  as  to  allow  more  light  to  reach  the  eye,  the  color  is  made 
to  define  itself.  On  the  skin  it  is  even  difficult  to  distinguish  sensations  of 
temperature  from  those  of  light  pressure,  when  the  stimulus  is  in  both  cases 
of  a  very  low  degree  of  intensity. 

It  will  appear  later  how  influential  in  forming  that  field  of  perception,  in 
which  muscles,  skin,  joints,  and  tendons,  with  central  feelings  of  effort, 
combine,  are  the  variations  in  quality  occasioned  by  different  amounts  of 
the  stimulation  of  these  organs.  For  example,  we  have  a  different  kind  of 
sense-experience  (and  not  merely  viore  of  the  same  kind),  when  a  large  muscle 
is  acting,  from  that  which  belongs  to  the  contraction  of  a  small  muscle. 


By  Intensity  or  Quantity  of  a  Sensation  we  may  be  said  to 
mean  the  psychical  energy  with  which  the  sensation  is  realized,  as  it 
were — the  "degree  of  its  becoming-  in  consciousness."  This 
characteristic  of  all  sensations  obviously  implies  that  they  are 
in  some  sort  measurable;  the  terms  "  strong-  "  and  "  weak"  maj^ 
be  applied  to  them  ;  they  may  be  compared  and  pronounced  to 
be  "greater"  or  "less"  one  than  another.  Of  this  character- 
istic we  are  as  sure  immediately  as  we  can  be  of  any  character- 
istic of  our  sense-experience  ;  indeed,  the  fact  enters  into  all  our 
language  and  into  all  those  calculations  so  necessary  to  the  con- 
tinuous adjustment  of  conduct  to  circumstances,  in  order  not 
only  to  live  wisely,  but  even  to  live  at  all. 

When,  however,  we  seek  to  give  scientific  definiteuess  to  our 
experience  with  the  varying  amounts  of  our  sensations,  we  find 
ourselves  involved  in  many  perplexing  inquiries.  Our  ordi- 
nary comparisons  of  the  sensations  belonging  to  the  same  sense 
are  extremely  indefinite.  We  classify  the  degrees  of  intensity 
roughly  under  the  above-mentioned  and  other  terms  ;  but,  al- 
though the  minuter  changes  of  degree  are  easily  observable,  if 
we  attend  to  them,  we  are  at  a  loss  to  state  in  strict  mathe- 
matical language  the  results  of  our  most  delicate  comparisons. 
When  we  come  to  comi^are  sensations  of  the  different  senses 
with  respect  to  intensity,  all  estimates  approach  a  point  where 
they  tend  to  lose  their  meaning  and  to  become  absurd.  For 
example,  who  shall  say  whether  this  sensation  of  musical  tone 
is  fifteen  or  sixteen  times  as  great  as  the  i^receding  one  ;  or 
whether  the  depth  of  this  shadow  surpasses  that  of  the  other, 
in  the  proportion  of  ninety-nine  to  one  or  of  a  hundred  to  one  ? 
Who  would  venture  to  pronounce  the  greenness  of  the  grass 
precisely  one  and  a  half  times  the  olive  of  the  evening  sky  ;  or 
the  smell  of  the  violet  in  his  hand  just  three-quarters  as  strong 
as  the  flavor  of  his  morning's  cup  of  coffee  ? 


•    MEASURABLENESS   OF  QUANTITY  133 

g  13.  The  discussion  of  the  "  measiirableness  "  of  psychoses  in  general, 
and  so  of  the  ai)i)licability  of  the  "  category  of  quantity  "  to  our  mental 
states,  has  been  brought  to  a  place  of  great  prominence  by  modern  experi- 
mental lisychology.  The  attempt  has  been  made,  in  illustration  and  defence 
or  in  criticism  of  "Weber's  law"  (and,  indeed,  in  the  entire  pursuit  of 
"  l^sycho-physical  science,"  strictly  so-called)  to  apply  the  methods,  terms, 
and  formulas  of  mathematical  physics  to  conscious  states,,  and  to  factors  of 
conscious  states,  as  such.  Nay,  more :  sensations  and  other  forms  of  psy- 
choses have  been  spoken  of  as  though  they  were  entities  that  can  have  some 
sort  of  existence  when  depressed  below  a  "  threshold  of  consciousness." 
Units  of  measurement  have  also  been  employed  in  a  way  at  least  to  suggest 
that  the  investigator  conceived  of  himself  as  possessed  of  some  unchange- 
able measuring-stick — itself  a  quasi-mental  entity — which  might  be  applied 
to  these  mental  entities,  and  that  he  could  thus  establish  a  mathematics  of 
psychical  energy,  as  such. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  strong  reaction  against  such  views  of  the  devo- 
tees of  psycho-physics,  some  modern  writers  have  denied  i)i  toto  that  terms 
of  quantity  have  any  applicability  to  those  data  with  which  psychology  i^ri- 
marily  deals.  Thus  one  author  '  maintains  that  only  by  a  convenient  figure 
of  speech,  a  fictitious  translation  of  what  is  really  qualUy  and  changes  of 
qualily,  into  terms  that  apply  to  extension  in  space,  do  we  speak  of  our  feel- 
ings and  sensations  as  "more"  or  "less"  and  "great"  or  "little."  Thus 
it  is  always — this  writer  holds — a  really  qualitative  progress  in  our  feelings 
and  sensations  which  we  interpret  in  the  sense  of  a  change  of  size. 

Neither  of  these  extreme  views  is,  in  our  judgment,  wholly  true  to  the 
facts  of  consciousness  or  to  the  history  of  psychological  investigation.  There 
is,  of  course,  no  such  thing  possible  or  even  conceivable  as  a  fixed  standard, 
in  the  sense  of  some  psychical  entity  or  equivalent  of  such  entity,  which 
can  be  apx^lied  for  the  determination  of  absolute  or  relative  quantities  of 
psychoses.  All  that  psycho-physics  can  do  is  to  determine  under  what  con- 
ditions discriminating  consciousness  decides  that  a  change  in  amount  of 
"realized  sensation"  has  taken  place.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  fact  that 
psycho -physics  can  do  even  this  is  based  upon  au  ultimate  truth  of  con- 
sciousness— namely :  different  sensations  are  actually  different  as  respects  the 
way  in  xchich  they  answer  the  question,  How  much  ?  And  if  we  are  obliged  to 
state  our  results  in  terms  of  "extensive"  magnitude,  this  is  only  what  is 
true  of  all  our  scientific  dealings  with  the  category  of  quantity.  But,  of 
course,  whatever 'quantity  psychoses,  "as  such,"  possess  is  ''intensive " 
quantity,  however  obviously  we  may  measure  or  exj^ress  it  in  terms  of  the 
movement  of  the  masses  of  our  own  bodies  through  space. 

Any  Theory  of  the  Quantity  of  Sensations  (in  the  only  way 
in  which  such  a  theory  can  be  framed,  or  indeed  has  any  mean- 
ing-) raises  chiefl}^  two  sets  of  inqiiiries  :  (1)  to  find  the  quanti- 
tative limits — the  maxima  and  ininvma — within  which  sensations 
of  each  sense  are  possible,  and  the  laws  of  the  variation  of  these 
limits  ;  and  (2)  to  determine  the  law  of  the  relation  under  which 

'  M.  Bergson :  Les  Donnees  immediates  de  la  Conscience,  p.  10  f. 


134  sensation:   its  quality  and  quantity 

changes  in  the  intensity  of  sensations,  as  estimated  in  conscious- 
ness, depend  upon  changes  in  the  intensity  of  stimuli.  Many 
difficulties  stand  in  the  way  of  an  exact  solution  of  either  of 
these  inquiries  ;  among  which  the  chief  are  the  difficulty  of 
finding  a  precise  standard  of  measurement  (either  objective  or 
subjective),  the  difficulty  of  applying  the  stimulus  to  the  organ 
so  as  not  to  introduce  confusing  concomitant  experiences  of  dif- 
ferent kinds,  and  the  difficulty  of  calculating  the  results  so  as 
to  do  entire  justice  to  the  i^roblem  which  it  is  attempted  to  solve, 

^  14.  It  is  only  with  respect  to  sensations  of  pressure  and  of  the  niuscn- 
lar  sense  (and  less  easily  those  of  hearing)  that  we  can  confidently  establish 
a  satisfactory  objective  standard  with  which  to  compare  the  energies  of  the' 
action  of  different  stimuli.  The  immediate  stimulus  of  sensations  of  color 
and  light  being  i^hotochemical,  and  of  largely  conjectural  nature,  and  the 
retina  being  habitixally  under  stimulation  from  its  "own  light,"  experi- 
ments upon  the  quantity  of  visual  sensations  meet  with  difficulty  at  the  out- 
set. As  to  the  very  nature  of  the  stimulus  which  acts  in  the  production  of 
sensations  of  taste,  smell,  and  temperature,  we  are  still  too  much  in  the  dark 
to  be  satisfied  with  any  of  the  existing  forms  of  experiment.  Furthermore, 
the  greater  the  niimber  of  experiments  in  psycho-physics,  the  more  obvious 
it  becomes,  how  immensely  complicated  are  the  conditions  tmder  which  even  the 
simpler  estimates  of  our  oicn  amounts  of  sense-exjjerience  take  jjlace.  It  is  no 
fixed  and  simple  thing  which  we  are  here  measuring.  That  which  is  meas- 
ured, and  he  who  measures,  is  one  and  the  same  unceasing  current  of  men- 
tal life.  The  thing  weighed,  and  the  scales,  and  the  weigher,  are  all 
existent  only  as  they  are  in  and  of  that  flowing  current.  All  are  different  in 
the  case  of  eacli  individual  man ;  an  almost  endless  variety  of  factors  com- 
bine, in  changing  i^roportions,  to  form  every  different  sensation-state  of  the 
same  individual. 

All  our  sensations,  as  respects  their  quantity,  fall  between 
certain  Limits,  the  distance  of  which  apart  may  be  said  to  define 
the  range  of  Sensation,  quantitatively  considered.  These  limits 
differ  for  the  difi'erent  senses,  for  difterent  persons  at  all  times, 
and  for  the  same  person  at  different  times  and  under  difterent 
circumstances.  Within  these  limits  the  minuter  difterences  of 
intensity,  as  objectively  measured,  are  discriminated  with  differ- 
ing degrees  of  nicety.  That  is  to  say,  t/ie  numher  of  sensations 
which  have  a  recognizable  difference  as  respects  quantity,  and  ivhick 
can  he  put  in,  as  it  were,  between  the  limits,  differs  for  the  different 
senses,  fur  different  j)Grsons,  and  for  different  conditions  of  crperi- 
ence.  If  then  li  =  the  range  of  sensation,  S  =  the  sensitive- 
ness, and  C  =  the  cajiacity  of  each  sense   (or  the    amount  of 

C  1 

stimulus  which  it  is  able  to  receive) :    -^  =  i?,  where  -o-  stands 

for  the  measure  of  the  sensitiveness. 


UPPER   AND   LOWER   LIMITS  135 

There  are  two  limits  of  sensation  as  respects  quantity — a 
"  lower  "  and  an  "  upper ;  "  these  are  the  sensations  correspond- 
ing" to  the  least  amount  (the  ininhnum)  and  to  the  greatest 
amount  (the  inaximutn)  of  stimulus  to  which  the  organism 
responds.  In  experimentini;-  to  tind  the  lower  limit,  we  may 
either  select  any  small  amount  of  stimulus  somewhat  above  that 
needed  to  produce  a  sensation,  diminish  it  very  gradually,  and 
note  the  exact  point  where  it  ceases  to  produce  sensation  at  all  ; 
or  else  we  may  begin  with  a  stimulus  too  weak  to  produce  any 
sensation,  and  note  the  exact  point  at  which,  on  its  quantity 
being  very  gradually  increased,  it  jiroduces  the  least  observable 
sensation.  In  all  experiments  to  determine  the  lower  limit, 
the  almost  ceaseless  activity  of  the  organs  under  intraorganic 
stimuli,  and  the  fluctuations  of  attention,  are  the  principal  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  exact  results.  It  is  nearly  impossible  to 
determine  experimentally  the  upper  limit  of  sensation  ;  for  the 
highest  intensities  of  stimulation  endanger  the  organ,  over- 
whelm the  necessary  discriminating  attention,  and  bring  in  a 
confusing  mixture  of  widespreading  painful  feeling. 

I  15.  The  facts  as  to  the  "lower  limit"  of  sensation — or  least  amount  of 
stimulus  to  which  a  response  in  sensation  is  given — are  interesting  chiefly 
as  showing  the  marvelloiis  delicacy  of  the  neiTOUs  mechanism  antl  the  sen- 
sitiveness of  the  stream  of  attentive  sense-consciousness  to  changes  in  the 
amounts  of  any  of  its  factors.  Experiment,  however,  shows  chiefly  how 
great*  the  absolute  sensitiveness  of  discrimination  may  become  under  the 
most  favorable  circumstances  rather  than  how  great  it  ordinarily  is.  Earlier 
results  (Aubert  and  Kammler)  made  the  liglitest  weight  which  produced  a 
sensation  of  touch  to  be  0.002  gramme  on  the  forehead  and  temples,  and 
0.005-0.015  gramme  for  the  volar  side  of  the  fingers.  By  placing  weights 
on  the  chest  and  calculating  the  energy  then  necessary  to  expel  the  air  from 
the  lungs,  it  has  recently  been  found  '  that  the  coefficient  of  sensibility  for 
the  muscles  used  in  respiration  is  very  low  (about  1  :  100)  comi^ared  with 
that  of  the  muscles  of  the  limbs  Tlnd  trunk.  A  movement  of  the  eyes,  ans- 
wering to  a  contraction  of  the  inner  muscles  artiounting  to  .0000  millimeter, 
can  be  detected.  The  sensitiveness  of  the  skin  to  changes  of  temperature 
under  the  most  favorable  circumstances  (that  is,  when  the  changes  lie  near- 
est the  zero-point  of  the  skin  itself)  is  scarcely  equalled  by  a  good  quick- 
silver thermometer  (say  i°  Fahr. ).  It  is  greatly  reduced  by  both  heating 
and  cooling  the  skin.  It  varies  froin  about  0.2°  for  j^arts  of  the  upper  and 
lower  arm,  to  1.2°  for  the  middle  of  the  back.  The  ear  is  almost  incredibly 
sensitive  to  acoustic  stimulus  ;  for  it  has  been  calculated  that  mechanical 
work  done  upon  the  ear-drum  equal  to  not  more  than  s\^  billionth  kilo- 
grammeter  (the  noise  made  by  a  cork  ball  of  1  milligramme  weight  falling 
from  a  height  of  one  millimeter)  will  occasion,  as  an  extreme  mbiivium,  a 

•  By  Langloia  and  Richet,  in  experiments  which  will  be  referred  to  again,  a8  having  a  bearing 
upon  volition.    See  Rev.  Philosoph  ,  1890,  p.  557  f. 


136  SEXSATION  :    ITS   QUALITY   AND   QUANTITY 

sensation  of  sound.  And  in  light,  jiir  of  that  reflected  from  white  paper 
under  the  full  moon  was  given  as  a  lower  limit  by  Aubert.  While,  if  we 
test  the  intensity  of  the  mixtures  necessary  to  excite  sensations  of  taste  and 
smell,  we  find  that  many  persons  can  detect  one  part  in  about  200  of  sugar, 
one  in  about  2,000  to  8,000  of  sours  and  salts ;  and  even  one  part  in  392,000 
(quinine)  or  even  1,280,000  (strychnine)  of  some  bitters.  A  substance 
called  mercaptan  has  been  smelled  when  mixed  in  volumetric  proportion  to 
air  of  one  to  50,000,000,000 — an  absolute  amount  of  about  TinruVrruu  milli- 
gramme. 

As  might  be  exj^ected,  extreme  instances  of  defective  or  of  acute  senses 
are  revealed  by  experiment,  as  well  as  certain  idiosyncrasies  of  sense. 
"While  the  discriminating  sense  of  taste  is  finer  for  most  substances  in 
women  than  in  men,  that  of  smell  is,  in  general,  less  fine. 

It  is  to  this  marvellous  delicacy  of  sensation  that  we  must  look  for  . 
an  explanation  of  the  power  to  acquire  that  superiority  of  tact  and  skill 
in  sense  -  discrimination  of  which  man  is  capable.  By  cultivation  and 
practice  the  realm  of  intuitive  perception,  which  takes  jjlace  without  con- 
scious reason,  and  is  to  the  knower  himself  quite  inexplicable,  is  enlarged 
upon  this  sensuous  basis.  Here  also  it  is  not  unlikely  we  may  exjiect 
to  find,  in  part  at  least,  an  account  for  those  alleged  powers  of  divin- 
ation and  telepathy,  which  researches  in  modern  hypnotism  are  bringing 
to  view. 

The  search  for  some  exact  Statement  of  the  Relations  be- 
tween estimated  intensity  of  sensations  and.  changes  in  the 
amounts  of  stimulus  as  objectively  measured,  has  led  to  what  is 
known  as  "  Weber's  law,"  or  the  "  law  of  Fechner."  This  so- 
called  law  may  be  stated  equally  well  in  either  one  of  several 
different  ways :  The  difference  between  any  two  stimuli  is  ex- 
perienced as  of  equal  magnitude,  in  case  the  mathematical  rela- 
tion of  those  stimuli  remains  unaltered ;  or,  If  the  intensity  of 
the  sensations  is  to  increase  by  equal  absolute  magnitudes,  then 
the  relative  increase  of  the  stimulus  must  remain  constant ;  or, 
The  strength  of  the  stimulus  must  ascend  in  a  geometrical  pro- 
l^ortion,  in  case  the  strength  of  the  sensation  is  to  increase  in 
an  arithmetical  proportion. 

The  proof  of  Weber's  law  implies  that  some  standard  for  exact 
measurement  of  the  quantity  of  sensations  shall  be  discovered, 
and  that  this  standard  shall  be  applicable,  not  only  to  sensations 
of  the  same  sense,  but  also  to  sensations  of  the  different  senses. 
Now,  that  we  cannot  accurately  estimate — in  a  direct  and  abso- 
lute way — the  amounts  of  our  sensations,  has  ah-eady  been 
pointed  out.  When,  however,  two  sensations  of  nearly  or  quite 
the  same  quality  are  brought  into  proximity  in  consciousness, 
we  can,  under  certain  circumstances,  estimate  with  great  nicety 
minute  differences  in  the  amounts  of  the  two  sensations.  "The 
least  observable  difference  " — or  smallest  amount  of  change  in 


PROOF   FOR   WEBER'S   LAW  137 

the  stimulus  wliicli  will  cause  a  detectable  chan^^e  in  the  quan- 
tity of  the  resulting-  sensation — may  then  bo  used  as  our  stand- 
ard of  measurement.  This  "  least  observable  difference  "  is 
obtainable  in  several  different  ways  (such  as  the  "  method  of 
mean  gradations,"  "method  of  minimum  changes,"  "method  of 
average  error,"  "  method  of  correct  and  mistaken  cases  "  ),  which 
cannot  be  described  here.^  By  thousands  of  experiments  upon 
all  the  different  classes  of  sensations,  and  under  the  greatest 
variety  of  conditions,  the  attempt  has  been  made  to  form  a  scale 
of  quantitative  changes  in  sensation  as  dependent  upon  increas- 
ing and  diminishing  the  amounts  of  stimuli.  Thus  it  is  hoped 
to  contirm  or  to  correct  "  Webers  law."  Among  the  workers  in 
this  line  Fechner  is  most  distinguished,  and  by  his  name  the 
"  law  "  is  also  called. 

§  16.  Professor  Jastrow  *  and  others  Lave  pointed  out  that  the  value  of 
Weber's  law  depends  chiefly  on  its  furnishing  a  means  for  comparing  the 
sensibility  of  different,  otherwise  incommensurate,  senses.  The  law  can  be 
formulated  in  a  number  of  different  ways,  depending  ui^on  the  different 
methods  used  in  exiDerimentation.  For  example,  as  formulated  in  terms  of 
the  method  of  average  error,  we  may  state  it  in  the  following  way  :  The 
probable  error  in  our  estimate  of  the  amount  of  our  sensations  is  unin- 
fluenced by  a  change  in  the  absolute  size  of  the  stimulus  according  to  which 
the  adjustments  are  to  be  made.  That  is — to  give  a  concrete  case— suppose 
that,  in  testing  weights,  the  least  observable  difference  (or  "threshold")  is 
-/u  ;  then,  if  the  law  be  strictly  true,  it  follows  that  one  will  not  err  oftener 
in  judging  between  30  oz.  and  30.1  oz.,  or  between  30  oz.  and  30.5  oz.,  than 
between  30  oz.  and  31  oz.  This  is,  however,  not  antecedently  probable,  and 
is  also  found  by  experiment  to  be  untrue.  The  law  is,  therefore,  only 
roughly  and  approximately  correct. 

§  17.  The  chief  contribution  of  Fechner  to  "Weber's  law  was  made  by  re- 
gawling  the  "least  observable  difference"  between  the  intensities  of  two 
sensations  as  a  sort  of  constant  quantity,  an  invariable  "  sensation-mass,"  as 
it  were,  which  could  be  applied  for  the  measurement  of  sensation^,  and  so 
for  assigning  them  positions  along  a  scale  of  quantity.  But  it  must  be  lui- 
derstood  that  nothing  either  of  a  ijhysical  or  of  a  psychical  nature  corre- 
sponding to  such  a  "unit  of  "  sensation-mass  "  can  possibly  exist.  For  exam- 
ple, if  the  addition  of  n  to  the  stimulus  S  is" the  least  iwssible  amount  which 
will  so  change  the  sensation-state  x  as  to  cause  it  to  be  succeeded  by  the 
sensation-state  x '  :  and  the  latter  is  discriminated  as  just  greater  in  quan- 
tity than  the  former  (.r '  >  .r)  :  then  such  facts  of  experience  deserve  recog- 
nition. But  it  does  not  follow  that  we  may  say  .r'— .r,  or  "least  observable 
difference,"  =  A,  and  then  treat  A  as  tliough  it  were  a  sort  of  ps;(/ch'tcnl 
entity  measuring  changes  of  psychical  conditions.  For  there  is  really  only 
the  sensation-state  x ',  now  present  in  consciousness,  and  estimated  as  just  a 

'  See  the  author's  Elements  of  Physiological  Psychology,  p.  364  f.,  and  the  works  referred  to  in 
its  notes. 

'  Am.  Journal  of  Psychology,  Feb.,  ISSS,  p.  298  f . 


138  SENSATION  :    ITS   QUALITY   AND   QUANTITY 

little  greater  tlian  was  x  an  instant  since.  Or,  rather,  xcliat  really  happens 
in  consciousness  is  the  jn'ocess  of  discriminating  a  change  of  amount  in  one 
direction  or  the  other.  But  A  is  a  mere  abstraction,  a  figment  of  the  experi- 
menter's imagination.  In  other  words,  there  is  no  such  physical  or  psychical 
reality  as  a  "  least  observable  difference" 

Experimeut  confirms  wliat  ordinary  experience  makes  famil- 
iar, namely,  that  tlie  consciously  estimated  amount  of  our  sen- 
sations varies  in  dependence  upon  the  increase  and  diminution 
of  the  amount  of  stimulus  applied  to  the  end-organs  of  sense. 
But  it  also  establishes  the  truth  that  the  psychical  variations  of 
intensity  depend  upon  a  great  variety  of  conditions  besides  those 
set  up  directly  in  the  end-organs  by  the  application  of  stimulus. 
So  far,  however,  as  we  can  isolate  this  one  condition,  we  learn 
that  it  is  the  relative,  and  not  the  absolute,  amount  of  the  stimu- 
lus apj)lied  to  the  end-organs  which  determines  the  discernible 
increase  or  diminution  in  the  amounts  of  sensation.  And  here, 
for  several  of  the  senses,  at  least,  when  the  sensations  are  of 
fairly  moderate  intensity  (or,  as  we  should  express  it  more  tech- 
nically, in  the  "  median  x^arts  "  of  the  scale,  and  not  too  near 
the  upper  or  the  lower  limit),  the  law  of  Weber  is  approxi- 
mately correct.  That  is  to  say,  in  order  to  produce  an  apprecia- 
ble change  in  the  intensity  of  any  sensation,  we  must  in  general 
add  to  or  subtract  from  the  stimulus  a  nearly  uniform  propor- 
tion of  the  amount  producing  the  particular  old  sensation  with 
which  the  new  one  is  to  be  compared.  But  this  rule,  even  when 
stated  in  so  loose  and  indefinite  a  manner,  does  not  apply  to 
sensations  that  are  either  very  weak  or  very  strong.  Moreover, 
we  find  difficulty  in  establishing  it  at  all  for  some  kinds  of  sensa- 
tions, and  for  all  kinds  under  some  circumstances. 

§18.  What   is   sometimes   called   the  "quotient   of   sensitiveness"/-) 

varies  for  the  different  kinds  of  sensation  ;  and  this  fact  the  law  of  Weber 
admits  and  makes  use  of  in  its  experiments  and  proofs.  Weber  himself 
found  that  weights  which  differ  as  29  :  30  can  be  distinguished  by  the  press- 
ure they  cause  when  laid  on  the  volar  side  of  the  last  phalanges.  If  we  are 
permitted  to  raise  and  lower  them,  the  quotient  of  sensitiveness  rises  to 
39  :40.  Subsequent  observers  '  have  found  that  this  quotient  for  estimating 
weights,  instead  of  remaining  constant,  as  Weber's  law  would  have  it,  varies 
from  r:f.o  foi'  weights  of  300  grammes  to  -7^,  for  weights  of  3,000  grammes. 
The  quotient  of  sensitiveness  to  pressure  has  been  found  by  other  experi- 
menters to  vary  from  ,V  for  weights  of  10  grammes  to  -7V  for  weights  of  -400 
gi'amnies.  Later  experiments  show  that  in  our  comparison  of  weights 
which  we  are  i^ermittcd  to  lift,  the  speed  with  which  we  judge  ourselves  to 

'  Comp.  G.  E.  Miiller :  Zur  Gninclleguns;  d.  Psychophysik,  p.  197.  Aud  Bieduriuami  and 
Liiwit :  Sitzgsbr.  d.  Wien.  Acad.,  Ixxii.,  Ueft  .S,  p.  342  f. 


PROOF    FOIL   WEBER'S   LAW  130 

be  raising  the  weights,  in  comparison  with  the  effort  wo  put  forth,  is  a  tlc- 
termiuing  element  in  the  experience.' 

In  discrimination  of  tlie  intensity  of  noises  and  musical  sounds,  the  so- 
called  law  holds  only  very  imperfectly  ;  for  the  quotient  of  sensitiveness 
varies  greatly  for  different  places  along  the  scale.  Weber's  law  is  true  only 
approximately  for  a  part  of  the  musical  scale.  Thus,  if  we  assume  a  certain 
convenient  measure  of  intensity  of  the  stimulus  as  a  unit  (an  extremely  weak 
stimulus  near  the  "  threshold  "),  the  quotient  of  sensitiveness  for  tones  re- 
mains about  the  same  (ffis — xin)  until  we  have  increased  the  original  stimu- 
lus by  multiplying  it  by  ten  some  five  times  over  ;  but  then  this  quotient 
begins  rai)idly  to  rise,  and  it  finally  attains  more  than  twice  its  former  de- 
gree of  sensitiveness  (jou).  In  auditory  sensations,  too,  it  is  found  that  the 
order  of  succession  has  something  to  do  with  the  result ;  thus  one  observer 
found  that,  of  two  successive  sounds  of  equal  quantity,  the  second  regularly 
seems  greatest. 

It  is,  of  course,  by  experiment  with  visual  sensations  that  the  most 
numerous  attenqits  have  been  made  to  demonstrate  Welder's  law.  The  ex- 
perience of  astronomers,  which  shows  that  the  magnitudes  of  the  stars  are 
not  to  be  classified  by  their  absolute  brightness,  had  much  to  do  with  the 
earlier  discussions  of  this  law.  Weber  fixed  the  quotient  of  sensitiveness  to 
brightness  at  about  jiu.  If,  for  example,  we  cast  a  shadow  by  lighting  any 
opaque  object  with  a  candle  set  at  a  given  distance  from  it,  the  difference 
between  the  intensity  of  this  shadow  and  one  cast  by  two  candles  of  the 
same  luminous  power  is  discernible  when  the  second  candle  is  set  behind 
the  first  at  ten  times  the  distance  of  the  first  candle  from  the  object.  Under 
the  direction  of  Fechner,  experiments  were  conducted  by  A.  W.  Volkmauu 
and  others,  which  seemed  favorable  to  Weber's  law.  But  subsequent  inves- 
tigations have  not  shown  so  favorable  a  result.  The  quotient  of  sensitive- 
ness has  been  found  to  vary  from  e^v.u  for  weak  intensities  of  light  to  Tyfr  for 
stronger  intensities.  Later  observers  have  confirmed  the  variable  nature  of 
this  quotient,  and  have  even  seemed  to  indicate  that  it  is  not  i^recisely  the 
same  for  different  colors.  Indeed,  the  complicated  nature  of  this  apparently 
simple  inqiiiry  becomes  more  apparent.  The  effect  of  background  is  enor- 
mous ;  the  extent  of  lighted  surface  influences  the  mind  ;  the  order  of  the 
succession  of  the  two  l,ights  compared  has  something  to  do  with  the  solution 
of  every  such  problem  in  comparison  ;  the  focusing  of  the  eye  is  not  to  be 
disregarded,  nor  the  reflection  of  light   from  surrounding  objects,  etc. 

What  is  true  of  all  these  classes  of  sensations  apart  is  also  true  of  them 
when  combined  for  the  estimate  of  sizes  and  distances.  Where  comparison 
takes  place  in  connection  with  a  ' '  sort  of  impressionist  reception  of  the 
gross  sensation  without  dividing  it  up  in  our  minds,"  ^  something  like  Web- 
er's law  seems  to  hold  true.  But  i».  all  compliatied  and  nice  comparisons  of 
quantity,  and  so  in  all  judgments  of  size  and  distance,  we  tise  a  numher  of  dif- 
ferent data  as  a  basis  for  the  wonderful  '^  tact  "  which  it  is  possible  to  attain. 

The  detailed  description  of  the  attempts  made  to  apply  Weber's  law  to 
sensations  of  temperature,  taste,  and  smell  would  be  of  little  value  to  an 
understanding  of  mental  life.     From  tlie  very  nature  of  the  organs  of  these 

'  G.  E  Mailer  and  F.  Schumaiiii:  Pfliii^ei-'s  Archiv.  xlv.,  p.  lOS. 

2  See  Professor  Jastrow,  in  the  Ain.  Journal  of  Psychology,  Jan.,  1S90,  p.  44  f . 


140  SENSATION  :    ITS   QUALITY   AND   QUANTITY 

senses,  and  of  the  stimulus  which  excites  them,  accurate  experimenta- 
tion is  ijeculiarl}'  difficult,  if  not  impossible.  And  it  is  not  to  be  expected 
that  a  so-called  law  which  caimot  establish  itself  firmly  on  a  basis  of  those 
sensations  where  discrimination,  in  respect  to  quantitative  changes,  is  high- 
est, should  derive  much  helj)  from  those  where  discrimination  is  at  a  mini- 
mum. 

The  Meaning-  of  "  Weber's  law,"  in  so  far  as  we  are  led  to  ad- 
mit its  accuracy  in  furnisliing  a  summary  of  the  facts  of  exiieri- 
ence,  may  have  several  interpretations.  Its  great  advocate, 
Fechner,  understands  it  as  a  most  general  psycho-physical  prin- 
ciple ;  that  is  to  say,  the  law — he  holds — states  the  highest  and 
most  universal  relations  which  prevail  between  the  physical  and 
the  psychical  aspects  of  our  compound  human  life.  But  a 
saner  view  of  the  facts  considers  the  explanation  of  this  relation 
between  sensation  and  stimulation  as  chiefly  physiological.  In 
all  cases  the  end-organs  profoundly  modify  the  intensities  of  the 
stimuli  they  receive.  It  is  probable  that  whatever  is  true  as  re- 
spects the  "  logarithmic  "  character  of  the  relation  holds  between 
the  stimulus  and  the  resulting  amount  of  neural  excitation.  Be- 
tv/een  the  neural  excitation,  after  it  has  reached  the  brain  and 
been  set  up  there,  and  the  psychical  result  in  sensation,  the  re- 
lation is  probably  one  of  direct  proportion.  But,  above  all,  is  it 
necessary  to  remember  that  other  conditions  than  mere  changes 
in  the  objective  quantity  of  the  stimulus  always  determine  our 
estimates  of  the  amounts  of  resulting  sensations  ;  and,  in  gen- 
eral, stiiiiuU  and  sensations  are  not  connected  quantitatively  in  such 
a  si^aple  manner  that  we  can  measure  one  off  in  terms  of  the  other. 
Nor  do  we  mean  the  same  thing  by  terms  and  standards  of 
quantity  when  we  talk,  on  the  one  hand,  of  intensities  of  sensa- 
tions, and,  on  the  other  hand,  of  amounts  of  physical  stimuli. 
And,  finally,  when  Ave  give  to  Weber's  law  a  jjurely  ps3'chologi- 
cal  interpretation,  we  find  it  falling  under  the  general  princi- 
ple of  all  mental  life,  namely,  that  every  mental  state  has  its 
value  determined  by  its  relation  to  other  contiguous  mental 
states. 

[The  literature  called  forth  by  the  discussion  of  Weber's  law  is  very  large.  Besides  the 
{jreat  monof^raphs  of  Fechner — I3kmente  d.  Psychophysik  (18(;0),  In  Sachen  d.  Psycho- 
physik  (1S77),  and  Revision  d.  Hauptpunkte  d.  Psychophysik  (ISSri)— and  of  Qc.  E!  Mid- 
ler: Zur  Griindlc^^ung  d.  Psycliophysik — important  coiitriliutions  have  been  made,  among 
others,  by  Wundt:  Physiolog.  Psychologic,  I.,  chap.  viii.  Stumjtf :  Toiipsychologie,  I.,  i.,  § 
3.  Articles  in  the  Philosoph.  Studien,  by  Lorenz,  ii.,  pp.  ;)'.)4-474,  and  (i.^M-Ci.")?.  J.  Merkel, 
iv..  pp.  117-1(;0;  2.'jl-:3'.)l,  and  541-594;  and  v.,  pp.  34.5-r.'<f,'.  Starke  (ISSC),  iii.,  pp.  L'()4- 
304,  Lnft  {1SS8),  iv..  pp.  511-.540.  Lchmann  and  Neiglick,  iii.,  pp.  4!I7-."):j:5,  etc.  Kohler 
(18S(1),  iii.,  ])p.  57:3-04'.'.  Thorougli  and  unfavorable  criticisms  liave  bien  published  by 
Dclliicuf  :  Eli'ments  do  Psvchopliysique  (ISS:!).  Tannery:  Revue  philosoph.,  .Tan.  7,  1S84, 
and  Fcl).,  18SS.  And  El.sass  :  Ueber  die  Psychopliysik  (I'SSC),  and  Philosojih.  Mouatshefte, 
xxiv.  an(l  iv.  IJrief  accounts  in  English  may  be  fouiul  in  Lad<l  :  Elements  of  riiysiologi- 
cal  Psychology,  i)p.  35G-3S1.     And  James  :  i?rinciples  of  Psychology,  I.,  pp.  533-54y.] 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
SENSATION-COMPLEXES  AND  LOCAL  SIGNS 

It  has  already  been  shown  that  none  of  our  most  element- 
ary sense-experiences  are  really  simple  and  ultimate,  if  we  mean 
by  these  words  an  unanalyzable  result  in  consciousness  of  the 
excitation  of  a  single  nervous  element.  Even  the  "  simplest " 
sensations  are  the  i)sychical  equivalents  of  a  simultaneous  ex- 
citation of  many  such  elements.  Nor  in  our  ordinary  exiierience 
do  all  the  elements  simultaneously  excited  even  belong-  to  the 
apparatus  of  the  same  specific  form  of  sense.  And,  if  we  attend 
to  the  phenomena  of  consciousness,  we  do  not  find  that  any  of 
our  sensations  are  wholly  ^9?«'<?  examples  of  one  elementary  kind 
of  sense-experience  to  the  exclusion  of  all  admixture  from  ever}' 
other  kind.  Thus,  for  example,  sensations  of  taste  are  not  expe- 
rienced as  unmixed  gustatory  i^henomena.  When  we  taste,  we 
also  smell  and  touch ;  and  what  the  taste  is  to  us,  as  we  get  it 
from  any  particular  substance,  is  a  "  sensation-complex  "  com- 
posed of  gustator}',  olfactory,  and  tactual  elements.  Other  ob- 
scurer forms  or  modifications  of  sensation,  arising  from  the 
excitement  of  the  alimentarj^  canal  lower  down,  and  even  associ- 
ated images  of  memory  and  imagination,  blend  in  our  so-called 
"  sensations  of  taste."  But  we  call  the  entire  experience  by  this 
name — sensations  of  taste — because  the  predominating  charac- 
teristic is  given  to  the  sensation-complex  by  the  gustatory  sen- 
sation. The  same  thing  is  true  of  all  our  seemingly  most  ele- 
mentary sense- experiences. 

Our  subsequent  treatment  of  perception  will  show  how  dis- 
criminating consciousness  handles,  as  it  were,  this  exceedingly 
complex  and  variable  material  of  sense.  At  present  it  is  our 
purpose,  however,  to  speak  of  those  more  primarj^  "  fusions  "  of 
the  simpler  sensations  which  result  in  the  elementary  kinds  of 
sensation-complexes,  and  which  thus  form  "  data,"  as  it  were, 
for  discriminating  consciousness  in  the  construction  of  spatial 
perceptions.  And  here  the  general  principle  may  be  stated  as 
follows :  All  onr  sensatioiis,  in  so  far  as  they  form  the  hasis  of  per - 
cept'ion.  (the  immediate  knowledge  of  things  through  the  senses), 


142  SEXSATION-COMPLEXES   AND   LOCAL   SIGNS 

are  mioitures  of  sensation^  wMch  have  an  indefinite  variety  of  com- 
pound cliaracter'islics ;  hut  lohich  also  have — each  one  in  ^mrticu- 
lar — some  specific  sensuous  character  that  is  prominent  in  the  com- 
poimd.  Now,  let  us  suppose  that  these  "  mixtures  "  of  sensation 
depend,  for  the  number  and  proportion  of  the  elements  or  factors 
which  enter  into  them,  upon  the  locality  in  the  external  org-ans 
of  sense,  by  excitation  of  which  they  are  occasioned.  AYe  have 
then  the  foundation  laid  for  a  theory  of  so-called  "  local  signs." 
This  theory  may  be  stated  as  follows  :  The  total  compound  char- 
acteristic of  every  distinguishable  mixture  of  sensation  (or  "  sensa- 
tion-complex ")  depends — in  part  at  least — i(p>on  the  loccdity  of  the 
organ  ichere  the  excitement  occasioning  that pjartic alar  mixtufre  orig- 
inates. 

The  subsequent  discussion  of  perception  will  show  how  sen- 
sation-complexes, by  their  indefinite  variety,  afford  "  signs "  to 
discriminating  consciousness  by  means  of  which  thej^  become 
assigned,  each  to  its  proper  locality,  in  that  system  which  the 
term  "  field  of  perception  "  represents, 

\  1.  The  whole  construction  and  activity  of  the  nervous  mechanism  pro- 
vides, inevitably,  for  the  fusion,  from  the  very  beginnings  of  consciousness, 
of  the  different  sensation-factors,  or  so-called  simple  sensations.  Even  if  the 
organs  of  sense  were  immovable,  this  would  be  in  no  small  degree  true.  In 
the  case  of  a  motionless  retina,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  result  of  the 
excitement  of  any  group  of  elements  is  a  modification  of  consciousness 
which  may  assume  any  one  of  a  number  of  minuter  shadings  of  color-tone. 
The  anatomical  and  physiological  reason  for  this  is  found  in  the  integrity 
and  unity  of  the  organism  itself  and  in  the  fact  that  no  part  of  it  can  per- 
form its  functions  in  an  isolated  way.  The  case  of  the  skin  illustrates  the 
same  truth  even  more  obviously.  Any  object  laid  upon  the  passive  hand,  for 
example,  excites  an  indefinite  number  of  pressure-spots  ;  and  not  only  this, 
but  temperature-spots,  and  superficial  muscle,  and  active  resistance  to  this 
lightest  pressure,  are  likely  also  to  be  simultaneously  evoked. 

But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  from  the  very  beginning  of  consciousness  the 
organs  of  sense  are  not  motionless  ;  on  the  contrary,  they  are  ceaselessly  in 
motion,  whether  in  an  impulsive  and  reflexive,  or  in  a  purposeful  and  vol- 
untary way.  This  fact  provides  a  sort  of  universal  solvent,  or  menstru- 
um, as  it  were,  in  which  the  various  allied  factors  of  sensation  are  mixed 
and  fused.  jNEotion  of  the  sense-organs  induces  constant  changes  in  the 
compound  quality  of  those  sensation-com]ilcxos  which  originate  in  excite- 
ment of  different  considerable  areas  of  the  end-organs  of  sense.  Motion  is 
also  itself  a  fact  significant  of  the  reaction  of  jisychic  life,  in  j^rimary  acts 
of  volition,  ujion  the  stimulus  of  the  periphery  of  the  body.  Apparently 
also  Ave,  from  the  first,  sense  this  activity,  at  least  in  some  inchoate  and  ob- 
scure way. 

\  2,  Two  things  should  be  noted,  in  addition  to  what  has  already  been 
said,  regarding  sensation-complexes  characterized  chiefly  by  sensations  of 


COMPLEXITY    OF   SENSUOUS   QUALITIES  143 

taste  ami  suiel].  First :  These  sensation-complexes  may  bo  charactevizeil  by 
the  rehitivo  amounts  of  either  jiassive  or  active  consciousness  which  enter 
into  them.  If,  for  example,  one  holds  any  gustable  substance  in  the  mouth 
and  su2)presses  all  motion  of  the  organs  whatever,  one  has  a  sort  of  diffused 
and  dull  sensation-complex,  which  is  a  compound  of  gustatory,  olfactory, 
and  tactual  sensations,  with  the  gustatory  sensations  mildly  predominant. 
By  directing  attention  to  the  organ — still,  we  will  supi)osc,  Avithout  moving 
it — one  can  make  more  prominent  either  of  these  kinds  of  sensation.  To  a 
certain  extent  one  can  thus  analyze  the  taste  of  a  substance,  and  determine 
what  kind  of  aroma  or  spicy  flavor  it  possesses,  or  how  it  feels  in  the  mouth. 
But  if  we  make  this  analysis  in  the  more  natural  way,  we  begin  to  move  the 
substance  about  with  the  tongue;  we  press  it  against  the  gustatory  end- 
organs  and  let  its  effluvia  rise  to  the  olfactory  organs  through  the  back  of 
the  mouth.  In  doing  this  we  naturally  neglect  the  change  in  our  sensation- 
comi>lexes  which  is  due  to  the  admixture  of  active  touch  ;  for  it  is  the  taste 
and  flavor  of  the  substance  which  we  wish  to  exjjlore.  Nevertheless,  a  modi- 
flcation  of  our  sense-consciousness,  due  to  the  introduction  of  elements  of 
active  touch,  inevitably  takes  jilace;  things  have  a  difl'erent  taste  and  flavor 
when  tasted  actively  from  that  which  it  is  possible  to  produce  by  merely 
passive  taste.  The  sam<^  thing  might  be  shown  to  be  true  of  smell.  Our 
experience  with  both  classes  of  sensations  is  very  instructive  respecting  the 
value  of  all  seusation-comi^lexes.  For  example,  we  may  be  thinking  intent- 
ly while  at  table,  or  reading  diligently  in  a  room  where  a  lamp  is  smoking, 
or  a  bunch  of  violets  exhales  its  odor.  The  sensuous  complexion,  agreeable 
or  disagreoablo,  of  our  mental  life  is  kept  suppressed  by  the  fixation  of  at- 
tention to  a  given  train  of  ideas.  But  after  more  and  more  strongly  assert- 
ing itself — the  sensations  struggling,  we  might  say,  to  raise  their  heads  for 
clear  recognition  above  the  threshold  of  consciousness — the  sensuous  basis 
breaks  up  into  the  mental  train  and  wholly  destroys  it.  We  begin  actively 
to  inquire,  by  moving  the  tongue  or  snuffing  with  the  nostrils,  as  to  what  -is 
this  nasty  or  pleasant  taste,  this  horrible  or  agreeable  smell.  In  general, 
tlien,  sensation-complexes  of  smell  and  taste  depend  not  only  i;pon  the 
qualities  and  intensities  of  the  olfactory  and  gustatory  sensations,  but  also 
upon  the  muscular  and  tactual  factors  that  enter  into  them.  Even  hot 
lemonade  of  the  same  degree  of  sweetness  does  not  "taste"  quite  the  same 
as  cold. 

Second  :  It  is  through  admixture  with  other  sensations  that  sensations 
of  smell  and  taste  come  to  attain  the  massiveness  or  "  exteiisiti/"  which  we 
attribute  to  them.  Mixtures  of  sensation — chiefly  taste  or  smell,  and  called 
by  one  or  the  other  of  these  names — differ  in  a  very  important  way  when 
called  forth  by  excitement  spread  over  large^reas  of  the  organ.  Here  the 
testimony  of  consciousness  is  immediate  and  conclusive.  With  one's  mouth 
full  of  sugar,  or  one's  nostrils  full  of  the  odor  of  heliotrope,  one  is  not  af- 
fected, sense-wise,  as  one  is  with  a  trifle  of  sweet  laid  on  the  tip  of  the 
tongue  or  a  suggestion  of  the  flower's  presence  from  a  distant  bouquet. 
Nor  is  this  difference  fully  expressed  in  terms  of  varying  quality  and  quan- 
tity as  applied  sole!)/  to  gustatory  or  olfactory  sensations.  On  the  other 
hand,  such  "massiveness"  is  plainly  a  derived  and  secondary  characteristic 
due  to  the  admixture  of  tactual  and  muscular  elements.     We  find,  then,  no 


^,...- 


144  SEJv^SATION-COMPLEXES   AND   LOCAL   SIGXS 

occasion  to  apply  extensive  magnitude,  or  bigness,  to  sensations  of  taste  and 
smell,  "as  such;"  ^ve  cannot  even  form  the  faintest  conception  of  ^vllat  is 
meant  by  such  an  attemjit.  The  "  bigness"  of  sweet  and  sour  tastes,  or  of 
asafa3tida  or  sulphuretted-hydrogen  smells — this  is  a  term  which  has  no 
meaning.  TV'hen,  then.  Dr.  Ward  speaks  '  of  "  extensity,"  or  spatial  bigness, 
as  belonging,  like  quality  and  intensity,  to  all  kinds  of  sensations,  and  Pro- 
fessor James ^  entertains  us  by  remarking  that  "the  pork  tastes  more  spa- 
cious than  the  alum  or  the  jjeisper,"  and  that  the  odor  of  vinegar  is  "  less 
spatially  extended"  than  that  of  musk,  they  appeal,  indeed,  to  indubitable 
experience  ;  but  they  do  this  in  support  of  a  theory  w^hich  is  simply  incon- 
ceivable. All  our  senses  are  exercised  in  such  connection  as  to  call  forth  data 
which  serve  for  making  spatial  distinctions  ;  but  not  all  sensations  have  ^'exten- 
sity" as  sensations. 

§3.  Among  all  sensations  those  of  hearing  are  freest  from  original  and- 
inextricable  mixture  with  other  kinds  of  sense-experience.  If  we  imagine 
the  efi'ect  upon  consciousness  which  would  come  from  a  perfectly  passive  re- 
ception of  auditory  impressions,  we  seem  to  ourselves  to  have  discovered 
what  we  are  in  search  of,  namely,  sensations  that,  without  any  influence 
from  blended  sensations  of  another  kind,  recur  in  consciousness  with 
varying  qualities  and  intensities.  But,  however  possible  it  may  be  to 
imagine  such  a  "pure"  sense-consciousness  of  tone,  all  this  is  veiy  dif- 
ferent from  our  actual  experience  with  sensations  of  sound.  Not  only  are 
all  such  sensations  compounds  of  noises  and  tones,  but  they  are  also,  as  act- 
ually experienced,  fused  with  a  variety  of  sensations  of  other  than  the  audi- 
tory kind.  In  hearing  noises  of  considerable  intensity,  the  vibrations  of  the 
masses  contiguous  to  the  proper  organ  of  sound  are  also  felt  as  tactual  and 
muscular  sensations.  The  noise  made,  for  example,  by  a  slamming  door  or 
a  cannon  shot  off  is  not  by  any  means  "pure  "  auditory  sensation.  If  we 
abstract  the  sensations  caused  by  the  assault  of  the  air-waves  on  the  external 
membranes,  with  the  actual  extension  of  these  sensations  over  wide  areas  of 
the  membranes,  and  the  shudder  that  runs  through  the  entire  body — the 
muscular  reverberation,  as  it  were — then  the  auditory  sensation-complex 
loses  its  characteristic  "  massiveness."  It  is  in  these  very  admixtures  of 
tactual  and  muscular  sensations  that  the  so-called  massiveness  of  the  sound 
consists.  A  person  sitting  with  the  back  closely  pressed  against  a  board 
that  is  in  contact  with  a  grand  organ  being  played,  knows  that — to  speak 
accurately — he  hears  the  massive  sounds  with  head  and  spinal  cord  and  xi- 
brating  molecules  through  the  entire  mass  of  the  upjoer  trunk.  Again,  the 
terms  "  high  "  or  "  low,"  as  aj^plied  to  the  place  of  notes  in  the  musical 
scale,  really  refer  to  the  visual,  muscular,  and  tactiial  sensations  which  fuse 
with  the  auditory  when  we  are  sounding,  imagining,  or  reading  the  different 
notes.  As  jjia-e  sensations  of  sound,  the  pitch  of  notes  has  nothing  to  do 
with  high  or  low. 

Furthermore,  in  all  active  attention  to  sounds — and  soine  attention  goes 
with  all  hearing  of  sounds — motor  adjustment  of  the  organism  takes  place  ; 
the  reflex  influence  of  this,  if  not  also  its  direct  influence,  enters  as  a  factor 
into  the  resulting  sensation-complex.    The  sound  heard  when  we  listen  with 

'  Art.  Psychology  :  Encyc.  Brit,  (ninth  ed.),  pp.  4G  and  53. 
2  PrincipleB  of  Psychology,  II.,  p.  169  (note). 


COMPLEXITY   OF   SENSUOUS   QUALITIES  146 

strained  attention  is  a  different  modification  of  our  sense-consciousness 
from  the  sound  passively  heard. 

It  is  i)robablo  also  that  obscui'e  sensations  derived  from  changes  in  the 
fluids  of  the  semi-circular  canals,  and  connected  with  the  localization  of 
sound  and  with  the  orienting  of  ourselves  in  space,  fuse  with  the  other 
elements  to  make  up  that  total  complex  of  sensations  which  we  describe  as 
the  hearing  of  some  particular  sound  "over  yonder  "  or  "  near  by." 

^4.  Sensations  of  color  and  light  never  arise  in  our  adult  consciousness 
as  "i^ure  "  sensations  of  this  particular  kind.  It  is  not  with  the  retina  alone 
that  we  see ;  and  seeing,  even  in  the  simijlest  form  possible  for  us,  is  some- 
thing much  more  than  merely  having  sensations  of  light  and  color.  In  those 
sensation-complexes  which  we  call  by  the  names  that  mark  their  prominent 
characteristic  (namely,  the  color  of  red,  green,  blue,  etc.),  there  always 
blend  the  resultants  of  past  and  concomitant  sensation-factors  due  to  move- 
ment of  the  lenses  and  of  the  entire  eyeball.  UiJon  these  concomitant 
factors  the  visual  sensations  are  largely,  or  wholly,  dependent  for  their 
"  massiveness"  and  '-locality."  For  example,  let  us  close  the  eyes,  and  thus 
exclude  as  far  as  possible  the  more  highly  developed  "judgments"  which 
enter  into  the  localization  of  objects  and  the  percejition  of  their  size  and 
spatial  qualities  when  seen  with  open  and  moving  eyes.  A  "  sensation-mass  " 
of  indefinite  i^roportious,  of  somewhat  vague  localization — "  in  front  of  the 
eyes,"  as  we  say — and  of  varying  qualities  and  intensities  of  color-tones,  sums 
uj)  our  dominant  sense-exjierience.  This  sensation-mass  is  due  to  the  simul- 
taneous excitement  of  a  vast  number  of  retinal  elements  through  the  j^hoto- 
chemical  changes  that  constantly  accompany  the  circulation  in  the  blood- 
vessels of  the  eye.  It  seems  to  be  simply  received  upon  a  motionless  eye. 
It  is  the  very  clearest  type  of  a  pure,  passive,  and  yet  massive  and  extended 
sensation-complex.  Let  us  try,  however,  to  look  at  any  particular  part  of 
this  sensation-mass — we  will  say  at  the  upper  right-hand  corner — and  we  be- 
come aware  that  this  is  accomplished  by  exceedingly  minute  movements  of 
the  eyes.  "\\  e  are  thus  evoking  the  tactual  and  muscular  sensations  which 
must  fuse  with  those  of  ga^r  and  light  in  order  that  the  latter  may  appear 
as  belonging  to  a  particular  part  of  the  entire  mass.  And  if  we  wish  further 
to  see  this  sensation-mass'  itself  move  right  or  left,  ni)  or  down,  we  miist 
move  the  eyes  and  even  the  head  in  th^  approj^riate  directions.  This  means 
that  we  really  see  it  move,  by  means  of  the  tactual  and  muscular  sensations 
belonging  to  moving  eyes  and  head  and  upper  trunk.  It  is  probable  that 
the  mere  focusing  of  attention  upon  any  color-mass,  necessary  to  bring  it 
into  consciousness  at  all,  is  accompanied  by  sensations  and  memory-images 
of  sensations  which  belong  to,  the  tactual  and  the  muscular  sense. 

In  all  ordinary  experience  with  the  eyes,  however,  we  have  the  sensations 
of  color  and  light  unceasingly  fusipg  with  tactual  and  muscular  sensations 
due  to  changes  in  accommodation  and  to  movement  of  the  eyeballs.  In- 
deed, what  we  call  sensations  of  color  and  light  consist  of  such  complex 
visual  sensations,  due  to  the  total  activity  of  the  eye,  in  which  color  and  light 
are  the  most  prominent  factors,  and  those  of  touch  and  muscle  are  relatively 
disregarded  or  sunk  out  of  sight.  In  other  words,  we  never  have  sensations 
of  color  and  light  which  are  not  experienced  with  the  eye  executing  a  cei'- 
tain  movement,  or  after  having  arrived  at  a  certain  j)Osition,  or  while  antici- 
10 


146  SENSATIO]Sr-COMPLEXES   AND   LOCAL   SIGNS 

patiDg  a  certain  movement  with  the  intent  to  explore  more  carefully  some 
other  colored  object  in  another  i^osition  of  the  field.  Translating  all  this 
into  subjective  terms,  it  means :  all  sensations  of  light  and  color  are  experi- 
enced, not  as  "  -pure"  and  apart,  but  as  fused  until  tactual  and  muscidar  sensa- 
tions, such  as  belong  to  unfinished,  or  just  completed,  or  anticipated  movements  of 
the  eye. 

I  5.  That  the  various  sensations,  due  to  irritation  of  the  nerves  terminat- 
ing in  the  skin,  muscles,  and  joints,  fuse  into  a  great  variety  of  sensation- 
complexes,  no  psychologist  can  doubt.  These  specifically  different  affections 
of  our  sense-consciousness  habitually  and  necessarily  occur  in  the  same 
unity  of  a  state  of  sensation.  Moreover,  they  all  make  their  contribution  to 
the  solution  of  the  same  problem  which  is  constantly  before  discriminating 
consciousness.  The  very  existence  and  development  of  mental  life  depend 
upon  o\ir  getting  information  as  to  the  positions  and  movements  of  our. 
bodily  members,  relative  to  each  other  and  to  their  environment,  and  as  to 
the  qualities  and  movements  of  those  objects  with  which  these  members 
come  in  contact.  Skin,  joints,  and  muscles  are,  from  the  first,  and  uithoid 
cessation,  forced  into  the  closest  copartnership  of  activity. 

That  particular  kind  of  these  closely  allied  sensations  which  predomi- 
nates in  the  complex  result,  or  which  is  most  closely  allied  with  the  practical 
end  aimed  at,  will  give  its  characteristic  tone  and  name  to  the  total  sense- 
exi^erience.  For  example,  if  the  predominating  sensation  be  one  of  tem- 
jjerature,  we  disregard  the  fact  that  our  experience  is  a  comjoound  of  heat- 
sensation  witli  sensations  of  light  jjressure  and  perhaps  muscular  sense. 
But,  if  it  is  chiefly  one  of  ligld  pressure,  we  disregard  the  muscular  factors, 
and  speak  of  the  object  as  "feeling  smooth  and  hard."  Or,  again,  we  may 
note  that  the  object  seems  "heavy"  by  attending  only  to  the  strain  pro- 
duced in  the  muscles  and  joints  and  overlooking  the  condition  of  the  skin. 

In  all  these  sensation-complexes  certain  characteristic  differences  between 
the  purely  tactual  and  the  purely  muscular  sensations  are  of  no  little  account. 
These  differences  serve  to  characterize  different  groups  of  our  sense-experi- 
ences, and  so  to  determine  the  place  they  have  in  constructing  the  "  field  of 
perception  ; "  although  both  skin-sensations  and  muscular  sensations  enter 
into  each  group.  The  skin  is  passively  "  affected,"  for  the  most  part,  by 
having  its  different  areas  more  or  less  severely  pressed  upon.  The  muscles 
are  "  exercised,"  for  the  most  part,  in  the  movement  of  the  limbs  or  in  the 
innervation  and  muscular  adjustment  of  the  organs  of  sense.  But  the 
muscles,  too,  may  be  passively  affected  by  pressure  of  heavy  masses  laid 
upon  the  skin.  Indeed,  it  is  doubtful  whether  our  muscles  can  hold  them- 
selves perfectly  still  when  provoked  to  motion  by  even  a  small  amount  of 
pressure.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  muscles  are  active,  the  skin  which 
is  stretched  over  them,  or  which  is  in  contact  with  the  object  being  ox])lored, 
keeps  pace,  in  some  sort,  with  the  flow  of  muscular  sensation.  Earely  or 
never  do  skin  and  muscles  function  ajiart ;  rarely  or  never,  therefore,  does 
there  fail  to  be  a  fusion  of  tactual  and  miTscular  elements  in  sensation-com- 
Ijlexes  of  this  class.  Nor  are  sensations  of  the  joints  and  of  temperature 
likely  to  be  far  off  from  the  total  sensation-mass. 

?  6.  In  this  connection  the  physiological  fact  must  bo  emphasized,  that 
the  excitations  of  the  muscles  come  regularly  by  centrifugal  paths  ;  while  in 


I 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   SENSATION-COMPLEXES  147 

the  case  of  the  other  senses  this  hapjiens  rarely  or  not  at  all.  Hence  muscu- 
lar sense  is  i^rceminently  the  active  sense  ;  and,  according  as  it  enters  into  all 
the  various  sensation-complexes,  it  imparts  the  quality  of  activity  to  them  all. 
It  converts  seeing  into  looking,  hearing  into  hearkening,  passive  into  active 
touch.  And  yet  there  is  something  always  vague  and  contentless  about  it — 
something  of  the  nature  of  indotinite  feeling  [Ge/iUdarligts),  it  has  been  said. 
Muscular  sensation  is  more  obviously  connected,  and  more  firmly  fused, 
with  sensations  of  the  skin  than  with  those  of  any  other  sense.  And  yet  it 
resembles  hearing,  in  being  a  kind  of  interior  sense;  whereas  the  skin  re- 
sembles in  objectivity  the  sensations  of  the  retina.  Yet,  again,  muscular 
sensation  is  the  factor  necessary  to  fuse  with  sensations  of  light  and  color, 
in  order  to  give  them  massiveness  and  spatial  extension,  as  it  were. 

When  we  allow  time  for  the  Development  of  Sensation-com- 
plexes, by  running-  quickly  tliroug-li  a  number  of  chang-ing-  phases, 
Ave  disclose  certain  classes  of  our  sense-experience  which  seem 
to  stand  midway  between  sensations  and  perceptions  of  sense. 
These  are  really  instances  of  that  indescribably  quick  and  acute 
"  tact "  which  belongs  to  all  mental  life  in  the  interpretation  of 
the  meaning-  of  changes  of  sense-consciousness.  In  the  case  of 
the  lower  animals  such  tact  often  takes  the  form  of  what  we  are 
accustomed  to  call  "instinct."  In  the  case  of  man  it  is  more 
likely  to  mark  stages  reached  only  as  the  result  of  much  experi- 
ence. But  in  man's  case,  too,  hereditary  tendencies  and  apti- 
tudes are  of  the  greatest  influence  in  this  sphere.  "  Natural 
tact,"  so-called,  or  the  sensing-  of  the  meaning  of  sensation- 
complexes  in  immediate  connection  with  the  having-  of  the 
sensation-complexes  themselves,  is  not  foreign  to  the  earliest 
development  of  human  mental  life.  So  far  as  serves  our  pres- 
ent purpose,  we  shall  consider  it,  chiefly,  in  these  two  forms  : 
so-called  "  sensations  of  motion  "  and  so-called  "  sensations  of 
position." 

Sensations  of  Motion,  so  called,  are  evoked  by  stimulating 
closely  contiguous  nervous  elements  in  the  peripheral  areas  of 
the  retina  and  of  the  skin  with  its  accompaniment  of  muscular  and 
joint  sensations.  The  other  senses  do  not,  in  themselves,  re- 
spond to  stimulus  with  similar  sensation-complexes.  That  is  to 
say,  sensation -complexes  of  taste,  smell,  and  hearing,  without 
mixture  of  factors  derived  from  stimulation  of  tlie  connected 
portions  of  the  skin  and  muscles,  are  lacking  in  the  qualities  dis- 
tinctive of  so-called  "sensations  of  motion."  The  psychical 
characteristics  of  this  class  of  sensation-complexes  are  a  certain 
relatively  smooth  and  continuous  change  in  the  compound 
quality  of  the  mixture,  whenever  the  change  takes  place  in  a 
minute  portion  of  time.  In  other  words,  sensation-complexes  of 
the  eye  and  of  the  skin  (including  muscular  and  joint  activity),  ex- 


148  SENSATIOT^-COMPLEXIiS   AIS-D   LOCAL   SIGNS 

perienced  as  ehanges  of  conqwund  qualliy,  are  ininiediately  and  in- 
stinctively interpreted  as  "  sensations  of  ^notion." 

^  7.  "  Sensations  of  motion  "  are  distinguislied  f rom  perception  of  motion, 
in  that  the  latter  requires  more  of  conscious  and  deliberate  discrimination, 
and  of  comparison  of  data,  with  a  view  to  estimate  or  judge  the  i^roper  re- 
lations attributable  to  the  data  compared.  And  yet  the  difference  here  is, 
as  elsewhere  in  all  the  develo^jment  of  mind,  a  difference  in  the  degree  of 
intelligence  and  purposeful  control  with  which  the  exercise  of  essentially 
the  same  fundamental  faculties  takes  place.  It  accords  with  the  very  neces- 
sities of  animal  life  that  sensations  of  motion  shall  play  an  important  jiart  in 
the  preservation  and  development  of  the  individual  and  of  the  species.  In 
the  case  of  all  the  lower  animals,  and  also  in  the  case  of  man,  so  far  as  his 
preservation  and  development  depend  upon  himself,  the  quick  and  accurate 
"interpretation"  of  these  modifications  of  consciousness  is  a  chief  ele- 
ment in  determining  the  so-called  "  survival  of  the  fittest."  To  sense 
danger  and  to  sense  the  presence  of  its  prey  are  indispensable  for  the  ani- 
mal. But  what  is  dangerous,  and  what  is  disagreeable  or  good  for  food,  moves 
nearer  to  or  farther  from  the  body,  or  over  its  surface  (for  example,  when 
tasted,  smelled,  or  touched).  As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  animals,  including  man, 
are  in  a  high  degree  sensitive  to  those  changes  in  their  sensation-complexes 
which  are  significant  of  motion.  In  man's  case  it  is  a  difficult  thing  to  say 
how  much  of  this  sensitiveness,  so  far  as  it  consists  in  interpretation  of  the 
fact  of  motion,  is  i^resent  from  birth,  and  how  much  is  acquired.  But  if 
we  remember  that  discriminating  consciousness  belongs  to  all  the  earlier  ac- 
tivities, and  that  no  sensation-complexes  are  had  without  this  activity  enter- 
ing into  their  very  constitution,  as  it  were,  we  shall  conclude  that  even  this 
seemingly  "natural  tact,"  or  "knack  of  interpretation,"  marks  almost  from 
the  beginning  the  unfolding  of  man's  mental  life. 

§  8.  The  motor  sensations  of  the  skin  and  the  sensitiveness  of  its  differ- 
ent areas  may  be  experimentally  tested.  In  general  its  discriminative  sensi- 
tiveness to  motion  is  much  gi'eater  than  to  mere  pressure.  Experiment  * 
showed  that  the  motion  of  a  metallic  point,  travelling  at  a  rate  of  2  mm. 
I^er  second,  could  be  discriminated  when  it  had  amounted  to  0.20  mm.  on 
the  forehead,  0.40  on  the  upper  arm,  and  0.85  on  the  back.  These  dis- 
tances are  much  smaller  than  those  necessary  for  the  discrimination  of 
separate  pressures.  But  motion  can  he  produced  so  slowly  as  not  to  be 
discriminated  at  all,  even  when  the  point  has  travelled  from  G  ctm.  to  12  ctm. 
This  means  that  unless  the  change  in  the  sensation-complex  is  great 
enough  to  be  discriminated  within  a  given  minute  portion  of  time,  no  sen- 
sation of  motion  occurs.  For,  as  we  have  already  said,  sensation-complexes 
must  change  their  compoutul  qualitu  discernihli/  in  order  to  he  interpreted  as 
^^  sensations  of  motion  "  so-called.  In  accordance  with  the  same  principles  are 
the  facts  that  heavier  weights  seem  to  move  faster  than  light  ones,  and  that 
the  rate  of  motion  depends  upon  the  number  and  quality  of  the  pressure- 
spots  in  the  area  of  the  skin  over  which  the  motion  occurs  :  for  heavier 
weights  call  out  other  sensations,  by  deep  iircssure,  which  aid  in  discrimi- 
nating the  changing  sensation-comjilexes  ;  and  the  rapidity  and  amount  of 

>  By  G.  Stanley  Hall  and  Donaldson.    See  Miud,  Oct.,  1885,  p.  G5T  f. 


SENSATIONS   OF   MOTION  149 

change  in  these  sensation-complexes  depends  upon  the  character  of  the 
pressure-spots  simultaneously  and  successively  irritated. 

Sensations  of  motion  also  originate  in  changes  imparted  to  the  compound 
quality  of  the  sensations,  chiefly  by  the  irritation  of  the  joints.  In  other 
words,  we  "sense"  motion  with  our  joints,  in  some  degree.  Even  passive 
bending  of  the  linger  is  discriminated,  chiefly  through  joint-sensations,  ac- 
cording to  Goldscheider,'  when  the  motion  is  not  more  than  0.00°  to  1.74°. 
A  swing  of  the  arm,  with  a  minimum  velocity  of  0.30"  to  0.35°  in  a  second 
of  time,  is  said  by  the  same  author  to  be  discriminated  as  a  sensation  of 
motion  (chiefly  by  the  shoulder-joint)  when  it  amounts  to  0.22'-0.42°. 

That  the  active  movement  of  the  muscles  is  accompanied  by  such  a 
modilication  of  consciousness  as  we  interpret  into  sensations  of  motion  has 
already  been  aflirmed  in  our  treatment  of  muscular  sensations,  as  such.  We 
have  also  seen  that  the  discriminative  sensitiveness  of  different  muscles 
varies  very  greatly.  For  example,  the  difference  is  enormous  between  the 
muscles  of  the  eye  and  those  which  control  the  process  of  respiration. 
Modern  research  has,  moreover,  rather  tended  to  assign  a  relatively  small 
part  to  the  muscular  elements  in  our  sensations  of  motion.  Some  observers, 
however,  have  made  the  bold  attempt  to  resolve  all  differences  in  our  motor 
sensation-complexes,  even  those  of  a  quantitative  order,  into  diflerences  of 
muscular  tension.  Between  the  two  extremes  the  truth  probably  stands.  All 
sensations  of  motion  are  by  no  means  to  be  reduced  to  muscular  elements  ; 
but  we  do  "  sense"  motion  by  the  changes  in  our  sensation-complexes  due 
to  elements  contributed  by  the  varying  degrees  of  musicular  contraction  and 
tension.  And,  if  need  be,  we  can,  with  some  of  the  muscles,  accomi^lish  this 
with  a  high  degree  of  discriminative  sensitiveness. 

Visual  sensations  of  motion,  with  an  immovable  eye,  may  be  produced 
either  by  stimulating  contiguous  elements  of  the  retina  in  close  succession 
or  by  stimulating  the  same  gi-oup  of  elements  with  closely  successive  dif- 
ferent color-tones.  To  understand  how  this  takes  place,  one  has  only  to 
close  one's  eyes,  and,  keeping  them  motionless,  watch  the  rapid  motions 
which  appear  in  the  different  portions  of  the  color-mass.  The  drifting 
mist  of  brightly-colored  points,  or  shifting  of  the  color-scene  in  kaleido- 
scopic fashion,  is  not,  of  course,  due  to  the  objective  movement  of  colored 
objects  across  the  fteld  of  vision.  It  is  the  senshig  of  motion  as  interpreta- 
tive of  certain  changes  fn  our  sense-experience  of  the  qualities  and  inten-* 
sities  of  color  and  light.  It  is  the  same  experience  as  that  which,  in  a  more 
elaborate  and  deliberate  way,  makes  us  "see"  the  sleeping  cat  or  child 
in  the  picture  actually  open  its  eyes  when  we  change,  with  the  right  speed, 
the  object  as  it  appears  in  reflected  light  (the  colors  on  the  front  of  the  paper 
corresponding  to  "  shut  "  eyes)  to  the  object  as  it  appears  in  transmitted  light 
(the  colors  on  the  back,  and  now  shining  through,  corresponding  to  "  open 
eyes").  But,  as  has  already  been  indicated,  it  is  doubtful  whether  we  ever 
do  hiive  visual  sensations  without  an  accompaniment  of  other  elements  de- 
rived from  the  present  or  past  activity  of  the  muscles  which  move  the  organ 
of  vision.  It  is  a  moving  eye  whicli  furnishes  those  peculiar  changes  of 
compound  quality  in  its  sensation-complexes  that  serve  discriminating  con- 

'  Zeitschrift  f.  kliu.  Medicin,  sv.,  Ileft  1  aud  2 ;  aud  Verhandlung  d.  Physiolog.  Gesellsch., 
Berliu,  17  Mai,  18S9. 


150  SENSATION-COMPLEXES   AND   LOCAL   SIGNS 

scioiisness  as  tlie  indictee  of  motion.  A  further  most  interesting  confirmation 
of  our  view  comes  oiit  incidentally  in  performing  an  experiment.  Holmgren 
found  that,  when  we  look  at  very  faint  and  fine  points  of  light  with  the  eyes 
somewhat  elevated,  the  images  seem  to  move  in  the  direction  of  muscular 
exertion  (upward) ;  that  is,  sensatio)is  of  muscular  tension  may  expi-ess  them- 
selves as  sensaiioyis  of  visual  motion. 

§9.  Another  important  fact  connected  with  all  sensations  of  motion 
must  be  briefly  noticed.  Of  all  sensation-complexes  these  call  forth  the 
most  prompt  and  complex  of  purposeful  movements.  This  fact,  too,  is  con- 
nected with  the  safety  and  development  of  the  life  of  the  animal.  Visual  sen- 
sations of  motion  attract  attention  almost  irresistibly.  They  "draw  after" 
themselves  the  eye.  If  the  character  of  these  sensation-complexes  is  such 
as  to  threaten  the  eye,  it  promptly  closes.  Our  extreme  sensitiveness  to 
this  class  of  sensations  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that,  on  the  lateral  portions  * 
of  the  retina,  two  disks,  so  near  as  not  to  be  seen  as  two,  can  still  be  seen 
to  move  on  the  slightest  motion ;  and  a  row  of  dots,  at  a  distance  in  lateral 
vision  too  great  to  have  their  number  distinguished,  may  be  seen  to  in- 
crease or  diminish  by  a  single  dot.'  Indeed,  while  two  light-impressions 
of  .045  sec.  apart  can  barely  be  distinguished,  even  the  direction  of  the 
motion  of  light  can  be  perceived  when  the  difference  between  the  begin- 
ning and  end  of  the  motion  is  only  .014  sec.  A  similar  sensitiveness  of 
the  skin  to  sensations  of  motion,  and  a  prompt  reaction  in  the  form  of  atten- 
tion and  of  motor  activity,  in  the  way  of  retreat  or  attack,  are  noticeable. 

Sensations  of  Position — those  peculiar  sensation-complexes 
which  indicate  the  "  place  "  on  the  organ  where  the  stimulns  is 
applied,  or,  in  their  more  elaborate  form,  signify  the  relations 
which  the  different  members  of  the  body  sustain  to  each  other 
and  to  surrounding  objects — are  of  the  greatest  interest  and 
importance  to  the  scientific  study  of  mental  development. 

The  fundamental  fact  here  is,  that  the  compound  quality  of 
certain  sensations  of  the  eye  and  the  skin,  with  their  accom2)anying 
motor  activities,  is  dependent  upon  local  position.  To  speak  popu- 
larly, the  skin  "  feels "  differently,  as  its  different  areas  are 
'pressed  with  the  same  degree  and  kiixd  of  stimulns  ;  the  eye 
"  feels  "  differently,  at  the  different  angles  at  which  it  may  be 
placed — right  or  left,  up  or  down  ;  the  limbs  "  feel "  differently, 
according  to  the  different  positions  which  they  occupy  or  reach, 
whether  actively  or  passively.  But  in  the  interests  of  a  more 
careful  analysis  psychology  inquires  (1)  What,  precisely,  are  the 
different  factors  which  enter  into  and  determine  the  complex 
character  of  these  "  feelings,"  or  "  sensations,"  of  position  ;  and, 
(2)  Is  the  "  tact "  which  interprets  them  original  or  acquired  ? 

The  answers  which  can  be  given  to  both  these  questions  are 
only  partial ;  the  latter  of  the  two  can  probably  never  be  an- 

•  See  an  article  of  Esuer :  Uebcr  optische  Bewegungsempfldungen.  Biologisch.  Centrlbl., 
Sept.  15,  1888. 


SENSATIONS   OF   POSITION  151 

swerecl  otherwise  than  in  a  somewhat  uncertain  and  theoretical 
way.  It  is  not  until  we  attempt  an  exphmation  of  perception  l)y 
the  senses  that  the  bearing  of  our  description  of  sensation- 
complexes  indicative  of  "  jDosition  "  can  be  made  clear.  But  at 
this  stage  of  the  investigation  two  principles  may  guide  us,  as 
both  sound  and  conclusively  jiroved.  First :  Sensations  of  posi- 
tion, instead  of  being  primary  and  independent,  as  compared 
with  sensations  of  motion,  are  rather  secondary  and  dependent. 
From  the  very  first,  and  preceding  birth  even,  the  human  animal 
is  in  ceaseless  movement.  No  stillness,  whether  of  the  masses 
or  of  the  molecules  of  the  nervous  system — nerves,  end-organs, 
and  central  organs — is  ever  complete.  No  object  stimulates  any 
part  of  the  organs  of  sense  without  breaking  into  a  current  of 
consciousness,  whose  complexion  is  largely  determined  by  motor 
elements,  or  without  provoking  reaction  in  the  form  of  changes 
in  the  existing  motor  elements.  Without  doing  this,  no  object 
can  even  come  into  the  "  field  of  consciousness."  Sensations  of 
position  are  dependent  njyon  sensations  of  motion,  in  the  order  of  the 
mind's  normal  development. 

Second :  Sensations  of  position,  like  sensations  of  motion, 
involve  at  least  that  low  degree  of  discriminating  consciousness 
which  necessarily  enters  into  the  exercise  of  every  kind  of  so- 
called  "  tact."  To  some  extent  they  must  be  considered  as  sen- 
sation-complexes which,  on  account  of  diflerences  in  their  com- 
pound quality,  are  capable  of  becoming  significant  of  diflerences 
that  reach  beyond  themselves.  Between  them,  in  their  lowest 
form,  and  the  most  intelligent  and  purposeful  discrimination  of 
spatial  distinctions  and  relations,  there  stands  a  course  of  devel- 
opment. It  is  a  course  of  development,  however,  ivhich  isp?vvided 
for,  not  so  much  by  the  native  endowment  of  sensations  with 
"  exteusity  "  or  "  bigness "  (as  the  writers  already  referred  to 
would  have  us  suppose),  as  hy  the  adivity  of  discriminating  con- 
sciousness itself,  inaccorda7ice  with  the  laws  of  intellectual  life. 

1 10.  The  most  impoi-tant  thing  to  notice  with  regard  to  all  "  sensations 
of  position,"  so-called,  is  this  :  we  bring  them  into  clear  consciousness  only 
by  an  act  of  attention.  Such  an  act  is  certainly  demanded  in  all  experi- 
ments designed  to  show  how  accurately  one  can  tell  whei-eaboiits,  on  the 
retina  or  on  the  skin,  one  is  hit  by  any  stimulus,  or  in  just  ichat  position  this 
or  that  limb  has  been  passively  placed.  But  the  veiy  effect  of  attention  is 
to  put  into  the  sensation-comi)lex,  so  to  speak,  a  certain  "  motor  coloring," 
which  varies,  not  only  according  to  the  degree  of  attention,  but  also  accord- 
ing to  the  character  of  the  local  motor  organism  involved.  Changes  in  the 
condition  of  the  circulation  and  in  the  underlying  muscular  tension  of  the 
areas  stimulated  are  produced  by  the  act  of  attention  itself.     It  is  on  this 


152  SENSATION-COMPLEXES   AND   LOCAL   SIGNS 

principle  that  tlie  "  stigmatism  "  of  hypnotic  subjects  and  religious  devotees 
IS  produced  by  prolonged  attention.  In  general,  ?<o  perixjheral  area  can  be 
sthmdaled  without  the  resulting  sensation-complex  absorbing  into  itself  the  result 
of  the  motor  changes  brought  about  by  attention  directed  to  this  same  sensation- 
comjile.c. 

Connected  with  this  class  of  facts  is  another,  which  has  been  treated  of 
under  the  title  of  the  "  dyuamogenic  value"  of  different  sensations.'  In 
general,  a  change  in  the  relative  volume  of  the  members  of  the  body  may 
take  place  under  the  influence  of  both  peripheral  and  central  excitements. 
Sensations  and  ideas  act  to  produce  minute  movements  in  the  peripheral 
parts  of  the  body  ;  they  have — to  repeat  the  term  —a  "  dynamogenic  value  ; " 
they  result  in  developing  motor  energy  corresponding  to  their  own  qualities 
and  intensities.  It  is  not  imi^ossible  that  this  motor  value,  as  measured  by 
the  excitement  of  the  movable  parts  of  the  organ,  diflers  for  different  colors. 
One  investigator,  at  least,  arranges  the  colors  in  the  order  of  their  dynamo- 
genic strength,  as  red,  orange,  green,  yellow,  blue.  The  same  intensity  of 
color,  when  seen  on  moving  disks,  has  a  greater  strength  of  this  sort ;  that 
is,  it  excites  a  greater  concealed  motor  activity  to  blend  with  the  visual  sen- 
sations. 

It  is  by  such  considerations  as  the  foregoing  that  we  gain  some  faint  im- 
j)ression  of  the  ceaseless  and  wonderfully  subtle  connections  between  sensa- 
tion and  motion,  and  of  the  complex  way  in  which  sensations  of  motion 
fuse  with  the  sensations  of  each  peculiar  sense,  even  when  the  organ  of 
sense  seems  to  be  wholly  passive,  receptive,  and  motionless. 

1 11.  Experiments  to  determine  the  discriminating  "sense  of  locality" 
belonging  to  different  areas  of  the  skin  began  with  E.  H.  Weber's  classical 
discovery.  By  using  the  two  points  of  a  pair  of  compasses,  blunted  so  as  to 
avoid  the  feeling  of  being  pricked,  it  was  found  that  the  minimum  distance 
at  which  they  could  be  discriminated  as  two  differed  greatly  for  different 
areas  of  the  body.  The  difference  was  given  by  the  original  experiments  as 
varying  from  I  mm.  on  the  tip  of  the  tongue,  and  2  mm.  on  the  volar  side  of 
the  last  i^halanx  of  the  finger,  to  68  mm.  on  the  skin  of  the  middle  of  the 
back  and  of  the  upper  arm  and  leg.  Weber  found  that  the  fineness  of  the 
sense  of  locality  is  greater  in  a  transverse  than  in  a  longitudinal  direction 
on  both  lower  and  upper  limbs.  Moreover,  if  the  two  points  are  placed 
just  far  enough  apart  to  be  discriminated  as  two,  and  are  then  moved  toward 
a  more  sensitive  area,  the  distance  between  them  will  seem  to  widen  ;  if,  on 
the  other  hand,  they  are  moved  toward  more  insensitive  parts,  they  will  run 
together  and  no  longer  be  distinguished  as  two.  Subsequent  experiments 
showed  that  Weber's  "  sensation-circles"  can  be  much  reduced  by  practice; 
and  even  that  practice  exclusively  with  one  side  of  the  body  operates  to  im- 
prove the  power  of  discrimination  for  the  corresponding  parts  of  the  other 
side.  It  has  also  been  shown  that  by  carefully  selecting  the  most  sensitive 
pressure-spots  (after  having  discovered  where  thovare  and  "  plotted"  them), 
the  diameter  of  the  sensation-circles  can  be  reduced  to  from  0.2  to  0.1  mm, 
for  the  volar  side  of  the  i)lialanges,  and  even  to  4-G  mm.  for  the  back. 

The  physiological  explanation  of  Weber's  "  sensation-circles  "  is  not  in- 
deed perfectly  clear.      We  cannot,  of  course,  assume  that  each  circle  corre- 

'  On  this  very  interesting  matter,  see  Fere  :  Sensation  et  ^lonvcnient  (passim). 


SENSATIONS   OF   POSITION  153 

spends  to  a  single  nerve-fiber  :  for  discrimination  improves  by  practice,  and 
always  between  any  two  points  of  the  compasses,  if  they  are  farther  apart 
than  are  the  i)ressure-spots,  some  sensitive  area  can  be  found.  The  most 
probable  explanation  is,  then,  that  the  sensation-coniplex  called  out  in  each 
case  dei)ends  upon  the  number  and  intensity  of  the  qualitatively  dillerent 
nervous  elements  excited;  and  this  is  dilfercnt  for  different  areas  on  the 
various  parts  of  the  body.  The  psychological  explanation  of  this  exi^erience 
with  our  skin-sensations  is  obvious  enough  ;  it  illustrates  and  proves  the 
general  fact  with  which  wo  are  dealing.  Two  "  i^ositions,"  to  which  the 
sensation-complexes  may  be  referred,  are  demanded  only  when  the  differ- 
ence in  the  comi^ound  quality  of  these  complexes  becomes  discernible.  And 
discriminating  consciousness  improves  within  certain  limits — here  as  every- 
where— on  experience.  The  points  then  appear  to  move  apart,  as  the  char- 
acter of  the  sensation-complexes  they  excite  becomes  more  markedly  diifer- 
ent ;  and  when  the  two  complexes  fuse,  and  become  indistinguishable  in 
quality,  the  two  points  of  the  compasses  are  no  longer  felt  as  two.  This  is 
because  the  data  for  localizing  them  in  two  i)laces  have  been  lost. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  the  sensation-comi^loxes  which  answer  to  the 
difl'erent  discernible  positions  of  the  skin  are  blendings  of  sensations  of 
pressure  of  varying  intensities,  with  temperature-sensations,  and  with  those 
more  distinctively  motor  elements  to  which  reference  has  just  been  made. 

^  12.  The  nature  of  those  sensations  of  position  which  belong  to  the  eye 
is  much  more  obscure.  It  is  a  suggestive  fact  that  the  extreme  accuracy  in 
localizing  sensations  of  light  and  color  which  the  eye  can  attain  seems  to  cor- 
respond to  the  size  of  the  retinal  elements  ;  conversely,  the  minute  physical 
subdivisions  correspond  to  the  minimn  visibilia.  Stars  that  are  not  more 
than  70"-30"  apart  can,  by  the  best  observers,  be  seen  as  two.  This  agrees 
very  closely  with  the  calculated  breadth  of  the  thickness  of  the  cones  in  the 
yellow-spot,  where,  in  the  retina,  accuracy  of  localization  is  at  a  maximum. 
But  here,  as  in  the  case  of  all  the  senses,  it  is  by  progressive  discrimination 
of  fusing  and  dissolving  and  reforming  sensation-complexes,  by  a  p7'0cess  of 
acquired  interpretation  ending  in  consummate  tact,  that  mental  developmient  takes 
place. 

Do  the  different  elements  of  the  retina  furnish  to  those  sensation-com- 
plexes, which  the  use  of  the  eye  originates,  certain  factors  that  differ,  apart 
from  varying  intensities  and  qualities  of  color-tones,  according  to  the  differ- 
ent i^ositions  of  the  elements  in  the  retina  ?  To  illustrate  :  I  close  my  eyes, 
and,  holding  them  as  motionless  as  possible,  I  contemplate  the  color-mass  be- 
fore them.  It  probably  varies  in  the  color  and  intensity  of  its  different  small- 
est visible  parts.  But  these  parts  differ  from  each  other  in  a  yet  more  re- 
markable way :  they  appear  side  by  side  ;  they  lie  contiguous  and  extended  in 
space,  as  we  should  say.  Now,  does  the  sensation  corresponding  to  the  point 
a,  which  in  color  and  intensity  is  indistingiaishably  like  the  sensation  corre- 
sj^onding  to  the  point  .r  (which  latter  is  another  spot  in  the  retinal  field),  differ 
in  its  compound  quality  from  xF  If  wo  say,  Yes,  we  have  difficulty  in  telling 
wherein  this  difference  consists  ;  for  all  possible  qualities  and  intensities  of 
color-  and  light-sensations  may  be  produced  by  stimulating  any  one  of  an 
indefinite  number  of  spatially  different  groups  of  retinal  elements.  If  we 
say,  No,  then  we  have  difficulty  in  understanding  how  such  extreme  accuracy 


164  SENSATION-COMPLEXES   AND   LOCAL   SIGNS 

and  wonderful  tact  in  local  discrimination  can  be  developed  by  the  eye.    And 
that  it  is  developed  all  our  knowledge  of  mental  life  goes  to  sliow. 

The  foregoing  question  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  in  the  entire  psychol- 
ogy of  sensation.  The  following  considerations  enter  into  even  the  incom- 
plete answer  which  can  be  given  to  it :  (1)  The  histological  structure  and  the 
use,  both  of  tlie  expanded  retina  and  of  the  expanded  surface  of  the  skin, 
suggest  the  similarity  in  development  of  the  two  senses.  Sensations  of  posi- 
tion on  the  skin,  however,  seem  never  to  result  from  stimulation  of  contiguous 
nervous  elements  without  the  possibility  of  admitting  any  influence  from 
sensations  of  motions,  either  active  or  passively  derived.  We  might  argue, 
then,  that  the  same  thing  is  true  of  the  eye.  On  the  contrary  (2),  the  differ- 
ent points  distinguishable  in  the  field  of  vision,  even  with  the  motionless 
eye,  are  presented  to  us  with  an  instantaueousness,  freedom  from  confusion 
with,  and  clearness  of  relation  to,  all  contiguous  points,  which  far  outstrip" 
the  nicest  power  of  local  discrimination  belonging  to  the  skin.  Finally  (3), 
the  appeal  to  consciousness  decides  the  question  neither  way  ;  it  rather 
leaves  it  still  in  the  balance.  The  fact  to  which  writers  like  Professor  James 
and  Stumpf  refer — namely,  that  all  color-sensations  appear  before  adults 
with  "  bigness  "  of  mass  belonging  to  them- — is  of  no  value  whatever.  Neither 
does  the  most  refined  experimental  analysis  enable  us  as  yet  to  disentangle 
these  alleged  retinal  "  sensations  of  position." 

It  would  appear,  then,  that  this  question  cannot  be  decided  either  by  a 
direct  appeal  to  consciousness  or  by  facts  experimentally  ascertained.  It 
becomes,  then,  a  question  of  the  necessities  of  our  theory  of  perception. 
And  here,  again,  it  would  appear  that  the  actual  development  which  the 
eye  so  easily  attains  in  the  perception  of  localities  in  visual  space  reqiiires 
that  retinal  sensations  of  position  should  be  held  to  assist  in  furnishing  the 
necessary  data  for  discriminating  consciousness.  But,  inasmuch  as  the  eye 
is  actually  in  almost  ceaseless  movement  while  the  stimulation  of  its  diflerent 
retinal  elements  takes  place,  these  sensations  of  movement  fuse  inextrica- 
bly with  the  changing  retinal  sensations  of  position.  In  other  words,  we 
localize  our  light-  and  color -sensations  by  means  of  varying  inioctures  of  sensation 
derived  both  from  the  stimulation  of  differently  located  elements  of  the  retina  and 
from  the  residua  of  muscular  and  tactual  sensations  evoked  by  movement  of  the 
eyeball. ' 

The  existence  and  usefulness — so  to  speak — of  "  Local  Signs  " 
has  now  already  been  demonstrated.  A  few  words  more  are 
needed,  however,  in  order  to  make  plain  the  character  and  the 
significance  of  this  entire  class  of  sensation-complexes.  All  the 
different  senses  have  their  own  peculiar  sets  of  local  signs  ;  that 
is  to  say,  they  have  data  belonging  to  their  complex  activity 
and  to  the  part  they  play  in  the  development  of  mental  life,  for 
contributing  to  our  knowledge  of  objects,  as  these  objects  exist 

'  It  need  scarcely  bo  said  that  this  view  differs  totn  raelo  from  the  view  which,  like  that  of  Pro- 
fessor LeCoiite,  repards  the  mind  as  intuitively  knowinj;  the  direction  from  which  the  li<_'ht  falls  on 
the  retina.  The  explanation  of  ilic  development  of  visual  sensations  of  position,  by  simply  pointing 
to  the  physical  character  of  the  so-called  "  imafte  on  the  retina,"  is  not  jisifcliolofiiral  at  all.  But  to 
this  Bubject  we  shall  return  more  than  once  again.    Conip.  Le  Conte  :  Sight,  pp.  85  f.  and  105. 


NATURE   OF   LOCAL   SIGNS  155 

iu  varying  spatial  proportions  and  spatial  relations.  But  the 
sensations  peculiar  to  some  of  the  organs  are  localizable  only 
in  a  set'onchuy  way.  In  other  words,  the  "  local  signs  "  belong- 
ing to  their  activity  and  development  are  really  derived  from 
the  accompanying  activity  and  development  of  other  classes  of 
organs.  This  is  true  of  sensations  of  taste,  smell,  and  hearing. 
It  is  the  accompanying  customary  muscular  and  tactual  sensa- 
tions which  furnish  to  thcise  simses  their  local  signs.  Sensations 
of  these  senses  are  localizable  only  Jjy  laeans  of  the  activity  of 
the  skin  and  muscles,  which  are  excited  simultaneously  with  the 
special  nerves  of  these  senses. 

It  is  iu  connection  with  the  development  of  sight  and  touch 
that  the  nature,  need,  and  use  of  local  signs  become  evident.  A 
study  of  the  nature  of  the  sensation-complexes  of  these  senses 
makes  it  clear  why  we  are  entitled  to  speak  of  them  as  "  signs  " ; 
they  sigmfy  to  discriminating  consciousness  the  different  po- 
sitions and  motions  which  the  bodily  organs  and  the  external 
bodies  known  through  them  assume  or  undergo.  Tliej^  are,  of 
course,  called  "local  "  signs,  because  what  they  signify — summed 
up  in  a  single  word — is  the  locality  where  the  sensation-com- 
plexes originate,  and  where  the  object  known  through  these 
sensation-complexes  is  to  be  placed.  The  need  and  use  of 
these  so-called  "  local  signs,"  and  how  a  system  of  them  is  built 
up  (the  "fields"  of  visual  and  tactual  consciousness),  will  be 
further  studied  under  the  discussion  of  perception  by  the  senses. 

§  13.  Even  the  analysis  wliicli  introspective  consciousness  can  make 
serves  in  an  impressive  way  to  demonstrate  the  existence  and  nature  of  local' 
signs  of  touch.  Let  any  one  experiment  by  touching,  or  having  touched, 
the  different  small  areas  of  his  skin,  and  at  the  same  time  concentrate  at- 
tention solely  on  the  siibjective  quality  of  the  sensations  evoked.'  To  take  a 
special  case  :  one  brings  togetlier  the  two  corresponding  finger-tips  of  the 
two  hands,  and,  closing  the  eyes  to  prevent  distraction,  considers  how  one 
feels.  If  the  texture  of  the  skin  of  the  two  fingers  is  nearly  the  same,  one 
experiences  a  peculiar  sensation-complex  of  light  toucl/,  resulting  from  the 
fusion  of  irritations  arising  in  both  fingers  ;  and  one  can  localize  this  in 
either  finger  at  will.  That  is,  there  is  only  one  sensation-complex  ;  but  it 
may  serve  as  a  "  sign  "  for  either  of  tw'o  localities  whose  existence  in  the 
general  scheme  of  the  skin  is  already  known  :  these  two  localities,  however, 
are  the  two  like  finger-tips.  One  can  regard  either  of  these  two  fingers  as 
the  "seat"  of  this  sensation-complex.  But  if  one  of  these  finger-tips  is 
callous  and  the  other  not,  then  slightly  pressing  them  together  calls  into 
consciousness  two  qualitatively  diff"erent  sensation-complexes  —  one  con'e- 
spondiiig  to  callous  finger-tijjs  and  the  other  corresponding  to  non-callous 
finger-tips.  Now,  therefore,  since  these  two  unlike  sensation-complexes 
will  not  fuse,  they  must  be  localized  in  two  diff'erent  finger-tips.     But  only 


156  SENSATION-COMPLEXES   AND   LOCAL   SIGNS 

by  motion  of  one  nj^on  the  other  can  we  comi^el  ourselves  to  decide  this 
jDroblem  as  to  u-liich  of  the  ia-o  shall  be  "  assigned  "  to  which  liuger.  Again, 
if  we  arouse  a  clear  mental  picture  of  how  a  particular  finger-tip  feels  when 
it  is  lightly  jjressed,  and  then,  with  this  same  finger-tip  explore  a  great 
variety  of  minute  areas  of  our  own  body  with  about  the  same  degree  of  pres- 
sure, we  find  the  two  series  of  sensation-complexes  related  in  somewhat  the 
following  way  :  One  series  consists  of  a  repetition  of  sensation-complexes 
that  vary  little,  or  none  at  all,  during  the  entire  tour  of  exploration.  These 
all  belong  to  the  one  finger-tip  which  "conducts"  the  tour  and  serves  as 
the  reporter  of  results  obtained.  The  other  series,  however,  varies  discern- 
ibly  for  every  one  of  the  different  ' '  finds  "  located  during  the  entire  tour. 
Root  of  the  finger-nail,  position  between  it  and  the  first  joint,  several  po- 
sitions between  the  first  and  second  joints,  between  the  second  antl  third, 
various  positions  on  the  back  of  the  hand,  wrist,  forearm  (especially  near 
the  joints),  etc.,  etc. — all  these  "localities,"  when  visited,  respond  with 
discernibly  different  sensation-complexes.  These  discernibly  different  sen- 
sation-complexes are  their  respective  local  signs.  And  through  the  entire 
tour  of  exploration  active  and  passive  sensations  of  a  muscular  origin  have 
been  fusing  with  those  of  light  jKessure,  and  so  "  signifying"  the  rate  of 
progress  which  the  exploring  fiuger  makes  and  the  place  it  has  reached  at 
any  particular  time. 

That  the  discernibly  different  sensations  of  position  do  correspond  to  the 
local  signs  of  the  skin,  a  variation  of  ^Yeber's  experiment,  introduced  by 
Binet,  satisfactorily  demonstrates.'  To  state  the  conclusion,  in  his  own 
words,  these  two  things  are  proved  :  "  (1)  that  the  sensations  provoked  by 
the  two  points  of  the  compasses  are  of  different  quality  when  the  subject 
perceives  the  two  points  ;  (2)  that  the  sensations  provoketl  by  the  two  points 
of  the  compasses  are  of  the  same  quality  when  the  subject  perceives  a  single 
point."  In  fact,  when  the  two  points  are  far  enough  apart  to  be  recognized 
as  two,  on  one  of  them  being  raised,  we  can  tell  which  one  (the  right  or  the 
left,  the  upper  or  the  lower)  we  still  feel ;  but  if  the  same  experiment  be 
tried,  when  the  two  points  are  not  discerned  as  two,  we  cannot  localize  the 
remaining  point  in  relation  to  the  point  removed  from  the  skin. 

I  14.  The  attempt  definitely  to  describe  the  nature  of  the  "  local  signs  " 
of  the  eye  is  subject  to  much  uncertainty,  on  account  of  reasons  already 
given.  But,  after  all,  the  uncertainty  has  reference  to  the  amount  of  rela- 
tive influence  which  the  different  elements  have  in  the  mixture  of  sensations, 
rather  than  to  the  existence  and  nature  of  the  mixture  itself,  regarded  as 
comisrising  the  elements.  There  is,  we  may  suppose,  an  indefinite  number 
of  series  of  sensation-complexes  which  are  run  through  as  the  eye  moves 
from  A  to  X,  or  from  A  to  Y,  or  from  ^4  to  Z,  or  from  A  to  any  one  of  the  many 
other  possible  i^ositions  of  rest.  The  same  thing  is  true  as  it  moves  from  a 
l^osition  corresponding  to  any  place  lying  between  A  and  X,  or  Y  or  Z  (say 
3/ or  N),  either  toward  A  or  toward  X  or  For  Z;  or  as  it  moves  between 
any  two  positions  {A  to  ilf  or  E  to  N,  or  the  reverse)  in  the  entire  system 
of  positions.  Each  of  the  sensation-complexes  in  these  many  different  series 
is  a  compound  quality  of  similar  sensations  of  light  and  color,  fused  with 

>  La  Psyrholoffie  du  Eaisoiuicment,  p.  100  f.;  and  Ait.,  Fusion  dcs  Seusatious  somblablcp 
(Rev.  I'hilosoph.,  Sept.,  1S80). 


NATURE   OF   LOCAL   SIGNS  157 

an  indefinite  variety  of  retinal  sensations  and  tactnal  and  mnseular  sensa- 
tions canst'd  by  the  moveuuMits  of  the  eye.  Thus  every  possible  direction, 
duration,  and  amount  of  discernible  motion  acquired  with  the  develoimient 
of  discriminating  visual  consciousness  has  its  peculiar  "data"  or  indictee 
of  "  local  signs." 

In  the  development  of  vision,  the  system  of  local  signs,  thus  evolved 
by  the  active  movement  of  the  eye,  becomes  significant  of  positions  for  the 
light-  and  color-sensations  when  the  eye  is  at  rest.  Thus,  the  focusing  of 
attention  upon  any  minute  point,  or  small  group  of  points,  causes  to  fuse, 
with  the  color-  and  light-sensations  belonging  to  that  point  or  group,  the 
resiidiM,  as  it  were,  of  all  the  appropriate  local  sensations  (retinal  and  mus- 
cular) which  in  the  previous  use  of  the  moving  eye  have  become  "signifi- 
cant "  of  it  rather  than  of  some  other  ^^oint  or  group.  The  delicately  varying 
shades  of  complex  quality  have  long  since  dropped  out  of  consciousness  be- 
yond all  power  of  our  recall.  Much  easier  would  it  be  for  the  child  to  bring 
up  in  memory  the  nice  muscular  and  tactual  distinctions  by  means  of  which 
he  learned  to  walk,  to  talk,  etc.  ;  infinitely  easier  for  the  most  skilful  vio- 
linist to  reproduce  in  consciousness  the  discriminated  qualities  of  tactual 
and  muscular  sensations  in  the  fingers  of  the  "  spacing  hand,"  or  in  the  bow- 
arm,  by  which  he  learned  to  play  true  notes  in  all  the  different  "  positions," 
and  with  every  jiossible  shade  of  timbre  and  inten5;ity.  The  more  wonderful 
and  complex  such  ind  is,  the  more  completely  is  it  lost  beyond  all  recall.' 

That  quick  instinctive  synthesis  and  analysis  which  results  iu  the 
"presentation"  of  visible  surfaces,  with  their  indefinite  number  of  i^arts 
and  iJoints  of  color  and  light,  is  a  development  of  the  same  tact  in  connec- 
tion with  a  growth  of  experience  through  activity  of  allied  senses.  And  here, 
once  more,  we  must  defer  further  consideration  of  the  subject  until  we  are 
ready  to  study  the  theory  of  perception. 

Reference  may  properly  be  made  in  tliis  connection  to  certain 
obscure,  bnt  common,  and  to  other  abnormal,  phenomena.  In 
"  orienting- "  our  limbs  and  our  entire  bodies  iu  space,  we  are, 
undoubtedly,  guided  by  complex  forms  of  sense-experience  due 
to  the  fusion  or  mixture  of  visual,  tactual,  and  muscular  sensa- 
tions, in  a  way  already  described.  Thus  we  customarily  know 
where  ur  are,  and  where  the  diflerent  parts  of  our  bodies  are, 
and  where  thhiffs  are,  with  reference  to  us  and  to  each  other. 
But  if  any  of  the  well-recognized  sensuous  data  are  disturbed  or 
removed,  we  are  wholly'  at  a  loss  in  our  localization  or  we  make 
unusual  mistakes. 

But  other  important  "  sensations  of  position,"  whose  origin 
and  nature  remain  obscure,  undoubtedly  blend  with  all  our  sense- 
experience.     Lesions  existing  in  certain  organs  of  the  brain,  or 

'  This  and  all  the  modem  view?  concerain<r  local  sijrns  of  the  eye  are  modifications  of  the  view 
proposed  by  Lotze,  in  its  earlier  form,  in  Medicin.  Psychologie,  ii.,  chap.  iv.  Wagner's  Hand- 
wfirterb.  d.  Physiol.,  III.,  i.  And,  in  its  later  form,  Metaphysik.  iii.,  Abth.  1.  To  these  may  be 
added  a  communication  to  Stumpf,  and  an  article  on  La  Theorie  des  Siprnes  Locaus,  reprinted  from 
the  Rev.  Philosoph.,  Oct..  IS""— both  found  in  Kleine  Schrifteu,  iii.,  Leipzig,  1S91.  See  also  Ziehen  : 
Introduction  to  Physiological  Psychology,  p.  120  f. 


158  SENSATION-COMPLEXES   AND   LOCAL   SIGNS 

strong'  excitement  sent  tlirong-li  tliem  by  electrical  currents 
(notably  the  cerebellum),  result  in  an  extensive  or  complete  "  up- 
setting "  of  our  calculations  in  localization.  In  general,  the  po- 
sition of  the  head  has  great  influence  in  the  orienting  of  all 
the  rest  of  the  body ;  but  sensations  of  position,  serving  to  orient 
the  head  itself,  do  not  appear  wholly  to  arise  in  the  skin  and 
muscles  of  its  superficial  portions.  Recent  experiments  show 
reasons  to  assign  a  greater  or  less  degree  of  influence  to  sen- 
sation-complexes originating  in  the  condition  of  the  semi-circu- 
lar canals  of  tlie  inner  ear  and  in  the  movement  and  pressure  of 
the  fluids  contained  within  this  organ.  In  many  of  the  cen- 
tral parts  of  the  organism  the  changes  in  the  i^ressure  of  one 
part  ui:)on  another,  and  of  the  internal  fluids  upon  the  difl'erent 
contiguous  parts,  doubtless  give  rise  to  sensation  -  complexes 
which  become  "  significant  of  "  their  position. 

^  15.  It  has  been  said — aud,  j^robably,  truly — that  a  recent  investigator  ' 
has  put  forever  to  rest  all  doiibt  as  to  the  influence  of  the  semi-circular 
canals  upon  our  sense  of  position  and  of  direction.  This  observer  succeeded 
in  exciting  the  three  canals  separately  without  injury  to  the  brain  of  the 
animal,  and  in  getting  motor  reactions,  dependent  as  resjoects  direction,  upon 
the  particular  canal  excited  and  upon  the  direction  of  the  current.  The  re- 
sult scarcely  compels  us  to  hold  that  the  semi-circular  canals  are  the  special 
end-organs  of  the  sense  of  position  ;  but  it  indicates  strongly  that  sensations 
arising  from  their  irritation  blend  with  others  in  helping  us  to  orient  the 
head  and  the  body.  The  cerebellum,  or  little  brain,  is  declared  by  this 
same  investigator  to  be  the  central  organ  for  sensations  of  position  with 
which  the  canals,  as  end-organs,  are  immediately  connected.  Here,  again, 
the  conclusion  is  perhaps  extreme  ;  but  numerous  i^henomena  which  have 
been  familiar  to  physiological  psychology  for  a  long  time  show  plainly  that 
the  action  of  this  part  of  the  brain  is  especially  connected  with  that  entire 
sensory  motor  apparatus  by  means  of  which  the  animal  keeps  adjusted  to  its 
environment  through  sense-experience. 

Another  investigator  - — after  distinguishing  between  "  static  "  and  "  dy- 
namic "  sensations,  and  assigning  many  of  our  static  sensations  of  position 
to  the  eye-muscles — affirms  that,  apart  from  muscular  and  ciitaneous  sen- 
sations, we  sense  the  positions  of  our  bodies  in  dependence  ujion  the  gravita- 
tion of  internal  fluids  and  organs.  The  same  writer  also  holds  that  the 
"  dynamical"  sensations  by  which  we  orient  ourselves — when,  for  example, 
our  bodies  rotate — are  due  to  variations  of  endolymph  jDressure  in  the  ears, 
as  the  head  turns  around  upon  its  various  axes. 

We  are  so  accustomed  to  regard  only  the  normal  forms  of  the 
fusion  of  our  sensation-complexes,  that  it  seems  to  us  as  thoug'h 
these  forms,  and  no  others,  indicate  the  essential  nature  of  things. 

'  J.  Breuer,  in  Pflilger's  Archiv,  xliv.,  p.  135  f.  (1888).  And  see  the  Am.  Journal  of  Psychologry. 
Feb.,  1889. 

2  M.  Delagc :  Archives  de  Zoologie  exp6riment.,  No.  4, 18S6,  pp.  535-C24. 


CONDITIONS    OF   SENSE-EXPERIENCE  159 

But  a  profounder  examination  of  the  conditions  of  sense-experi- 
ence shows  us  that  this  "  common-sense  "  conchision  is  untenable. 
To  see  with  the  ears,  or  taste  with  the  tips  of  the  tin^-ers,  instead 
of  the  tip  of  the  tongue,  appears  at  lirst  not  only  practically 
impossible,  but  intrinsically  absurd.  In  truth,  however,  the 
whole  question  is  one  of  actual  arrangement  of  different  locally 
separable  end-organs  and  brain-centers,  on  the  one  hand  (the 
pliysioh)g'ical  side);  and,  on  the  other  hand  (the  psychical  side), 
a  question  as  to  what  kind  of  simple  sensations  actually  fuse  into 
sensation-complexes,  and  these  into  more  complex  forms  of  sense- 
experience,  as  the  development  of  experience  g-oes  on.  "VMiat 
sensations  actually  fuse  with  Avhat  others,  and  what  kinds  of  sen- 
sation-complexes thus  arise,  is  a  matter  determined  for  the  stu- 
dent of  psychology  wholly  b^'  the  concrete  conditions  of  expe- 
rience. As  these  conditions  change,  the  results  are  altered  ;  and 
thus  new  and  even  antecedently  inconceivable  sensuous  data  may 
arise.  What  remains  relativel}^  unchangeable  is  onl^^  t/ie  laws 
that  control  the  development  of  intellectual  life. 

Such  statements  as  the  foregoing  are  not  based  exclusively 
upon  theoretical  grounds.  The}^  are  suggested  b}'  the  influence 
which  sensation-complexes  of  one  class  have  upon  sensation- 
complexes  of  another  class,  even  in  those  cases  where  the 
"  influence  "  comes  far  short  of  a  "  fusion,"  properly  so-called. 
But  the}'  are  also  actually  illustrated  by  certain  rare  cases  where 
abnormal  connections  have  been  established  betAveen  the  ordi- 
narily distinct  kinds  of  sensation-complexes.  Tf  these  connec- 
tions become  constant  and  fundamental,  we  have  a  result  resem- 
bling that  of  the  "  fusion "  of  pressure  and  temperature  and 
muscular  sensations  (active  and  passive)  into  what  we  call  sensa- 
tions of  touch ;  but  if  the  connections  are  less  constant  and 
fundamental  we  have  any  one  of  several  forms  of  so-called  "  asso- 
ciation "  between  sensations  of  one  class  and  sensations,  or 
images  of  sensations,  belonging  to  a  different  class. 

1 16.  The  question,  If  one  organ  of  sense  be  stimulated  with  a  small 
degree  of  stimulus,  will  the  simultaneous  stimulation  of  another  organ  of 
sense  influence  the  first  ?  has  been  attempted  in  an  experimental  way.  The 
affirmative  answer  to  this  question,  as  given  by  one  investigator,'  among 
others,  shows  that  interesting  relations  of  infliience  may  exist  between  the 
diflferent  classes  of  sensation-complexes.  In  general,  the  second  stimulation 
may  "lower  the  threshold"  for  the  first.  For  example,  the  sounding  of  a 
tuning-fork  causes  colors,  before  scarcely  visible  in  the  distance,  to  ai^j^ear 
more  clearly.  The  influence  of  sounds  on  faint  smells,  tastes,  and  touches 
may  be  similar.     Conversely,  a  very  faint  sound  may  lose  some  of  its  inten- 

1  Urbantschitsch,  in  Pfluger's  Archiv,  slii.,  3  and  4  (1888). 


160  SENSATION-COMPLEXES   AND   LOCAL   SIGNS 

sity  when  heard  -witli  closed  eyes.  The  influence  of  sight  on  smell  is  said  to 
be  very  slight,  but  considerable  on  taste.  Smell  may  slightly  reenforce  the 
other  senses  ;  but  its  influence  is  more  marked  with  sounds,  while  taste  has 
most  influence  over  colors.  Illumination  increases  sensations  of  tempera- 
ture ;  but  stimitlation  by  heat  or  cold  of  one  area  of  the  skin  may  diminish 
the  tactile  sensibility  of  another  area,  while  tactile  stimulation  may  affect 
favorably  temi>eratnre-sensations. 

Whatever  modifications  may  be  found  necessary  in  the  detailed  results 
of  such  experiments,  the  general  fact  of  the  influence  of  sensallon-comiilexes  of 
one  sense  over  those  of  another  is  undoubted.  This  fact  indicates  that  the  con- 
nections between  the  brain-centers  and  processes  which  correspond  to  the 
different  senses  are  not  of  the  nature  of  fixed  and  unalterable  intellectual 
relations.  And  on  the  psychical  side  it  is  the  mere  fact  of  constant  or  vary- 
ing concurrence  in  consciousness — of  separateness,  or  of  more  or  less  per- 
fect fusion — which  determines  the  compound  quality  of  all  our  sensuoiis 
data. 

§  17.  An  instance  of  abnormal  "fusion"  or  "association  "  takes  place  in 
those  not  very  rare  cases  of  persons  that  have  "  color-aiTdition,"  so-called. 
In  the  most  marked  of  these  cases  the  hearing  of  a  particular  sound  uni- 
formly and  spontaneously  provokes  the  seeing  of  a  particular  color,  which 
varies  with  the  sound  heard.  This  fusion  of  sensations  may  become  so  com- 
plete as  to  lead  the  subject  in  one  and  the  same  mental  act  both  to  hear  and 
to  see  the  particular  vowels  when  they  are  pronounced.  Thus,  in  the  case 
of  one  French  family  (father,  son,  and  daughter),  the  vowels  a,  a,  and  a  pro- 
voked different  shades  of  yellowish  red  {brique,  nuance  de  jaune,  sainnone)  ; 
e,  e,  and  e,  different  shades  of  white  [claire,  pur,  citronne),  etc'  Joachim 
Kaff,  the  musical  composer,  declared  that  he  saw  the  sound  of  the  flute, 
azure  blue  ;  of  the  hautboy,  yellow ;  of  the  cornet,  green,  etc.  Less  com- 
plete fusion,  or  what  we  are  accustomed  to  call  more  or  less  sei)arable 
"  association,"  characterizes  the  experiences  of  others.  In  this  way  differ- 
ent words,  or  languages,  or  shapes,  come  to  have  a  color  value.  In  some 
rare  cases — even  the  slightest  change  in  the  shading  of  the  sound  of  the  let- 
ter is  seen  also  as  a  change  in  its  color-tone. 

In  still  other  cases,  vowels  or  words,  when  seen,  have  particular  color- 
tones  always  attached  inextricably  to  them.  Nor  have  subjects  been  wanting 
who  were  ready  to  declare  that,  to  them,  the  odor  of  vanilla  is  light  lilac,  the 
odor  of  vinegar  is  red,  and  so  on.  It  is  to  the  same  physiological  and  psy- 
chical principles  as  those  which  are  ilhistrated  in  all  fusion  of  sensation- 
complexes,  and  in  the  formation  of  local  signs,  that  we  are  to  look  for  the 
explanation  of  such  abnormal  lihonomena.  It  is  also  by  an  extension  of  the 
same  principles  that,  in  part  at  least,  the  wonderful  phenomena  of  clairvoy- 
ance, telepathic  sensation,  illusions,  and  hallucinations  by  suggestion,  etc., 
are  probably  destined  to  be  explained.  Here,  again,  we  may  declare :  It  is 
not  the  qaalili/,  intensitij,  and  characteristic  form  of  fusion,  which  belong  to  the 
sensuous  data,  that  are  unchanr/eabhi  fixed  either  by  the  iiJiysiological  or  by  the 
psychological  laws  of  our  complex  development. 

1  Sec  T.aurct  and  Duchaussoy,  in  Bulletins  de  Phys.  Psych.,  No.  3,  p.  11  f.  And  on  the  entire 
pubjcct,  a  monograph  by  Dr.  W.  O.  Krohn  :  rseudo-Chromesthesia  (reprinted  from  Am.  Journal  of 
i'sychology,  Oct.,  1892),  aud  the  bibliography  at  the  end. 


SENSATION   AND   DISCRIMINATION  161 

Finally,  our  description  of  the  elements  of  sense-experience 
has  already  led  ns  some  distance  beyond  itself.  "  Discriminating- 
consciousness,"  wliicli  is  the  very  essence  of  primary  intellection, 
has  been  everywhere  assumed.  And,  in  a  less  obvious  fashion, 
the  existence  of  at  least  a  low  form  of  memory  has  been  taken  for 
i^  ranted  ;  Avhile  the  feeling  aspect  and  the  conative  aspect  of  even 
our  so-called  simplest  forms  of  sense-experience  has  never  for  a 
moment  been  lost  wholly  out  of  sight.  But  we  must  now  turn 
backward,  as  it  were,  and  review  the  path  of  development  in  the 
consideration  of  these  other  than  the  sensation-elements  of  our 
mental  life, 
11 


CHAPTER  IX. 
FEELING :  ITS  NATUEE  AND  CLASSES 

The  phenomena  observed  by  attending-  to  that  aspect  of  con- 
sciousness which  is  known  by  the  name  of  "  Feeling "  liave 
baffled  the  student  of  psychology  from  the  beg-inning-  of  investi- 
gation to  the  present  time.  The  reasons  for  this  fact  are,  chiefly, 
the  following  three :  First,  the  amount  of  analysis  devoted  to 
this  aspect  of  mental  life  has  been  too  small,  whether  we  regard 
its  relation  to  the  intrinsic  difficulty  of  the  subject  or  to  the 
amount  of  study  bestowed  upon  other  aspects.  Then,  too,  the 
connection  of  affective  phenomena  with  hotly  debated  questions 
in  ethics,  aesthetics,  and  religion  may  have  contributed  to  in- 
crease the  influence  of  prejudice  in  the  study  of  these  phenomena. 
But,  second,  the  nature  of  language  and  of  the  relation  it  sus- 
tains to  the  description  and  explanation  of  psychoses  is  such  as 
relatively  to  hinder  the  growth  of  a  science  of  the  human  feel- 
ings. Language  is  framed,  primarily,  to  convey  an  accurate 
knowledge  of  those  objects  in  whose  existence  and  relation  to 
man  his  most  fundamental  as  well  as  most  highly  intellectual 
needs  make  him  interested.  But  language  describes  and  ex- 
plains the  feelings  of  man  only  in  a  secondary,  inaccurate,  and 
always  figurative  way. 

But  the  third  and  chief  reason  for  the  unsatisfactory  state 
of  the  psj^chology  of  feeling  is  the  very  nature,  conditions,  and 
laws  of  the  phenomena  of  feeling  itself.  As  to  its  nature,  feel- 
ing is  relatively  indescribable.  It  may,  indeed,  be  excited  or 
communicated  by  language,  or  other  conventional  and  interpret- 
able  signs.  But  in  every  case  it  is,  of  course,  the  ideas  which 
are  primarily  communicated ;  and  whether  the  corresponding 
feelings  are  excited  depends  not  only  upon  the  communication 
of  ideas,  but  also  upon  a  variety  of  secondary  considerations 
connected  with  the  entire  affective  character  of  the  mental  life. 
Even  the  failure  of  language,  to  Avhich  reference  was  just  made, 
is  therefore  largely  due  to  the  intrinsic  difficulty  of  the  subject- 
matter  to  be  expressed.  Moreover,  the  ideation  and  memory  of 
one's  own  states  of  feeling  is  extremely  uncertain  and  fluctuat- 


THE  HISTORY    OF   OPINION  163 

ing ;  while  all  know  Iioav  vain  it  is  to  expect  one  man  to  imagine 
precisely  how  another  man  feels.  Experimental  methods  vary 
largely,  or  even  completely  fail  us  here.  We  cannot  readily 
contrive  a  mechanism  which  shall  serve  to  measure  the  relative 
magnitudes  of  the  higher  and  more  complex  feelings,  or  to  an- 
alyze them  into  their  simpler  component  parts.  In  their  own 
true  nature  also  our  feelings  are  so  very  evanescent,  subtile, 
changeable,  and  intricate,  that  whereas  we  can,  by  attention,  tell 
with  some  commendable  approach  to  accuracy  what  we  see,  hear, 
imagine,  or  think,  we  find  ourselves  i)uzzled  precisely  to  set 
forth  both  what  we  feel,  and  why  we  feel  as  we  do  feel.  Nay, 
when  we  attend  to  what  we  feel,  the  very  act  of  attention,  in- 
stead of  clearing  up  and  intensifying  the  "  content  "  of  the  feel- 
ing, as  it  were,  takes  from  it  all  its  rich  warm  color  as  feeling ; 
or  else  even  banishes  it  quite  from  the  stream  of  our  conscious- 
ness. 

Not  only  the  nature,  but  also  the  conditions  and  laws  of  the 
phenomena  of  consciousness  in  its  aspect  of  feeling  are  rela- 
tively obscure.  The  physiological  conditions  of  some  of  the 
stronger  forms  of  emotional  consciousness  are  indeed  sufl&ciently 
evident.  But,  in  general,  the  caution  with  which  men  deal  with 
each  other's  feelings  and  the  admittedly  large  incalculable  ele- 
ment which  belongs  to  all  attempts  to  realize  the  right  con- 
ditions of  any  particular  form  of  feeling  (especially  those  of 
the  sulitiler  and  finer  sort)  show  how  profound  is  our  ignorance 
of  all  that  can  reasonably  be  called  "  law  "  in  this  realm.  "  To 
minister  to  a  mind  diseased  "  requires  more  than  ordinary  bio- 
logical or  medical  knowledge. 

§  1.  The  history  of  the  psychology  of  feeling  is  very  instructive  on  the 
foregoing  points.'  The  bipartite  division  of  the  mental  faculties  into  cog- 
nition and  will,  which  prevailed  from  Aristotle  down  to  comparatively  recent 
times,  opei-ated  to  obscure  the  distinctive  character  of  the  affective  elements 
of  mental  life  and  to  prevent  their  receiving  due  scientific  attention.  Plato's 
classitication  of  the  feelings,  on  the  principle  of  their  relative  dignity  and 
relation  to  a  bodily  basis,  probably  operated  in  the  same  direction.  The 
Cartesian  philosophy,  which  regarded  ' '  thought  "  as  the  essential  character- 
istic of  mind,  as  extension  is  of  matter,  kept  attention  fixed  upon  the  mech- 
anism of  ideation;  and  the  English  "  associational "  and  French  "  sensa- 
tional" schools  absorbed,  for  these  sides  ("idea "and  "sensation")  of 
many-sided  human  life,  the  interests  of  all  investigators.  Modern  psychol- 
ogy owes  in  large  measure  to  Rousseau,  the  analyst  of  the  heart,  with  his 
keen,  but  morbid  interest  in  his  own  emotions  and  sentiments,  and  to  the 
sentimental  movement  in  literature  which  followed  him,  the  awakening  of 

'  Brief  notices  in  this  line  are  found  in  Steinitzer's  Die  menschlichen  unci  thicrischen  Gemiiths- 
bewegungen.    Muncheu,  1S89.    And  Juugmauu  :  Das  Gemiith.    Freiburg,  18S5. 


164  FEELIISTG  :     ITS   NATURE   AND   CLASSES 

scientific  iuvcstigation  in  this  sphere.  Kant's  espousal '  of  the  tripartite 
division  of  so-called  mental  faculty,  and  the  persistence  of  this  division  in 
spite  of  all  attempts  by  the  Herbartian  psychology  and  the  philosophy  of 
Schopenhauer  to  overthrow  it,  have  had  a  powerful  influence  on  prevalent 
opinion.  But  especially  is  it  the  effect  of  biological  study,  and  of  the  in- 
creasing influence  of  the  theory  of  evolution,  which  has  caused  due  empha- 
sis to  be  put  upon  the  scientific  investigation  of  affective  phenomena.  For 
these,  of  all  mental  phenomena,  are  not  only  the  most  obscure  and  provok- 
ing in  character,  but  they  are  also  most  permanent  and  universal.  In  the 
possession  of  certain  fundamental  api^etites,  passions,  emotions,  and  senti- 
ments, men  difl'or  far  less  than  in  the  possession  of  "  ideas"  and  "thoughts." 
In  respect  of  the  higher  realms  of  isesthetical,  intellectual,  and  religious  feel- 
ing, the  conviction  of  modern  lisychological  science  affirms  that  an  under- 
standing of  the  lower,  more  obscure,  more  purely  sensuous,  and  yet  instinc- 
tive and  fundamental  forms  of  feeling  is  essential  to  any  satisfactory  com- 
prehension. It  is  indeed  the  one  touch  of  feeling-consciousness  which 
"makes  the  whole  world  kin." 

The  result  of  this  awakening  and  spreading  interest  in  the  study  of 
liuman  feeling,  scientifically,  has  been  felt  in  several  ways.  Among  these 
the  multiplication  of  special  treatises  on  this  branch  of  psychology,  and  the 
enlarged  space  allotted  to  it  in  works  which  aim  to  cover  the  entire  ground 
of  mental  phenomena,  are  noteworthy.  But  the  multiplication  of  artistic 
and  literary  products — for  example,  the  Wagnerian  music  and  the  modern 
novel — which  are  based  upon  and  aim  to  set  forth  conclusions  in  the  psy- 
chology of  feeling  is  scarcely  less  noteworthy.  With  all  this  hopeful  en- 
deavor it  will  never  be  possible,  however,  to  reduce  to  a  strictly  scientific 
form  the  life  of  sentiment  and  emotion.  It  is  necessary,  in  the  interests  of 
science,  to  acknowledge  this  at  the  outset,  and  with  the  utmost  candor.  We 
jjositively  must  refrain  from  "  completing "  our  science  by  impoverishing 
and  belittling  the  subject  of  its  investigation. 

The  real  and  essential  Nature  of  Feeling-,  as  such,  cannot  be 
defined ;  it  cannot  even  be  described  in  terms  that  have  a  mean- 
ing' corresponding  to  the  psychical  state  for  which  they  stand 
A\dthout  being-  converted  back,  as  it  were,  into  feeling-  again. 
This  impossibility  of  definition,  strictly  speaking-,  follows  from 
the  very  fact  that  the  aspect  of  feeling-  is  primary,  fundament- 
al, irreducible  to  lower  terms,  in  the  mental  life.  To  attempt 
definition  is,  therefore,  to  try  to  answer  some  such  question 
as  this :  In  what  common  characteristic  do  all  the  different 
feeling's  peifcctly  ag-ree  :  in  what  respect  are  even  pleasures  and 
pains  alike  ?  To  such  a  question  no  other  answer  is  conceivable 
than  this  :  All  feelings,  high  and  low,  and  even  pleasures  and 
pains,  are  alike  in  tliis,  that  they  arc  forms  oifeeUmj,  and  are  not 
ideas,  thoug-hts,  volitions,  etc.     But  there  is  another  reason  why 

1  This  is  true,  although  Tetcns,  in  his  Philosoph.  Versnche  iiber  die  menschlicho  Natiir 
(Lcipzifr,  1777),  had  appeared  as  the  defender  of  the  •'  faculty  of  feeling  "  as  au  independent  power 
of  mind. 


THE  NATURE   OF   FEELIISTG  165 

feeling  cannot  even  —  to  speak  accurately — bo  adequately  de- 
scribed. Description  is  in  lan^-uage,  but  lanq-uag-e  itself  is  the 
expression  of  conceptions  and  tliouii^hts.  And  the  conception  of 
any  feeliui?  differs  toto  cxvlo  from  the  feeling  itself.  Indeed,  the 
last  result  of  the  analysis  on  which  modern  i^sychology  relies, 
and  which  we  have  already  intellis-ently  adopted,  affirms  that  all 
psychic  facts,  and  all  the  psychic  life  built  up  by  the  facts,  re- 
veals three  irreducible  aspects,  of  which  feeling-  is  one. 

It  is  not  so  much,  then,  the  business  of  psychological  science 
to  tell  just  what  feeling  is,  as  to  investigate  the  conditions  under 
which  the  various  forms  of  feeling  arise  in  consciousness  and 
to  discover  their  common  characteristics,  their  relations  to 
other  forms  of  mental  life,  and  the  evolution  of  the  more  com- 
plex feelings  from  the  simpler,  etc.  For  to  feel  is  as  simple, 
fundamental,  and  universal  an  aspect  of  all  psychic  facts,  or — if 
one  wishes  to  use  the  expression — function  or  faculty  of  man, 
as  is  discrimination,  or  sensation,  or  volition.  And  feeling 
cannot  have  its  nature,  which  is  sid  generis  (the  "  genus  "  not 
being  of  the  same  family  as  knowledge),  stated  in  terms  of 
knowledge  :  the  veri/  life  and  essence  of  feeling  is  in  leing  felt. 

It  is  customary  for  p)sychologists  to  express  the  foregoing 
truth  by  asserting  that,  whereas  sensation  has  a  presentative 
element,  and  knowledge  is  objective,  feeling  is  always  jourely 
"  subjective."  Thus  the  term  feeling,  or  sensibility,  is  said  by 
one  Avriter^  to  "  denote  the  subjective  aspect  of  consciousness 
anywhere  and  everywhere."  Another  author,-  speaking  in  a 
more  carefully  qualified  way,  declares  :  "  Feeling  is  subjective 
experience  lyar  excellence^  But  the  question  at  once  arises : 
Is  it  not  just  this  suhjective  aspect  with  which  all  psychology 
deals  ?  All  its  phenomena  are  regarded  as  subjective  ;  that  is 
to  say,  they  are  regarded  as  phenomena  of  consciousness,  as 
such.  My  sensations  are  no  less  of  me  as  their  subject  ("mine 
own  ")  than  are  my  feelings  ;  and  this  I  quickly  discover  when  I 
try  to  communicate  about  colors  with  one  color-blind,  or  about 
tones  with  one  tone-deaf.  And  what  can  be  for  me  more  truly 
"  subjective  "  than  my  castles-in-the-air  (when  I  imagine  myself 
rich  and  powerful),  or  those  choices  for  which  conscience  com- 
mends or  reproaches  me  ?  Such  a  characterization  of  the 
peculiarity  of  feeling  is,  therefore,  not  clear  and  universal :  it 
contains,  however,  a  valuable  truth  ;  for  it  serves  in  a  way  to 
mark  the  difference  between  feeling  and  sensation,  where,  as 
happens  in  almost  all  our  conscious  life,  the  two  arc  blended  to- 

1  Baklwin:  Handbook  of  Psycholocry,  Feeling  and  Will,  p.  135. 
=  Sully:    The  Uumau  Mind,  II..  p.  2. 


166  FEELIXG  :    ITS   NATURE  AND   CLASSES 

getlier  in  tlie  imity  of  consciousness.  My  sensations  are,  in- 
deed, mine  as  truly  as  my  feelings  are  ;  both  are  alike  subjective. 
But  my  sensations  are  wliat  my  feelings  are  not,  and  cannot  be 
conceived  as  being ;  tbey  also,  in  the  development  of  percep- 
tion, become  referred,  as  qualities,  to  the  objects  known  in 
sense-experience.  Things  are  green,  blue,  sweet,  sour,  hard, 
soft,  warm,  cold,  etc. ;  and,  in  respect  to  the  "  objective  "  char- 
acter of  some  of  their  qualities,  even  the  most  interior  parts  of 
my  bodj^  are  things  to  me.  But  when  I  say  my  finger  aches, 
as  well  as  when  I  say  that  the  music  makes  me  sad,  the  ache 
and  the  sadness  have  no  "  objective  "  existence  ;  they  are,  in- 
deed, mine  par  excellence,  as  contrasted  with  all  qualities  of 
things  which  occasion  them.  Thus  we  say,  by  a  fiction  which 
all  the  development  of  our  sense-experience  fosters  and  almost 
necessitates:  the  objects  with  their  qualities  would  be  there,  as 
we  perceive  them,  if  neither  we  nor  any  one  else  really  did  per- 
ceive them  ;  but  how  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  pain  or  the 
sadness  would  be  anywhere  when  our  "  subjective  experience  " 
passed  away. 

Two  theories,  which  regard  the  "  nature  of  feeling"  as  second- 
ary and  derivative,  have  flourished,  especially  in  modern  times. 
One  of  these  is  physiological,  the  other  ideational.  The  physio- 
logical theory,  when  extreme,  describes  feeling  as  the  conscious- 
ness of  certain  nervous  processes,  or  relations  between  nervous 
processes — a  becoming-aware  of  the  condition  of  the  nervous 
system  under  the  action  of  varying  quantities  of  stimuli.  The 
ideational  theory  regards  feeling  as  the  consciousness  of  rela- 
tions subsisting  between  the  ideas— a  becoming-aware  of  the 
mutual  "  hindrance  "  or  "  furtherance  "  which  the  different  idea- 
tional factors  undergo  as  they  rise  together  above,  or  work  upon 
each  other  below,  the  "  threshold  of  consciousness."  Now,  in  so 
far  especially  as  feelings  are  pleasurable  or  painful,  the  condi- 
tion of  the  nervous  system  and  its  relation  to  the  intensities  of 
stimuli  which  act  upon  it  are,  doubtless,  of  great  importance  in 
determining  the  character  of  the  feelings.  So  all  the  character 
and  relations  of  the  different  factors  ji.nd  objects  in  the  stream  of 
conscious  ideation  and  thought  influence  profoundly  our  emo- 
tions and  sentiments.  But  we  are  not  conscious  of  the  fimction- 
ing  of  the  nervous  system ;  and  if  we  were,  this  consciousness 
wouhl  not  he  feel  ill  g :  it  would  only  be  at  best  our  knowledge  of 
hoic  the  nervons  syntem  is  lehanxg  when  ice  are  feeling.  The  phy- 
siological theory,  therefore,  confounds  certain  possible  condi- 
tions of  feeling  Avith  the  nature  of  feeling  itself.  And  the  "  idea- 
tional "  theory  commits  the  same  mistake  in  another  way. 


THE   NATURE   OF   FEELING  167 

•  One  other  mistaken  view  of  the  nature  of  feeling-  is  yet  more 
widely  current  in  modern  psychology.  In  its  fuller  form  of  de- 
velopment this  view  may  be  stated  as  follows :  All  feeling  is, 
essentially  considered,  pleasure  or  jiain,  in  the  most  extended 
meaning-  of  these  words.  Or — to  manufacture  a  convenient  com- 
pound term — "pleasure-pains"  are  exhaustive  of  the  entire 
quality  of  the  feeling--aspect  of  consciousness;  all  feeling-s,  as 
feelings,  are  nothing-  but  "  pleasure-pains."  Now — this  theory 
goes  on  to  argue — different  pleasures  or  iiains  differ  only  as  re- 
spects intensity  or  amount ;  therefore  they  are  measurable  by  a 
common  standard,  and,  like  sensations  of  the  same  sense,  may  be 
called  upon  to  take  their  allotted  place  in  a  "  pleasure-pain " 
series,  a  scale  properly  graded  as  to  intensity.  But  since  feel- 
ing is  essentially  either  i^leasure  or  pain,  the  different  so-called 
"  kinds  of  feeling  "  have,  as  feeling,  no  qualitative  difference  ;  all 
that  which  seems  to  us  as  ditierence  is  but  due  to  association 
with  qualitatively  different  sensations  or  ideas.  Feelings,  as  be- 
ing essentially  "  pleasure-pains,"  diU'er  only  in  the  amounts  of  the 
pleasure  or  jiain  which  they  are ;  they  cannot,  therefore,  be  dis- 
tinguished as  "  kinds  "  or  as  having  lower  and  higher  degrees  of 
"  value  "  according  to  an  ideal :  feelings,  as  such,  can  only  take 
their  allotted  place  in  a  scale  graded  according  to  intensity. 

It  would  be  impossible  at  this  point  to  indicate  the  far-reaching 
(and,  as  we  believe,  misleading)  effects  of  this  view  of  the  nature 
of  feeling.  The  different  subordinate  considerations  involved 
will  be  discussed  in  their  proper  places.  But  let  us  here  enter 
against  it  a  most  decided  protest,  not  only  as  wholly  inadequate 
to  describe  and  explain  the  admitted  data  of  consciousness,  but 
even  as  contradictory  of  those  data.  To  us  this  theory  seems 
"  simplicity  "  itself :  but  simplicity,  in  the  interests  chiefly  of 
biological  and  experimental  psychology,  "  gone  entirely  mad." 

^  2.  As  expressing  the  correct  view  of  the  nature  of  feeling,  we  may  quote 
again  from  Dr.  Ward,  the  declaration  : '  "Feeling  as  such  is,  so  to  put  it, 
matter  of  be'uiff,  rather  than  of  direct  knowledge."  The  peculiarly  subjective 
nature  of  feeling,  in  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  subjective,"  already  explained, 
may  be  enij^hasized  in  various  ways.  In  our  common  talk  about  sense-experi- 
ence we  divide  it  all  into  two  easily  and  vividly  distinguishable  parts.  One 
of  these  has  reference  to  how  "  things  behave,"  what  qualities  they  have, 
or  bow  they  "  appear  to  us."  But  the  other  has  reference  to  how  "we  feel" 
on  occasion  of  our  sensing  things,  or  having  them  apjjear  to  us.  Hence  those 
sensations  which  are  wont  to  be  had  with  an  accompaniment  of  markedly 
pleasurable  or  painful  tones  of  feeling  are  themselves  called  "  feelings." 
Thus  we  are  said  to  "feel"  the  cold  or  heat,  whether  of  our  own  bodies 

1  Art.  Psychology— Encyc.  Brit.,  p.  67.  Comp.  also  Hamilton  :  Lectures  on  Metaphysics,  p. 
559  f. 


leS  FZELiyG:    IT?   yATFEZ  A:!fD  CLASSES 

or  a£  the  objects  in  ccsitaet  with  them.  We  ■"  feel "  tlie  intra-oTganic  pres- 
szctes  azhi  ZDoreneats  *s  well  as  the  puBs  vhicii  we  obseureij  localize  in 
these  csgass.  All  bodibr  pa^"^-?  aitd  piessmes.  as  veil  as  the  aesthetical  and 
ethical  semdm^enis.  are  also  said  to  be  '"  felt."  EspecisLUr  do  we  popnlarlT 
cia^ij  ^iiose  miiei  ard  nassive,  or  mcfl«  shadowj  psychical  states,  which 
depend  ■□T>:>n  a  iar^re  number  of  obscnre  and  ill-localized  orgaiuc  eondidoss. 
araong  o^ur  "  fetlings-"  rather  than  »mtm^  oat  spftsations.  We  "  feel "  weU 
'  •'  pietij  wen ~  or  "first-rate 'T,  or  indisposed,  or  iD  :  we  feel  elated  or  de- 
pressed in  a  r  :i7?i«:3l  waj,  ~  qTieer,"  "••  not  like  oorselvc^''  etc. 

In  sTieii  -ses  cf  the  term  ^  feeling "  as  the  fore^ing,  it  is  to  be  noted 
that  ordii-aril J  we  refer  to  fevchieal  states  in  which  taeroaL  mnseolar,  and 
tQnperar:ire  s-^z-saaoiis  are  largelr  piedcnainaiit.  Sensations  of  smell  and 
taste,  wjiici.  are  e^iifessedlT  most  subjectrre,  as  well  as  sensations  of  si^t, 
which  are  tiDdotibtedly  most  objectiTe,  are  rarehr  or  never  spoken  of  as  "  feel- 
ings." In  the  case  of  predominatinghr  mnscnlar  sensations,  we  talk  of  onr- 
seirBS  as  "  feeling  ~  sore  or  wearv.  Xow,  sinee  feeling  is  preeminently  sub- 
jecsiTe.  the  qaestion  arises  why  -we  do  not  idraitify  it  with  the  most  subjectiTe 
of  an  OUT  sensations — ^witi  smell,  for  g-wtwipW*  The  answer  to  the  question 
lies  in  the  fact  already  ssaied — nsme^,  that,  while  we  never  for  an  instant 
ilrrng  of  really  ecmfaang  otir  feelings  as  sabjectrre  with  sensatioos  as  objec- 
trre.  soooe  of  oar  sefiisatimis  aie  in  espezienoe  inexlzicablr  bound  np  with 
leelii^s  i^ai  hare  a  Strang  and  ppTsistent  tcme  of  pleasme  or  pain.  Many 
saeSs  and  tastes  are  indeed  -rerT  disagreeable:  but  ordinarily  we  can 
qiio^ily  seforate  these  soisaticKis  froai  flie  complex  of  our  bodily  organism. 
We  can.  blow  frcan  omr  nosbdls  or  walk  away  frc>m  the  disagreeable  smell ;  we 
can  ^nt  oni  the  bad-tastii^  sobstance  and  hare  done  with  it.  In  the  case 
of  sagM,  thse  is  little  or  no  tanptation  to  confnaon  of  language.  But  onr 
bodiK  satsatiaras  of  Qts  ongasic,  tactual,  amsmlar.  and  teDq>eratnre  order. 
with  ibmi  stpoog  ac«3t»^iBnimeai  id  painfol  or  pleasurable  feelings,  we  can- 
ZM34  di^Kkse  of  so  easily.  We  cannot  ejedt  them  or  get  away  from  them. 
Ther  are  thot^cse  omr  /eeHags  i^eeminQitlv.  Tet  this  fact  does  not 
vitiate  the  distinetiksi,  which  is  even  mnch  more  persistent  and  which  lies 
at  the  base  of  all  oar  mefttal  develofMnent,  between  the  feelings  as  sub- 
jective and  the  sesosatians  as  having  objective  reference  and  significa- 
tioiu 

Sach  psydtologieal  troths  pot  forever  to  rest  all  attempts  to  identi^ 
the  feelifigs  with  the  sestsatioos.  It  has  been  argned  ^  that,  because  there 
are  specific  nerves  whose  excitement  oeeasi(»s  pain  and  also  specific  nerve- 
tzacts  and  bain-eentas  etmeezsed  in  the  transmission  of  the  lesnldBg 
BS-re-eommotioQS,  thgrfcae  pain  is  as  truly  a  saisation  as  the  sensation  of 
teBBperatnre  or  ev^i  of  Ihe  color  bine.  But  if  we  admit  this  very  doabt- 
tel  plnrsiologieal  statement,  the  admission  really  has  not  the  slightest  bear- 
ing on  the  p~ychological  distinction.  To  prore  the  biologist's  claims  here, 
and  iheB  adopt  his  laogoage,  woold  only  result  in  another  distortion  of  the 
ptimaij  data  of  psyehok^^^L  It  would  be  another  misuse  of  biology — a 
fi****^  wlo^  improperly  emj^oyed,  is  as  fOTeign  to  the  classification  of 
■M^tal  plienomesa  as  is  the  sdenee  of  astrooomj.    What  human  ocMiscioiB- 


THE  HEEBABTIAX  THZOBT  169 

ness  has  "  put  asnnder,"  a^  it  has  sensations  and  feelings,  cannot  again  be 
"  joined  together ''  bj  biologj. 

\  3.  Talnable  considerations  concerning  the  bodilj  and  mental  cciniitions 
of  the  different  classes  of  feelings  are  aSbrded  bj  both  tne  pLjaiological 
and  the  ideational  theories  of  feeling-.  For  this  reason  both  theories  hare 
contrfbnted  mnch  to  the  psjehologj  of  this  difficult  das-s  cf  pliaiomieca 
Bnt  both  err  in  their  eiclttsiveness  ;  thej  err  also  in  a  ftrndanheHtal  ■•aj. 
■whei;  :L -"^  regard  feeling  as  a  derired  or  secondarj  form  of  mental  life. 
la  OT-T-:-::ion  to  this  latter  error,  it  has  been  maintained  that,  on  the  con- 
Tiij.  feeling  alone  is  prim  or  dial  in  all  eonsciotisn«ss.  Thns  "we  find  writers. 
^  almost  all  respects  so  far  opj>c«5ed  as  are  Mr.  Spencer  and  Professor 
James,  agreeing  in  the  xise  of  the  "arord  "  feelings  "  for  all  cla-sses  of  elemen- 
tarr  jisjchic  facts.  Bnt  inasmneh  as  all  psjchic  facts,  even  the  most 
elementaiy,  cannot  become  data  of  consciousness — much  less  data  of  self- 
knowledge — without  attention  and  discriminating  consciousness.  Dr.  Ward 
correctly  maintains :  "  The  simplest  form  of  peyehical  life  involves  not 
-Iv  a  subject  feeling,  but  a  sul'ject  having  qualitatively  diistin^uishable 
^  resentations  which  are  the  occasion  of  its  feeling.'"  lAs  to  how  we  should 
jnodify  and  interp>ret  this  statement  it  is  not  necessary  here  to  add  any- 
thing to  what  has  already  been  said.) 

The  Herbartian  theory  of  feeling  has  so  much  which,  in  spite  of  its  fun- 
damental errors,  is  interesting  and  helpful  in  explanation,  that  it  deserves 
tsief  mention  here.  This  theory  holds  that  feelings  are  not  primitiTe  states 
of  mind.  Painful  and  pleasurable  bodily  states  are  not  to  be  regarded  as 
reelings  at  all :  they  are  rather  sensations.  All  true  feelings  depend  upon 
:Lr  o'_;.r;.:ter  of  the  ideating  activity;  in  nature  they  are  just  this:  tiu- 
-  -  c-N?  of  the  reciprocal  action  of  the  ideas.  Or — to  follow  the  expia- 
-    -  given  by  the  most  finished  writer  of  this  school  in  hi-  ^  Treatise 

-"chology^  "Feeling  is  to  be  considered  as  the  ec't-  -  of  the 

-5  of  ideation  itself,  as  distinguished  from  consciousness  oi  this  or 
:_-.  r articular  idea;"  and  it  is  conditioned  upon  some  resistance  being 
oS^ere-I  to  this  process.  It  must  at  once  be  admitted  that  the  character  of 
c-r  intellectual,  sesthetical,  and  ethical  feelings  is  determined,  by  the  re- 
Li:::n  thev  sustain  to  the  different  intellecrual  processes,  both  the  more 
funiamental  and  the  more  comples.  (Here  again  we  may  leave  the  errors 
CI  the  Herbartiaa  theory  to  the  correction  afforded  by  a  study  of  each 
particular  position  involved  in  the  theory.) 

1 4.  The  view  which  asserts,  not  only  that  all  feeling  is  either  pleasurable 
or  painftil,  but  that  ■'  pleasure- pain '"  is  all  there  is — so  to  speak — of  feeling. 
receives  confutation  at  every  point  from  the  data  of  psychological  science. 
It  follows  from  this  theory — among  other  conclusions — that  feelings,  as  feel- 
ings, have  no  ideal  value  ;  they  are  only  mere  qvoj^a  of  pleasure  or  pain  : 
they  cannot  be  placed  in  a  scale  of  ideal  values,  as  noble  or  le&e  ;  they  can 
only  be  placed  in  the  scale  of  "  pleasure- pains,"  as  greater  or  less.  But  these 
are  subjects  the  discussion  of  which  belongs  later  on.      It  will  suffice  at 

1  VoItniiEa  Tsa  VoJtniar :  LArbaci  d.  P'srcbooosie,  IL.  p.  29S  f.  See  tlso  XjMcrwsfcr :  Bus 
Gefihlsielwi!  Sd  ed-\  Lopez,  lsS4.  Beoete  :  LMtrbiaei  d.  P5jTi»oia£ie  ii?  XjitBirwisseiieeftaifit. 
?-  17»  i.  Drbi :  Leir^-nch  6.  empinsudi.  PsTxrboiogie,  p^  9M  f,  Ob  dK  rchgr  bxad.  flaC  fririiiiir; 
:;  pcTOKirdial— Hora-icz :  Psydkoiog.  AsatrseB.  L.  p^  1€&  OompL  Looe :  Mei&iaL  P^'c&Qioeie, 
>  2351 


170  FEELING  :     ITS   NATURE   AND   CLASSES 

tliis  point  briefly  to  point  out  liow  this  surprising  "fallacy  of  the  psy- 
chologist" contradicts  the  plainest  dicta  of  everybody's  consciousness. 

CI.)  It  has  already  been  shown  that  even  the  most  primary  forms  of  feel- 
ing cannot  become  data  of  knowledge  without  being  attended  to  with  the 
exercise  of  discriminating  consciousness.  But  neilhei',  u-hen  thns  attended  to, 
coidd  tlteii  be  discriminated  as  different,  urdess  they  were,  as  forms  of  feeling- 
consciousness,  really  different.  We  cannot,  of  course,  "classify"  the  feelings 
without  regarding  them  as  objects  of  knowledge ;  and  we  must  classify  on  a 
basis  of  the  relations  they  sustain  to  knowing  activity  :  for  this  is  what  classi- 
fication is — namely,  discriminated  and  "  sorted  out "  objects  of  knowledge. 
But  neither  could  we  classify  tliem  at  all — even  thus  indirectly,  and  by  ref- 
erence to  the  occasions  on  which  they  occur,  or  to  the  sensations  and 
thoughts  they  accompany — unless  they  showed  actual  qualitative  differences, 
that  is,  were  classifiable  as  really  being  like  or  unlike. 

(2.)  It  is  plain  that,  upon  a  matter  of  this  kind,  an  appeal  to  conscious- 
ness is  decisive  ;  and  it  alone  is  decisive.  For — as  has  already  been  said — 
the  very  nature  of  the  feeling  itself  is  in  the  state  of  the  being  of  the  sub- 
ject whose  the  feeling  is  ;  its  whole  nature  is  in  its  being  felt.  And  here 
no  objective  reference  to  aught  beyond  the  feeling,  whether  to  nervous  pro- 
cesses or  to  processes  of  ideation  considered  as  occasions  of  the  feeling,  has 
anything  to  do  with  the  nature  of  the  feeling,  as  such.  To  ask  one,  How  do 
you  feel?  is  not  the  same  thing  as  to  ask  one,  What  are  your  ideas?  or, 
What  is  the  condition  of  your  nervous  system  ?  In  answering  the  first 
question,  one  may  indeed  tell  one's  ideas,  in  order  to  describe  one's  feel- 
ings ;  or  one  may  make  reference  to  more  or  less  obscurely  localized  bodily 
sensations,  using  the  customary  terms  in  the  description  of  them.  Still, 
only  the  subject's  immediate  awareness  of  his  own  state  of  being  can  answer 
the  question.  How  do  you  feel?  Now,  nothing  can  possibly  be  more  con- 
fusing to  this  supreme  arbiter  of  such  a  question  than  to  be  brought  face 
to  face  with  the  "fallacy  of  the  psychologist."'  That,  for  example,  my  feel- 
ing of  surprise  (whether  occasioned  by  a  sudden  blow  on  the  face,  or  by  the 
receipt  of  unexpected  news,  or  by  the  rise  in  consciousness  of  one  of  those 
"truths  that  wake  to  perish  never")  does  not  differ,  except  as  to  the 
amount  of  pain  or  pleasure  it  occasions,  from  my  feeling  of  expectation  (when 
I  am  looking  forward  to  a  sea-voyage  or  to  meeting  a  friend),  or  from  my 
feeling  of  doubt  (when  I  am  considering  which  candidate  to  vote  for  or  which 
side  of  an  opinion  in  philosophy  to  espouse),  or  from  my  feeling  of  convic- 
tion or  belief  (as  it  enters  into  all  that  knowledge  of  objects  I  call  "  real"  ), 
or  from  my  ethicd  and  (vslhetical  feeling  (when  I  contemplate  a  moan  act, 
or  look  upon  a  good  picture,  or  hear  the  And<t>de  in  Schubert's  jiosthumous 
quartet)— all  this  is  simply  intolerable  to  self-consciousness. 

(3.)  The  theory  which  identifies  feeling  with  "  pleasure-pain  "  through- 
out is  also  self-contradictoiy.  That  pleasure  and  jiain  are  distinctly  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  affective  consciousness  no  one  can  doubt.  Philosophers  and 
psychologists  have  indeed  thought  (mistakenly  enough)  to  simplify  matters 
by  si^eaking  of  one  of  these  forms  of  feeling  as  "  positive  "  and  the  other 
as  "negative."  It  is,  of  course,  possible — theoretically  with  great  exactness, 
and  actually  in  a  somewhat  rough  way — to  shade  the  different  quantities  of 
l)odily  pleasures  and  pains  from  the  very  highest  to  the  very  lowest  degrees 


FEELING   NOT   MERE   PLEASURE-PAIN  171 

of  both.  Tims  we  can  enact  the  fiction  of  a  "  zei'o-i>oint,"  or  "point  of  in- 
difteionco,"  a  place  in  the  scale  where  the  pleasure  passes  over  into  pain,  or 
the  reverse.  But  by  this  tiction  neither  pleasure  nor  pain  loses  its  distinct- 
ive quality.  "We  n)ay,  indeed,  be  unable  to  say  whether  a  particular  feeling 
is  disagreeable  or  agreeable  ;  either  form  of  feeling  may  be  so  slight  as  to  be 
not  easily  discernible  by  even  the  most  attentive  discriminating  conscious- 
ness. But  a  slight  degree  of  pleasure  is  no  more  like,  a  slight  degree  of  ])ain 
than  is  a  greater  degree  of  one  like  a  greater  degree  of  the  other.  "SVhat 
our  language  means  is,  that  both  pleasures  and  pains  are  recognized  as  dif- 
fering in  intensity.  But  something  besides  mere  diflt'erence  in  intensity  is 
implied  in  our  bringing  so  distinctly  uulike  psychic  states,  as  are  those  of 
pleasure  and  those  of  jiain,  together  into  one  class,  and  then  calling  them 
both  by  the  common  term  "feeling."  It  is  implied,  of  course,  that  pleas- 
ure and  pain  are  certain  "kinds"  of  feeling.  In  other  words,  in  spite  of 
their  opposition,  they  are  classed  together  as  distinctly  different  sorts  of 
one  fundamental  form  of  psychic  life.  This  fundamental  form  is  no  other 
than  what  we  mean  by  the  word  "  feeling."  The  whole  nature  of  feeling, 
then,  cannot  be  described  as  "pleasure-pain."  "What  we  really  mean  is: 
feelings  are  either  pleasurable,  or  painful,  or  possibly  "neutral."  To  make 
our  meaning  run  thus  :  feelings  are  naught  but  "  pleasure-pains,"  when 
pleasure  and  pain  are  recognized  as  opi:)Osites  in  kind,  is  to  reason  that  two 
distinctly  unlike  psychic  facts  may  be  thrown  into  one  category  (and  that  a 
most  important  and  fundamental  one)  without  their  being  in  any  distinctive 
respects  alike.     This  is  self-contradictory. 

(■t.)  Moreover,  the  theory  which  identifies  feeling  with  "pleasure-pain" 
renders  absurd  some  of  the  very  problems  on  which  it  claims  to  throw  light. 
For  example,  the  question  whether  there  are  "  neutral  "  feelings  (or  feelings 
that  are  neither  pleasurable  nor  i^ainful)  thus  becomes  unmeaning.  This 
theory  attempts  to  settle  the  inquiry  as  to  the  existence  of  neutral  feelings 
in  a  haiighty  aiyrinri  fashion,  although  it  claims  to  speak  in  the  name  of  so- 
called  inductive  psychology.  According  to  this  theory  there  are  no  such 
feelings,  because  there  cannot  be  :  since  feeling  is  "  pleasure-pain,"  and 
nothing  else.  But  the  inquiry  as  to  the  existence  of  neutral  feelings  is 
plainly  an  inquiry  as  to  matter  of  fact.  It  can  be  settled  only  by  an  appeal 
to  the  consciousness  of  the  subjecir  whose  being  the  feeling  is.  And  there 
is  absolutely  nothing  which  we  know  about  the  nature  of  feeling,  or  about 
the  conditions  under  which  the  tone  of  feeling  is  generally  determined  as 
either  pleasiirable  or  painful,  Avhich  renders  it  impossible  that  different  indi- 
viduals may  differ  here.  Indeed,  one  class  of  feelings,  or  one  degree  of  any 
class,  may  be  "neutral"  in  the  case  of  some  individuals,  and  not  in  the  case 
of  other  individuals  ;  and  feelings  that  have  had  one  tone  of  feeling,  may, 
nnder  the  law  of  habit,  etc.,  lose  this  tone  and  become  neutral  in  the  case 
of  any  individual. 

The  Couditious  of  all  Feeling,  as  s^^cll,  and  the  conditions  of 
the  different  phenomena  of  feeling-  are,  like  the  nature  of  feeling, 
peculiarly  difficult  of  determination.  The  conditions  under  which 
the  tone  of  bodily  feeling  is  either  pleasurable  or  painful,  and 
the  conditions  under  which  the  pain  or  pleasure  increases  in  in- 


172  feeling:   its  nature  and  classes 

tensity,  may  indeed  be  experimental!}"  investigated.  But  the 
more  complex,  liig-lier,  and  nobler  feelings — even  as  respects 
their  var^'ing  degrees  of  pains  and  pleasures— cannot  be  sub- 
jected to  the  researches  of  the  ijsyclio-physical  laboratory.  Our 
only  means  for  investigating  them  involves  interiDreting  the 
insignia  of  feeling  as  they  abound  in  conduct,  literature,  art,  and 
in  the  broad  fields  of  historical  and  ethnological  investigation. 
But  the  physiological  and  psychical  conditions  under  Avhich 
these  feelings  arise  and  develop  in  consciousness  are  even  more 
hidden  than  is  the  real  nature  of  the  feelings  themselves.  Even 
in  one's  own  case,  one  can  neither  measure,  for  example,  the 
"  pangs  of  unrequited  love,"  nor  the  rapture  of  religious  ecstasy, 
nor  the  sorrows  of  remembering  the  "  silent  dead."  Both  the 
mental  preconditions  and  the  bodily  mood  which  determine  such 
forms  of  feeling  are  obscure.  Weber's  law — bad  as  its  failure  is 
esteemed  by  some  to  be  even  in  the  realm  of  sensations — has 
even  less  application  to  the  higher  forms  of  feeling. 

General  biological  considerations,  and  more  particular  con- 
siderations taken  from  human  physiology,  enable  us  to  make 
certain  probable  conjectures  regarding  the  common  physi- 
ological conditions  of  all  feeling,  as  such.  But  here  a  most  not- 
able and  interesting  fact  meets  us  at  the  threshold  of  our  in- 
vestigations. Neural  processes,  consummated  in  the  central 
organs,  are  (so  far  as  we  know)  the  one  phj^siological  precon- 
dition of  all  states  of  human  consciousness.  These  processes 
are  immensely  complex,  and  involve  countless  elements,  acting 
and  reacting,  as  an  accompaniment  to  all  our  flowing  stream  of 
mental  life,  in  manifold  forms  of  chemical,  thermic,  and  other 
molecular  changes.  But  complex  as  these  processes  are,  and 
complicated  as  are  the  modes  of  energy  they  involve,  since  they 
are  all  "  physical  changes,"  they  must  be  supjiosed  to  be  stata- 
ble in  terms  of  the  amount,  time-rate,  and  direction  of  motion. 
That  is  to  say  :  ultimately  considered,  in  the  light  of  physical 
analysis,  all  the  neural  processes  underlying  the  different  psychic 
facts  are  of  one  kind.  But  we  have  seen  that,  ultimately  con- 
sidered, in  the  light  of  introspective  anal3'sis,  all  the  resulting 
psychic  facts  have  three  aspects  :  they  are  facts  of  intellection 
and  conation  not  only,  but  also  facts  of  feeling.  If  we  maj'"  be 
pardoned  the  apparently  metai:)h3'sical  figure  of  speech :  the 
psychical  being  we  call  mind  responds  to  neural  changes,  which 
are  essentially  of  one  kind,  with  a  manifestation  of  its  own  life, 
which  is  essentially  threefold  in  aspect.  Or  (liscnminating  con- 
sdonsness  anah/zi's  in  a  triune  way  what  2)Sj/eho-p/i>/sics  I'cgards  as 
conditioned  upon  the  occurrence  of  a  physical  change  essentially  the 


CONDITIONS   OF   ALL   FEELING  173 

mtne.  Yet  the  unity  tliat  this  threefold  aspect  of  consciousness 
presents  is  the  hi<4hest  of  all  unities  ;  it  is  the  unity  in  variety 
of  consciousness  itself.  However  we  may  choose  to  express  this 
fact,  we  cannot  explain  it ;  we  can  only  acknowledge  it  as  an 
ultimate  fact. 

None  the  less,  however,  do  we  have  good  grounds  for  believ- 
ing that  changes  in  the  amounts,  kinds,  and  tone  (as  pleasure  or 
pain)  of  the  feelings  are  dependent  upon  changes  in  the  neural 
processes.  And  what  are  the  most  general  Physiological  Con- 
ditions of  the  differences  of  the  Feelings,  in  these  respects,  we 
can  conjecture  with  some  show  of  reason.  Different  individuals 
differ  more  widely  and  more  incalculably  as  to  the  particular 
feeling's  evoked,  on  different  particular  occasions,  than  as  to  the 
sensations  and  ideas  occasioned  by  changes  in  the  amounts, 
kinds,  and  time-rates  of  the  stimuli  which  act  upon  the  nervous 
system.  This  fact  suggests  that  our  feelings  are  determined  by 
the  changeable  relations  of  the  neural  processes  to  the  constitu- 
tion, previous  habits,  and  temporary  mood,  of  the  nervous  sys- 
tem, and  by  the  relations  of  each  neural  process  to  all  the  others 
within  the  central  system,  in  a  more  irregular  way  than  are  our 
sensations  and  our  knowledge.  Those  conditions  of  the  ner- 
vous processes  which  depend  immediately  upon  the  nature  of 
the  stimuli  that  act  upon  the  end-organs  are  in  general  conform- 
able to  law  ;  they  are  regular  and — as  it  were — to  be  depended 
upon.  In  correspondence  with  them  is  the  regularity  and  de- 
pendableness  of  our  sensations  and  of  our  knowledge  by  the 
senses.  But  over  and  above  the  more  uniformly  recurrent  simi- 
lar elements  in  all  the  peripherally  originated  nervous  pro- 
cesses, there  is  more  or  less  of  a  semi-chaotic  surplus  of  nervous 
action  occasioned  in  the  brain-centers.  In  this  "  semi-chaotic 
surplus " — the  general  character  of  which  depends  upon  what 
the  whole  nervous  system  was,  and  is,  and  has  recently  been 
doing,  and  upon  how  the  various  new  stimulations,  running  in 
to  the  brain-centers,  fit  in  with  all  this  and  with  one  another — 
may  we  find  the  physiological  conditions  of  the  feeling-aspect  of 
consciousness.  No  wonder,  then,  that  these  conditions  are  so 
obscure,  so  indeterminate  for  different  individuals,  so  change- 
able in  the  same  individual.  At  (uiy  particular  moment  the  hind 
and  amount  of  feeling  exjyerlcnced  has  for  Its  physiological  condition 
the  total  complex  relation  in  which  all  the  subordinate  neural  pro- 
cesses, set  up  hi/  the  stimuli  of  that  moment,  stand  to  one  another  and 
to  the  set,  or  direction,  of  pre-existing  related  7\eurcd  processes.  To 
this  truth  our  language  bears  witness  when  we  speak  of  "  mood," 
"disposition,"  "feeling  as  though,"  "feeling  like,"  etc.;  as  well 


174  FEELING  :    ITS   NATURE   AND   CLASSES 

as  when  we  consider  how  large  a  number,  even  of  our  most 
primary  forms  of  feeling-,  are  really  "feelings  of  relation"  (what 
one  feels  "  depends  "  on  how  one  takes  it,  how  one  looks  at  it, 
etc.).  Indeed,  it  is  the  changes  of  our  psychic  combinations,  the 
movements  on  the  board,  which  we  chiefly  feel. 

Many  of  the  most  important  common  Psychical  Conditions 
of  all  Feeling  are  indicated  by  certain  words  already  emi)loyed 
to  designate  its  physiological  conditions.  Among  such  words, 
most  frequent  and  suggestive,  are  "  disposition,"  "  temper," 
"  mood,"  mental  "  attitude,"  and  the  like.  What  is  meant  by 
these  words  is,  in  the  main,  precisely  this  :  a  permanent  and 
constitutional,  or  a  temporary  and  relatively  accidental  tendency 
to  react  upon  all  forms  of  stimuli  with  certain  characteristic 
forms  of  feeling.  Thus,  we  call  one  man  "  haughty  "  and  an- 
other "  reasonable  "  in  disposition,  "  violent "  or  "  quiet "  in  tem- 
per ;  and  we  say  of  ourselves :  To-day  I  have  felt  as  "  happy  as 
a  lark,"  or  "  as  cross  as  a  bear."  We  expect  that  the  aflective 
phenomena,  the  emotional  tone  of  consciousness,  Avill  correspond 
to  disposition  or  mood,  whatever  be  the  particular  sensations, 
perceptions,  or  thoughts  which  furnish  the  occasions  and  ac- 
companiments. Everything  looks  "  yellow  "  to  the  man  of  jaun- 
diced temper,  but  "  rose-colored  "  to  his  more  happily  constituted 
neighbor  ;  while  "  blue  "  is  the  permanent  color  in  which  the 
despondent  mood  regards  every  situation  and  prospect.  Even 
our  ethical,  oesthetical,  x^hHosophical,  and  religious  ideas  and 
judgments  are  tinged  or  saturated  with  our  peculiar  and  charac- 
teristic kinds  and  tones  of  feeling.  The  most  abstract  and  meta- 
physical i^essimism  or  optimism  has  been  declared  to  be  a  matter 
of  "  temperament "  chiefly.  Caprice  itself  is  a  disposition  con- 
stituted largely  of  tendencies  to  certain  forms  of  quickly  chang- 
ing feeling.  In  general,  then,  the  character  and  the  inagnitude  of 
the  feelmg  excited  depends  not  so  much  directly  upon  the  kind  and 
quardity  of  the  excitement  applied,  as  indirectly  vpon  this  through 
the  relation  which  any  particular  excitement  sustains  to  the  direc- 
tion and  intensity  of  the  general  sensibility. 

Another  group  of  most  important  psychical  conditions  of  all 
feeling  concerns  the  distribution  of  attention.  What  we  feel, 
and  what  is  the  tone  of  oar  feeling  (whether  pleasurable  or 
painful),  depends  largely  upon  the  actual  matter  of  fact :  the 
particular  sensations,  perceptions,  ideas,  thoughts,  nascent  or 
vigorous  purposes,  ui3on  which  our  attention  (wliether  voluntary 
or  involuntary)  is  focused  ;  and  the  degree  of  smoothly  running 
flow,  or  of  interruptions  and  shocks,  to  tho  current  of  conscious- 
ness, with  which  this  attention  is  distributed.     But  this,  in  turn, 


CONDITIONS   OF   ALL   FEELING  175 

depends  upon  a  <2:reat  variety  of  permutations  and  combinations 
possible  among  tlio  factors  which  constitute,  at  any  instant,  the 
condition  and  the  direction  of  this  same  current  of  conscious- 
ness. 

Other  more  particular  conditions  of  the  tone  of  our  feelings 
as  "  pleasure-pains  "  will  receive  consideration  later  on, 

g  5.  The  attempt  of  biological  and  physiological  science  to  state  accu- 
rately the  physiological  conditions  of  all  feeling  is,  of  course,  most  commend- 
able. It  is  only  when  this  attempt  results  in  reducing  the  whole  vast  wealth 
of  human  affective  experience  to  quanta  of  pleasure  and  i^ain,  measurable 
according  to  Weber's  or  some  other  law,  and  dependent  upon  intensities 
of  nervous  processes,  that  it  merits  the  distrust  and  contempt  of  the  -phi- 
losoijher,  the  artist,  the  religious  enthusiast,  the  more  genial  and  compre- 
hensive psychologist. 

Our  view,  which  finds  the  physiological  conditions  of  feeling  in  the 
"semi-chaotic  surphts"'  of  nervous  processes  originated  by  stimuli,  but  re- 
garded as  relative  to  the  tendencies  of  the  entire  molecular  central  mechan- 
ism— though  confessedly  not  capable  of  direct  scientific  proof — is  a  conject- 
ure borne  out  by  many  considerations.  Among  the  most  obvious  of  these 
is  the  character  of  those  processes  which  accompany  the  rise  and  develop- 
ment, the  "  building  up"  in  consciousness,  of  all  the  more  intense  states  of 
complex  feeling.  But  this  will  have  to  be  considered  in  more  detail  when 
we  treat  of  the  emotions  and  sentiments. 

(1.)  The  character  of  those  bodily  feelings  which  enter  so  largely  into 
the  complex  "feeling  of  self  "and  into  what  we  call  our  "temper"  or 
"  mood  "  is  explained  according  to  this  conjecture.  The  constitution  of  the 
internal  organs,  and  their  relation  to  the  cerebro-spinal  nervous  system,  are 
such  that  sensation-complexes  which  can  be  built  up  into  knowledge  by 
perception  are  only  sparingly  derived  from  these  organs.  One  knows  by  im- 
mediate perception  very  little  of  the  size,  shape,  temperature,  and  motion 
of  one's  intercostal  and  visceral  extensions  and  surfaces.  And  what  little 
one  senses  here  is  apt  to  be  submerged  under  accompanying  feelings  with 
a  strong  tone  of  pleasure  or  pain.  But  from  all  these  organs,  through  the 
nerve-plexuses  and  nerve-tracts  of  the  great  sympathetic  system,  an  inde- 
scribable melange  of  nerve-commotions  is  ceaselessly  ascending  through  the 
cerebro-spinal  tracts  to  the  brain.  What  this  melange  is  at  any  jjarticular 
time  depends  upon  what  kind  of  intercostal  and  visceral  organs  one  has  in- 
herited, or  acquired  by  good  or  bad  habits,  or  had  forced  uiDon  him  by 
happy  or  unfortunate  accidents  or  circumstances,  or  got  by  the  action  of  the 
last  hour  or  of  yesterday.  This  melange,  however,  gives  conditions  to  one's 
affective  disposition,  or  mood,  or  temporary  impulse,  so  far  as  it  is  a 
matter  of  bodily  feeling.  When  this  melange  corresponds  with  that  to  which 
we  are  habitually  accustomed,  we  feel  "  like  ourselves  ;"  when  it  corresponds 
to  auy  one  of  several  familiar  characteristic  tyjies,  we  feel  in  one  of  our  sev- 
eral "moods;"  when  it  is  largely  unaccustomed,  we  feel  "qxieer"  and 
"not  a  bit  like  ourselves."  In  all  cases  it  is  the  "surplus"  of  perii^her- 
ally  excited  nerve-commotions,  whose  character  does  not  admit  of  their  being 
organized  after  the  form  of  excitations  derived  from  the  external  organs  of 


176  FEELING  :    ITS   NATURE  AND   CLASSES 

sense  ("  semi-chaotic,"  as  we  have  called  them),  which  largely  determines 
how  wo  "feel "at  any  particular  time.  Moreover,  every  such  particular 
melange  of  nerve-commotions  finds  the  central  nervous  system,  on  entering 
into  it,  engaged  in  a  jjarticular  but  highly  complicated  way.  The  influence 
of  the  bodily  feelings  upon  our  total  state  of  feeling  is  therefore  by  no 
means  always  dominant  or  complete.  Sensations,  ideas,  purposes,  and — as 
the  development  of  mental  life  goes  on  more  and  more — ideal  aims  deter- 
mine how  we  feel :  sometimes,  in  spite  of  and  in  triumph  over,  our  bodily 
feelings. 

(2.)  Again,  from  the  lower  parts  of  the  cerebro-spinal  axis  (from  sjiinal 
cord  and  lower  brain-centers)  a  complex  crowd  of  nerve-commotions — part 
of  which  arises  from  the  influence  of  the  end-organs  of  sense  directly  upon 
these  lower  organs  and  i^art  from  changes  originated  within  the  organs 
themselves — constantly  arises  to  the  higher  brain.  This  crowd  of  nerve- 
commotions  is  ever  freighted  with  a  "  surplusage  " — a  "  semi-chaotic  " 
quantum,  which  is  not  adapted  to  be  elaborated  into  the  sensuous  basis  of 
definite  perceptions  and  ideas.  This,  too,  gets  expression  for  itself  in  the 
complex  life  of  feeling.  Hence  those  feelings  of  bodily  equipoise  which  are 
so  helpful  to  the  feeling  of  mental  equilibrium,  and  which  are  largely  de- 
pendent upon  the  activity  of  the  cerebellum  and  semi-circular  canals.  Here 
Ijelong,  in  large  measure  at  least,  the  jjliysiological  conditions  of  the  feel- 
ing of  repose  (a  feeling  so  difficult  to  realize  with  a  reeling  gait  or  an  un- 
steady head),  the  feeling  of  excitement  or  confusion  (when  unelaborated  sen- 
sation-complexes are  raj^idly  hurled,  as  it  were,  from  the  lower  cerebral  re- 
gions up  to  the  hemispheres  of  the  brain),  the  feeling  of  dubitation  or  negation 
(connected  by  association  with  the  movement  of  the  head).  Hence,  espe- 
cially, arise  the  forms  of  feeling  most  inseparably  connected  with  the  use  of 
the  higher  senses. 

(3.)  Indirectly,  too,  our  view  throws  light  ujaon  the  physiological  con- 
ditions of  our  feelings  of  relation.  The  i^riuciple  of  relativity  has  been  ap- 
l^lied  by  modern  psychologists  (especially  by  Mr.  SiJencer)  to  all  our  states 
of  cognition.  But  it  was  proi^ounded  with  respect  to  the  feelings  of  pleas- 
ure and  pain  even  earlier  (by  Oardanus)  than  it  was  formulated  as  a  general 
psychological  principle  (by  Hobbes).  As  Hofi"ding  truly  says  :  "  It  makes 
its  appearance  here  even  more  plainly  than  in  the  i)rovince  of  cognition." 
The  physiological  reason  for  this  is  at  once  obvious  when  we  consider  that  it 
is  changes  in  the  nervous  processes,  relative  to  each  other,  and  to  the  complex 
situation  in  the  midst  of  which  they  occur,  that  constitute  chiefly  the  very 
essential  physiological  pre-conditions  of  all  feeling  as  such.  We  get  light 
upon  this  truth  also  by  considering  what  feelings  go  with  smooth  and 
slow  changes  in  the  same  direction  of  nerve-excitation ;  what  with  gradual 
but  complete  changes  in  direction  ;  what  with  sudden  and  abrupt  changes, 
etc.  Or,  again,  let  it  be  inquired,  "  How  do  I  feel  when  the  present  total 
complex  of  solicitation  from  all  the  different  stimuli  "  fits  in,"  or  not — as 
it  were— with  my  disposition,  my  present  mood ;  or  how  toward  one  ob- 
ject or  form  of  sensation  or  ideation  which  comports,  or  not,  with  the 
others  constituting  my  total  environment?  Does  not  every  one  promptly 
and  keenly  feel  change  in  the  complex  of  his  nervous  excitations  (the  new 
sensation,  idea,  resolve,  or  feeling)  ?    Even  emiui  or  monotony  depends  upon 


CONDITIONS    OF   ALL   FEELING  177 

the  sensations  or  ideas  occnniiif?  aiul  recurring  in  the  stream  of  conscious- 
ness so  as  to  make  their  simihivity  i'clt.  And  does  not  the  character  of  our 
feehng  depend  upon  the  rchttiou  in  wliieh  the  new  sensation  or  idea  stands  to 
that  current  of  nervous  excitations  which  supports  the  states  of  consciousness 
when  the  new  factor  or  object  appears?  Feelings  of  surprii^e  or  shock,  of 
norelti/,  oi  expectation,  ol  recognition  (pleasurable  or  painful),  of  vague  (/rertrf,  or 
longing,  etc.,  find  their  physiological  conditions  accounted  for  by  application 
of  this  principle.  In  general,  no  marked  and  prolonged  state  of  feeling  can 
exist  except  in  dependence  upon  considerable  change  in  the  direction  of  the 
excitement  of  the  nervous  centers  under  the  intinence  of  external  and  inter- 
nal stimuli. ' 

(Jr.)  Even  in  the  case  of  those  simpler  and  less  intense  feelings  which 
are  connected  in  experience  with  the  particular  sensation-complexes  and 
ideas,  it  is  probable  that  this  same  principle  holds  true.  Each  activity  of 
every  organ  of  sense  may  be  said  to  awaken  a  "  surplus,"  however  small,  of 
nervous  excitation  which  may  serve,  under  the  right  conditions,  lor  a  feel- 
ing over  and  above,  and  yet  connected  with,  the  sensation-complex  or  idea. 
Whether  such  neural  surplus  awakens  conscious  feeling,  and  what  feeling  it 
awakens,  is  relative  to  ("  depends  upon")  the  entire  habit,  or  present  mood, 
etc.,  of  the  person  concerned.  Two  men,  neither  of  whom  is  color-blind, 
will  have  the  same  sensations  on  looking  upon  a  colored  object ;  biit  who 
can  tell  what  their  feelings  will  be,  even  when  the  object  is  as  near  as  possi- 
ble to  an  object  with  tixed  associations  ?  Their  feeling,  on  seeing  green  or 
orange,  ''  will  depend  upon,"  etc.  Two  men,  neither  of  whom  is  tone-deaf, 
will  hear  the  same  notes  on  listening  for  the  first  time  to  Beethoven's  quar- 
tet in  C  Sharp  Minor  (opus  131)  ;  but  who  can  tell  what  the  feelings  of 
either  will  be  ?     This  "  will  depend  upon,"  etc. 

(5.)  The  painful  feeling  which  is  evoked  by  too  intense  excitement  of 
any,  even  very  limited,  area  of  the  surface  of  the  skin  has  also,  it  is  proba- 
ble, its  physiological  conditions  in  confused  commotion  of  the  nervous  sub- 
stance, "a  troubling  more  or  less  profound  of  the  organism."  The  feelings 
evoked  by  sudden  and  uncertain  changes  in  the  application  of  the  stimuli,  or 
by  constant  slight  irritations  of  the  nerves  which  ser,ve  no  purpose  of  clearly 
organizable  sensation-material,  are  due  to  the  same  cause.  The  jileasant 
and  painful  affective  phenomena  produced  by  being  stroked,  rubbed,  tickled, 
passively  moved,  or  other  similar  forms  of  stimulation,  may  be  noted  in  this 
connection.  Every  worker  in  the  laboi-atory  knows  how  the  same  vibrating 
fork,  or  finger  marking  upon  a  revolving  drum,  may  produce  not  unpleasant 
sensations  of  sound,  when  attended  to  as  an  object  which  interests  lis  ;  while 
it  will  occasion  a  large  amount  of  latent  feeling  of  irritation  when  it  has . 
ceased  to  serve  as  an  instrument  of  clear  knowledge.  The  "semi-chaotic 
surplus"  of  nervous  excitement,  caused  by  the  riibbing  of  the  clothing,  or 
by  the  pressure  of  the  chair,  is  felt  as  making  lis  cross  or  weary,  when  we 
have  no  definite  sensations  and  perceptions  arising  from  these  sources. 

^  G.  At  certain  epochs  in  life,  changing  bodily  conditions  become  the 
causes  of  persistent  but  vague  feelings  which  amount  to  a  "mood  "  or  "  dis- 
position," and  which  serve  to  color  all  the  sensations  and  ideas.     This  is 

'  The  proposition  that  it  is  chayir/ea  and  not  conflitions  of  the  nervons  system  which  are  felt  is 
argued  at  length  by  Ilorwicz  :  Psycholog.  Analysen,  iii.,  p.  43  f.;  Nitsche  :  Vcrsuch  einer  einheit 
lichen  Lehrevon  den  Geflihlen,  p.  8  f.;  and  Paulhan  :  Les  Phenomenes  afiectifs,  etc.,  p.  G6  f. 
13 


178  FEELING  :     ITS   NATURE   AND    CLASSES 

particularly  true  of  the  development  and  physiological  activities  connected 
with  sex.  Thus  attention  has  been  called  by  many  writers '  to  the  vague 
feelings  of  n:(mt,  ilisquiet,  melancholy,  ov  ennui — all  of  them  without  any  clear 
connection  with  definite  sensations  and  ideas — which  mark  the  epoch  of 
puberty.  But  all  four  of  the  great  periods  of  life  (childhood,  youth,  mau- 
liood,  and  old  age)  have  their  characteristic  tendencies  to  particular  kinds  of 
feeling,  or  to  particular  changes  in  the  life  of  feeling.  And  so  far  as  the 
physiological  basis  of  these  characteristics  can  be  traced,  it  seems  to  con- 
form to  the  principle  we  are  illustrating.  The  rapid  metabolism  and  circu- 
lation of  the  infant,  and  the  sluggish  digestion  and  circulation  of  old  age, 
modify  differently  the  character  of  the  changes  in  the  excitements  of  the 
nervous  system  by  way  of  what  we  have  called  a  "semi-chaotic  surjjlus  " 
relative  to  the  entire  life  of  this  system. 

I  7.  Feelings  similar  to  those  called  out  by  way  of  reaction  upon  external 
stimuli  accompany  the  psychical  changes.  Here  we  are  to  recognize  the 
significance  of  many  of  our  most  primary  intellectual  processes.  Mr.  Spen- 
cer is  certainly  not  warranted  in  resolving  the  whole  of  what  we  call  "judg- 
ment "into  a  mere  "feeling  of  relation" — itself  timeless  and  yet  existing 
between  two  psychoses  which  last  through  extended  time.  Nor  are  the 
Herbartians  warranted  in  arguing,  because  feeling  is  no  special  idea  in  con- 
junction with  others,  nor  an  idea  in  general,  therefore  it  is  only  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  "  tension  "  of  the  process  of  ideation,  considered  as  a  strug- 
gle between  related  ideas.  But  botli  Mr.  Spencer  and  the  Herbartians  are 
right  in  calling  our  attention  to  the  truth  that,  in  general,  all  the  intellectual 
processes  have  their  characteristic  accompaniments  of  feeling ;  and  that  the 
character  of  this  feeling  depends  ;ipon  the  changing  relations  between  the 
factors  and  wholes  of  our  intellectual  processes.  Onefeeh,  as  well  as  knows, 
the  flow  of  the  current  of  consciousness.  Indeed,  so  true  is  this  that  all  the 
different  parts  of  speech,  as  employed  in  their  changing  relations  to  each 
other,  evoke  different  shades  of  feeling  more  i^romptly  and  more  certain- 
ly than  they  evoke  different  definitely  distinguished  sensations,  ideas,  or 
thoughts.  That  tlie  flow  of  feeling  which  accomi>anies  all  language,  and 
which  depends  upon  the  changing  sensations,  images,  and  ideas,  is  even  the 
most  primary  and  permanent  thing  in  mental  life,  as  excited  and  expressed 
by  language,  although — as  we  have  seen — this  is  not  the  design  or  end  of 
language,  there  are  many  grounds  to  argue.  Children  feel  what  they  read 
or  hear  read,  or  said,  with  an  appropriateness  which  quite  outstrips  their 
powers  of  understanding. .  For  exami)le,  the  feeling  of  impulse  to  com- 
ply may  be  aroused  in  them  by  a  certain  way  of  saying  the  words  "  Come — 
do;"  the  feeling  of  rejiulsion  by  a  certain  way  of  saying  the  word  "No." 
Poetry  that  is  far  above  their  childish  comprehension,  while  it  presents  to 
them  few  vague  pictorial  conceptions,  by  the  ])loasurab]e  rhythmic  flow  of 
sensations  may  awaken  a  high  degree  of  appropriate  a'-sthetical  and  ethical 
feeling.  Music,  in  the  form  of  the  opera  or  (more  especially)  the  oratorio, 
makes  use  of  this  truth  ;  for  it  applies  not  simjily  to  childhood,  but  to  the 
most  cultivated  minds  when  they  voluntarily  abandon  themselves  to  the 
skilful  leader  and  inspirer  of  affective  consciousness.     Witness  the  complex 

'  Compare,  for  example,  Esquirol :  Maladies  meutalcsi,  I.,  p.  553.  Gricsin<rer  :  Traite  des  Mala- 
dies mentales,  p.  236. 


CLASSIFICATION   OF  THE   FEELINGS  179 

resthetical  feeling  awaked  by  bearing  the  "  almost  toneless  low  note  of  the 
tenor  voice  "  on  the  hist  word  of  the  passage,  "  He  turned  their  waters  into 
blood,"  in  Handel's  "  Israel  in  Egypt." 

In  all  purely  instrumental  music  the  flow  of  consciousness  is  thin  and 
meagi'e,  so  far  as  definite  concejitions  go,  but  the  changes  in  key  and  the 
rhythmic  flow  of  sensations  of  musical  sound  are  felt  with  an  astonishing 
wealth  and  power  of  conscious  being.  This  fact  is  connected  with  that 
'•  interiorness  "  of  these  sensations,  on  which  we  have  already  remarked. 
Indeed,  at  times  it  may  well  seem  as  though  all  objective  reference  and  all 
"  training  "  of  the  ideas  had  nearly  ceased  ;  we  simply  have  our  being  totally 
in  the  flow  of  musical  feelings.  What  happens  through  the  sense  and  idea- 
tion belonging  to  hearing  is  also  true  of  sight.  The  physical  and  objective 
changes  which  gesture  and  physiognomy  present  to  the  eye  are  productive 
of  feelings  of  fear,  joy,  attraction,  repulsion,  surprise,  exi:)ectation,  longing, 
solemnity,  etc.,  to  the  child;  and  this  on  a  basis  of  extremely  slender  men- 
tal elaboration.  And  here  adults  are  not  so  unlike  children.  Indeed,  the 
cultivation  of  "  tact "  depends  upon  the  prompt  and  ajipropriate  arousement 
of  sensibility  as  the  accompaniment  or  sequence  of  meagre  intellectual  i^ro- 
cesses. 

In  all  these  cases  feeling  antl  ideation,  or  thought,  react  on  each  other. 
This  truth  obtains  in  all  ranges  of  culture,  from  the  ignorant  woman  who, 
as  tradition  affirms,  wept  at  the  "  holy  wag"  of  Whitfield's  head,  to  the  cul- 
tivated sceptic  who  turned  from  feeling  the  beauty  of  a  natural  scene  to  the 
conclusion  that  there  must  be  a  God.  But  the  fuller  treatment  of  the  higher 
forms  of  feeling  will  cause  us  to  recur  to  this  truth. 

The  principles  which  must  guide  psycholog-y  in  the  Classifi- 
cation of  the  Feelings  have  alrcad}"  been  pretty  clearly  indicated. 
From  the  very  nature  of  feeling  in  general  wo  are  obliged  to 
resort  to  those  "  objective  "  processes  with  which  feeling  is  con- 
nected, in  order  to  locate  in  intelligible  "kinds,"  or  "sorts,"  the 
affective  phenomena.  In  other  words,  we  classify  the  feelings  by 
reference  to  the  intellectual  processes  which  accom]iany  or  occa- 
sion them.  All  attempts  at  a  purely  biological  or  physiological 
classification  of  the  phenomena  of  feeling  are,  especially,  to  be 
rejected.  Such  principles  of  classification  have  no  place  at  any 
point  in  psychology ;  but  they  are  especially  out  of  place  at  this 
point,  because  the  most  essential  characteristic  of  our  feelings 
renders  it  inconceivable  that  they  should  differ  after  the  analogy 
of  the  physical  organism  or  of  the  physiological  processes. 
♦  It  is  further  important  to  determine  the  exact  character  of  the 
Eelations  in  which  the  Feelings  stand  to  the  other  two  main 
Classes  of  mental  phenomena.  "We  are  wont  to  speak  of  our  sen- 
sations, ideas,  thoughts,  and  purposes  as  being  themselves  either 
pleasurable  or  painful.  TIuts  those  who  identify  "pleasure- 
pains  "  with  the  whole  being  of  feeling  seem  compelled  to  regard 
feeling  as  a  quale,  or  characteristic,  of  the  other  forms  of  mental 


180  FEELING  :     ITS   NATURE   AND   CLASSES 

life.  And  even  those  who  deny  this  "  identity  "  theory,  if  they 
also  deny  all  neutral  feelings,  are  inclined  to  think  of  feeling  (as 
respects  its  tone  of  pleasure-pain)  in  the  light  of  some  kind  of 
"  attachment,"  or  "  qualification,"  to  the  other  aspects  of  con- 
sciousness. But  obviously  this  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  con- 
sistent with  the  view  that  intellection,  conation,  and  feeling  are 
three  inseparable  and  alike  fundamental  aspects  of  every  total 
psychic  state.  Here  we  may  not  improperly  notice  that  i:)opular 
language  recognizes  similar  "attachment,"  or  "qualification," 
working — ^as  it  were — in  the  reverse  direction.  We  speak,  for 
example,  of  sensuous,  or  intellectual,  or  ideal  pleasures  and 
pains  ;  we  might  even,  not  improperly,  speak  of  voluntary  or 
involuntary,  forced  or  chosen,  feelings  of  whichever  prevalent 
tone.  That  is  to  say,  the  "  attachment "  of  feelings  to  intellectual 
processes  (by  means  of  which  alone  we  are  able  to  classify  feel- 
ings) does  not  necessarily  signify  the  subordination  of  the  former 
to  the  latter ;  it  does  not  mean  that  feeling  has  no  independent 
and  specific  being  of  which  wo  must  take  account.  Such  "  attach- 
ment "  may  be  only  of  a  kind  which  prevails  in  all  mental  life. 
For  example,  when  I  have  a  "  painful  sensation  "  at  a  certain 
place  in  my  finger,  or  in  a  certain  tooth,  the  sensation  and  the 
feeling  belong,  psychologically  considered,  to  two  different 
classes  of  mental  phenomena.  They  are,  indeed,  "  fused"  (if  this 
somewhat  indefinite  word  may  be  permitted)  in  the  total  content 
of  consciousness.  One  may  express  this  fact  either  by  saying, 
"  a  painful  sensation  "  or  a  "  sensuous  pain."  So,  too,  Avhen  one  is 
grieving  over  the  loss  of  property  or  of  a  friend,  one  may  express 
the  total  fact  of  "fusion"  either  by  saying,  "a  painful  idea"  (or 
thought),  or  "  an  ideal  or  conceptual  pain." 

This  juncture  between  our  feelings  and  the  objective  and 
intellectual  processes,  which  afford  us  the  means  of  classifying 
our  feelings,  is  effected  with  varying  degrees  of  promptness  and 
completeness.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  jDainful  touch,  it 
seems  (but  never  is)  immediate  and  complete.  But  sometimes 
the  "  objective  "  attachment  of  the  feeling  is  vague  and  indefinite, 
as  in  the  case  of  many  of  the  more  diffused  and  yet  unlocalized 
feelings  of  bodily  comfort  or  discomfort,  of  ease  or  uneasiness,  and 
the  like.  Again,  the  feeling  may  even  precede  the  clear  determi-* 
nation  of  the  correlated  process  of  sensation  or  ideation  in  con- 
sciousness ;  and  this  is  the  case  when  we  are  surprised,  starth^d, 
or  shocked  by  any  al)rupt  and  great  change  in  the  character  of 
our  sensation-  or  ideation-experience.  Yet  again,  foeling  may 
come  lagging  on  behind  the  development  of  the  objective  iiro- 
cesses   to   which  —  as   we   are  wont  to   say  —  it  appropriatelj' 


CLASSIFICATION    OF   THE   FEELINGS  181 

belongs.  This  experience  is  so  familiar  in  the  case  of  our 
more  complex  forms  of  feeling-  that  it  has  led  to  the  mistaken 
psychological  theory  which  makes  all  the  affective  phenomena 
of  consciousness  dependent  upon  an  "  occasion"  being  furnished 
for  them.  But  the  general  truth  is,  that  in  the  flow  of  the  one 
stream  of  conscious  life  the  feelings  may  assume  eithei'  one  of  the 
three  posslhle  time-relations  toward  the  sensatio?is  and  ideas  Tjy  lohieh 
we  classifi/  thvia ;  they  may  fuse  with  tliem  in  the  "  now"  of  the 
same  conscious  state,  or  they  may  lead  or  follow  them. 

One  other  consideration  affects  all  attempts  at  classifiea- 
tion  of  the  feelings.  Changes  in  the  complexity  and  intensity 
of  both  the  "  objective  "  and  the  "  affective  "  factors  of  any  men- 
tal state  which  is  predominatingly  one  of  feeling,  produce  im- 
portant changes  in  the  resulting  compound  quality.  Thus  new 
and  higher  "classes"  of  feeling  are  determined.  By  increase 
of  intensity,  for  example,  a  feeling  of  pleasant  mild  surprise, 
scarcely  distinguishable  from  the  feeling  of  novelty,  becomes 
the  emotion  of  wonder  or  of  astonishment.  But  no  such  change 
is  a  mere  growth  of  affective  intensity.  A  great  variety  of  quali- 
tatively new  factors  modify-  the  character  of  the  complex  state 
of  feeling  as  any  considerable  increase  in  intensity  takes  place. 
Especially  is  it  true  that  the  Avhole  tone  of  the  feeling  may 
change :  for  example,  the  emotion  corresponding  to  a  pleasurable 
feeling  may  be  a  painful  emotion.  Thus,  too,  out  of  surprise, 
as  it  were,  may  be  developed  wonder  and  astonishment,  or  dread, 
or  anger,  or  joy.  Even  pleasure  and  pain — such  "  opposites  "  as 
we  are  wont  to  call  them — sometimes  struggle  together  for  the 
possession  of  the  field  of  affective  consciousness,  and  thus  pro- 
duce a  most  strange  complexion,  by  their  very  struggle,  to  that 
field. 

Combining  the  foregoing  three  considerations  we  find  that 
the  Classification  of  the  Feelings  may  proceed  as  follows  : 

I.  According  to  the  "  objective"  accompaniment,  or  reference, 
of  the  feeling — into  (1)  Sensuous  Feelings,  or  such  as  have  their 
difference  determined  in  dependence  ui^on  the  different  qualities 
of  the  sensations  of  the  special  senses  and  of  so-called  "  common 
feeling  "  ;  (2)  Intellectual  Feelings,  or  such  as  have  their  dif- 
ference determined  by  the  character  of  the  processes  of  ideation 
and  thought ;  (3)  .^Esthetical  Feelings,  or  such  as  arise  in  con- 
nection with  the  perception  or  imagination  of  what  we  call  "  beau- 
tiful "  or  its  opposite  ;  and  (4)  Ethical  Feelings,  or  such  as  arise 
in  contemplation  of  those  forms  of  conduct  which  we  call  "  right  " 
or  its  opposite. 

Two  things  should  be  borne  in  mind  as  respects  this  division  : 


182  FEELING  :    ITS   NATURE   AND   CLASSES 

Inasmucli  as  the  whole  principle  of  division  is  one  of  "  objec- 
tive "  reference,  all  these  forms  of  feeling-  are  "intellectual,"  in 
the  broader  meaning-  of  the  latter  word.  That  is  to  say,  they  all 
involve  intellectual  discrimination  of  some  object  with  reference 
to  which  the  quality  of  the  feeling  is  determined,  or  in  connec- 
tion with  cognition  of  which  the  i^articular  feeling  is  felt.  But, 
second,  the  two  latter  classes  of  feelings  cannot  be  wholly  separ- 
ated from  dependence  upon  the  two  former.  All  our  sesthetical 
and  ethical  feelings  depend  upon  a  basis  of  sensuous  and  in- 
tellectual feelings. 

But  inasmuch  as  the  character  of  the  "  attachmenir "  which 
each  feeling  has  to  the  intellectual  aspect  of  consciousness  varies 
greatly,  we  may  divide  the  feelings  into  : 

II.  Either  (1)  Statical,  or  Feelings  attaching  themselves  im- 
mediately to  the  content  of  the  sensations  or  ideas,  so  as  to  fuse 
with  them  in  such  form  that  introspective  analysis  discovers  no 
time-difference  between  the  affective  and  the  corresponding  in- 
tellective aspect  of  consciousness ;  or  else  they  are  (2)  Relational, 
or  Feelings  which  have  their  quality  determined  by  the  changes 
that  take  place  in  the  flow  of  sensations  or  ideas — "  feelings 
of  relation,"  that  vary  in  character  according  to  the  character  of 
the  relations  between  different  successive  sensations  and  ideas. 
In  this  latter  case  we  customarily  speak  of  the  content  of  dis- 
criminating consciousness  as  the  "  occasion  "  of  our  feeling  thus 
and  so. 

Finally,  we  may  divide  affective  states  into  : 

III.  Either  (1)  Simple  Feelings,  or  such  as  do  not  admit  of 
introspective  analysis  into  several  elements  or  factors  ;  and  (2) 
Complex  Feelings,  or  such  as  blend  a  number  of  qualitatively 
different  kinds  of  feeling  into  one  predominatingly  affective 
state  of  consciousness.  Upon  this  third  principle  of  division  it 
must  be  remarked,  first,  that  all  states  of  adult  consciousness 
which  are  characterized  by  some  predominating  aspect  of  feel- 
ing are  really  complex ;  and,  second,  that  changes  in  intensity 
of  every  kind  of  feeling  result  in  the  admixture  of  other  affec- 
tive factors  into  the  comjDOund  state. 

1 8.  We  return  at  this  point,  briefly,  to  the  consideration  of  the  disputed 
question :  Whether  the  feelings,  as  such,  differ  in  quality  and  t^ius  warrant 
our  allotting  thorn  to  different  kinds.  Our  affirmative  conclusion  may  now 
be  enforced  bj'  considering  that  the  opposite  view  compels  us  not  only  to 
affirm  the  likeness,  as  feeling,  of  all  the  simpler  forms  of  affective  conscious- 
ness {e.g.,  that  the  feeling  of  pleasant  surprise  /s,  as  feeling,  like  the  feeling 
of  equally  pleasant  expectation  ;  and  both  these  are,  as  feelings,  like  the  feel- 
ing of  sensuous  pleasure  which  one  has  when  one  grades  to  exactly  the  same 


PRIMAUY    FORMS    OF   FEELIXCJ  ISIi 

scale  of  pleasure  the  sugar  iu  lemonade),  but  also  to  hold  that  the  sim- 
plest bodily  pleasure*,  as' feelings,  are  like  the  most  elevated  intellectual, 
jesthetical,  and  ethical  pleasures — provided  the  two  can  be  made  to  assume 
tlie  same  locality  iu  the  "  pleasure-pain  "  scale  of  quantities.  It  will  be  a 
long  time,  however,  before  psychology  convinces  the  artistic  mind,  on  see- 
ing a  great  actor  play  Hamlet,  or  on  hearing  the  "Erl-King"  of  Schubert, 
that  its  feelings,  (is  such,  are  simply  pleasure-pains  that  may  have  an  exact 
equivalent  in  so  much  pork  and  jxitatoes,  or  cheese  and  beer.  Nor  is  he 
who  has  felt  that  joy  of  scientific  discovery  which  Niobuhr  compared  to  the 
divine  feeling  in  view  of  a  new-made  universe,  likely  to  confuse  it,  as  re- 
spects distinctive  quality,  with  the  sensuous  thrill  of  gratified  bodily  appe- 
tite. While  the  religious  devotee  will  scarcely  fail  to  relegate  his  "  love  of 
God,"  or  his  feeling  of  "  divine  pity,"  as  an  affection,  to  a  different  class 
from  that  into  which  he  throws  all  sorts  of  "  pleasure-pains  "  derived  from 
physical  goods  and  evils. 

^9.  On  account  of  the  obscure  character  of  the  sensuous  basis  on  which 
the  intellectual,  jesthetical,  and  ethical  feelings  repose,  writers  on  the  psy- 
chology of  art  and  morals  have  often  failed  to  recognize  this  basis.  On  the 
other  hand,  those  writers  who,  starting  from  tlie  biological  point  of  view, 
attempt  to  deal  with  the  higher  feelings  in  accordance  with  a  theory  which 
resolves  all  their  affective  quality  into  quanta  of  "  pleasure-pains,"  almost 
uniformly  find  their  theory,  iu  reality,  quite  too  narrow  for  them.  For  ex- 
ample ' — to  illustrate  from  one  of  the  most  judicious  of  modern  psycholo- 
gists— we  are  told  atone  moment  that,  "strictly  speaking,  there  are  only  two 
varieties  of  feeling,  viz.,  the  agreeable  and  the  disagreeable  ;  "  because  "  all 
our  feelings  are  constituted  by  elements  of  pleasure  and  pain  ;  "  and  then, 
at  another  moment,  we  are  informed  that  "  the  several  varieties  of  musical 
sensation  .  .  .  have  distinct  aflective  concomitants,"  some  of  them  pro- 
ducing the  feeling  of  excitement  or  exhilaration,  while  others  produce  feel- 
ings that  have  a  "  quieter  and  graver  character."  And  after  virtually  affirm- 
ing the  many  varieties  of  our  simpler  sensuous  feelings,  we  find  this  author 
proceeding  with  the  further  classification  of  complex  feelings,  just  as  though 
the  "  pleasure-pain  "  theory  had  never  been  introduced.  The  popular  view 
is,  on  this  point,  psychologically  correct.  "A  finer  scientific  analysis" 
brought  to  bear  on  the  "  feeling-concomitant "  of  our  sensations  and  ideas, 
f/o;.v  uo<  resolve  those  popularly  recognized  difForences  into  something  else 
than  what  every  subject  of  the  feeling  immediately  feels  them  to  be.''  And 
to  hold  that  it  does,  destroys  all  basis  for  our  judgment  as  expressed  in 
terms  like  the  following  :  An  *'  honorable  "  or  a  "  base"  feeling,  a  "fitting  " 
or  an  "  inappropriate /eeZtw^', "  etc.  It  also  makes  psychologically  unintelli- 
gible all  the  affective  phenomena  which  enter  into  the  constitution  and  the 
appreciation  of  artistic  products,  and  of  conduct  considered  as  moral  or  im- 
moral. 

^  10.  Sensuniift feelings  "  attach  themselves"  to  the  activity  of  the  senses 
in  such  a  way  as  to  fuse  with  the  sensations,  with  their  presentative  or  ob- 
jective reference,  and  so  constitute  their  "  sul)jective "  side,  as  it  were. 
When,  then,  we  speak  of  pleasant  or  painful  i^cnsations,  the  noun  empha- 

•  See  Sully  :  The  Ilnmfiu  Mind,  IT.,  pp.  46  and  51. 

■■'  On  this  point  comp.  Horwicz :  Psycholog.  Analysen,  iii.,  p.  91  f. 


184  FEELING  :     ITS   NATURE   AND   CLASSES 

sizes  this  presentative  or  objective  reference ;  but  -wlien  we  speak  of  sensu- 
ous/ee/Z^f^s,  the  noun  emphasizes  the  subjective  aspect,  generally  of  either 
pleasure  or  pain,  which  fuses  with  our  sensations,  or  is  recognized  as  occa- 
sioned by  them.  But  here  we  notice  a  marked  difference  between  the  feel- 
ings which  accompany  the  activity  of  the  special  senses  and  those  occa- 
sioned by  the  unlocalized  melange  of  intraorganic  sensations  (the  '•  common 
feeling,"  or  "feelings  of  organic  life,"  as  they  are  sometimes  called).  For 
example,  the  velvet  feels  pleasantly  smooth  to  the  adult ;  the  mother's 
cheek  or  breast  pleasantly  warm  and  soft  to  the  infant's  hand.  But  one  has 
au  undefined  feeling  of  malaise  in  which  certain  vague  intestinal  or  cardiac 
sensations  are  occasionally  discriminated;  or  one  feels  "full  of  vigor  and 
life,"  with  scarcely  a  trace  of  that  objective  reference  to  free  circulation, 
deep  respiration,  unimpeded  action  of  well-nourished  and  well  rested  mus- 
cles, that  are  the  concealed  underlying  sensuous  basis  of  this  feeling. 

Enough  has  already  been  said  as  to  the  reasons  for  the  dilfereuce  just 
mentioned.  We  therefore  assume  it,  and  go  on  now,  briefly,  to  characterize 
with  more  particularity  some  of  the  qualitatively  distinct  classes  of  sen- 
suous feelings. 

(1)  The  distinctions  of  feeling  accompanying  our  sensations  of  smell  and 
taste  are  not  numerous  or  easy  to  make,  apart  from  the  consideration  of 
their  agreeable  or  disagreeable  tone.  Yet  even  here  tlie  -way  we  feel  is  not 
by  any  means  precisely  the  same  for  all  equally  pleasurable,  or  equally 
painful,  tastes  and  smells.  Some  agreeable  sweet  odors  are  described  as 
"  heavy,"  and  others  as  having  au  "  enlivening  "  or  "  spicy  "  quality  (for  ex- 
ample, wo  may  here  compare  the  "  affection  "  produced  by  the  heliotrope 
and  the  Japanese  lily,  to  one  who  finds  both  agreeable).  Not  all  equally 
disagreeable  tastes  and  smells  are,  as  considered  in  the  light  of  the  feelings 
they  occasion,  the  same;  some  are  "exciting,"  some  "depressing,"  etc. 
The  "  language  of  flowers  "  and  the  emotional  significance  of  certain  dishes 
is  no  doubt  largely  fanciful ;  it  is,  so  far  as  the  connected  ideas  and  the 
agreeableness  or  disagreeableness  of  particular  examples  are  concerned, 
largely  a  matter  of  association.  Still  the  actual  difference  in  the  quality  of 
the  accompanying  affective  phenomenon  must  not  be  wholly  overlooked. 
Besides,  on  due  occasion,  all  the  feelings  of  relation,  such  as  surprise,  curi- 
osity, novelty,  interest,  active  like  or  dislike,  may  be  induced  in  connection 
with  these  sensations. 

(2)  The  feelings  which  accompany  the  different  markedly  unlike  sensa- 
tions of  touch,  temperature,  and  muscular  activity,  are  susceptible  of  a  certain 
difference  in  kind.  Pleasant  coolness  is  "  refreshing  ;  "  pleasant  warmth  is 
"  cherishing."  The  slow  regular  use  of  the  largo  muscles  calls  out  feelings  of 
physical  "  gravity,"  or  "  equipoise  ;"  it  even  underlies  the  feeling  of  personal 
importance  and  dignity.  We  hop,  skip,  and  jump  when  we  are  gay  ;  and, 
conversely,  the  feeling  of  sirch  use  of  the  muscles  is  called  one  of  "  levity," 
"freedom,"  etc.  How  delicious  and  "  pampering"  is  the  feeling  of  the  soft 
cushions;  and  how  does  the  feeling  of  primness  support  itself  by  the  up- 
right posture  in  a  straight-backed  chair  !  How  jntiful  the  condition  of  the 
child  who  has  never  known  the  comfort  of  "cuddling"  in  the  big  sofa  by 
the  fire — a  feeling  of  comfort  both  like  and  unlike  that  produced  by  having 
eaten  just  enough  of  an  excellent  dinner. 


I'RIMAllY    i'URMS   OF   FEELING  185 

(3)  Musicians  have  always  attaclictl  different  distinct  kinds  of  feeling  to 
diffei'ent  musical  instruments,  to  the  ditlerent  timbres  of  notes  wlicn  sounded 
to  express  difference  of  feeling,  to  different  keys  and  chords.  However 
much  of  this  is  due  to  fanciful  associations,  it  is  scarcely  all  thus  to  be  ex- 
plained. And  it  certainly  is  7iot  to  be  resolved  into  mere  differentia  of  the 
pleasure-pains  of  acoustic  sensations.  Stumpf  '  tells  us  how  his  son  Iludolf, 
a  child  of  four  and  a  half  years,  when  he  had  to  choose  between  two  trum- 
pets that  ditl'ered  by  a  tone,  declared  for  the  "darker  one."  The  "  grave  " 
feeling  belonging  to  the  base  register  is  different,  otherwise  than  in  mere 
quantity  of  pleasure-pain  from  the  "  stirring  "  of  the  tenor.  The  "sweet- 
pain  "  of  minor  strains  is  not  the  same  mingling  of  the  two  opposites,  as 
that  which  a  chord  has  where  one  of  the  keys  is  somewhat  out  of  tune.  And 
the  feeling  of  "grace  "which  belongs  to  Mozart's  Opus  4G  in  E  flat  is  differ- 
ent, though  no  more  or  less  i)leasurable,  and  though  we  disregard  the  char- 
acter of  the  notes  as  mere  sensations,  fiom  the  feeling  of  "  passionate  fer- 
vor "  which  belongs  to  his  Opus  47  in  G  Minor. '^ 

(•4)  The  varieties  of  feeling  which  belong,  as  the  affective  concomitant, 
to  the  different  sensations  of  color  and  li(/ht  have,  indeed,  been  ditTerently 
described  by  different  persons  equally  suscei^tible  to  this  form  of  excited 
sensibility.  Here,  then,  as  in  the  case  of  all  the  other  feelings,  disjiosition  and 
association  have  largely  to  do  in  determining  kind.  But  here  also  a  certain 
rather  wide  range  of  distinction  seems  to  belong  to  the  more  primary  phen- 
omena of  feeling.  Bright  light  and  mellow  light  ijroduce  differences  in  the 
character  of  the  equally  pleasurable  feeling  which  may  result ;  melancholy 
may  deepen  into  vague  dread,  as  twilight  gives  way  to  total  darkness,  with- 
out habit  and  association  furnishing  the  complete  account.  As  rosjiects  the 
fine  shading  of  tones  of  feeling  accompanying  the  color-sensations,  the  classi- 
cal passage  of  Gothe  is  in  proof.  With  the  "  cheerfulness  "  of  yellow  the 
"mournful"  light  seen  througli  blue  glass  is  contrasted — "a  feeling  of 
cold"  ("as  recalling  shadows,"  the  author  adds).  Green  produces  the  im- 
pression of  repose  ;  red  of  strong  excitement.  [The  explanation  which  ac- 
counts for  the  exciting  influence  of  "  red "  upon  some  animals,  by  its 
associaticm  with  the  sight  of  blood,  seems  not  wholly  satisfactory.  The 
I'eason  lies,  in  part  at  least,  in  the  amount  and  character  of  the  neural 
"  semi-chaotic  surplus  "  which  these  rays  provoke.]  Hofiding,  combining 
these  two  forms  of  sensations  of  sight,  calls  ujion  ns  to  observe  how,  with 
diminished  or  augmented  illumination,  "  the  effect  on  feeling  sustains  a 
corresponding  change." 

(5)  In  addition  to  what  has  already  been  said  respecting  that  compound 
bodily  feeling  called  "common  feeling,"  as  the  affective  concomitant  of  cer- 
tain obscurely  sens^ed  organic  processes,  we  may  now  note  that  it  has  a  num- 
ber of  distinct  kinds,  both  painful  and  pleasurable.  The  equally  disagreeable 

'  Tonpsychologie,  IT.,  p.  531. 

■■'  The  extreme  position  taken  by  many  especially  snpccptible  to  musical  feeling,  however  nnjus- 
tifiablc  in  detiiils,  bears  witness  to  the  validity  of  distinctions  in  the  (juality  of  the  "  affective  con- 
comitants "  of  acoustic  sensations.  Thus  E.  T.  A.  Hoffmann  would  characterize  each  chord  by  a 
special  state  of  feeling;  B  Major  expresses  "harmless  joy  ;"  C  Major,  wild  desire  ;  A  flat  Minor, 
longing,  etc.  So  also  Jahn  explains  the  blended  feeling  which  Mozart's  March  in  his  Zaubertlote 
causes  as  due  to  the  "  weak  and  depressed  Klanfr  "  of  certain  instruments,  which  the  flute  renders 
"  clearer  and  milder,"  and  to  which  the  horns  and  trumpets  give  "power  and  fulness."  Wc  note 
that  it  is  of  the  very  essence  ef  feeling  that  such  descriptions  should  not  command  unicersat  assent. 


186  feeling:   its  nature  and  classes 

tone  of  feeling  diflfers  in  kind  according  as  we  feel  vagno  uneasiness  due  to 
intestinal  disorders,  the  slightly  painful  excitement  of  the  fever  of  tubercu- 
losis, the  undefined  dread  that  arises  from  unhealthy  action  of  the  heart, 
etc.  The  pleasurable  feeling  of  comfort  from  wholesome,  pervasive  warmth, 
the  equally  pleasurable  feeling  of  genial  excitement  from  moderately  quick- 
ened vaso-motor  activity,  and  the  not  greater  enjoyment  of  passive  exercise 
in  the  hands  of  a  skilful  shampooer,  are  more  or  less  distinctly  diiferent 
kinds  of  bodily  feeling,  accompanying  an  almost  indistinguishable  milange 
of  sensations. 

1 11.  For  the  development  of  mental  life  our  feelings  become  more  sig- 
nificant and  important  as  they  increase  in  complexity  and  in  their  relation  to 
ideal  ends  ;  and  this,  of  course,  implies  a  more  intricate  dependence  upon  the 
accompanying  growth  of  ideation  and  thought.  Here  one  principle  is  impor- 
tant :  The  character  and  rate  of  the  change  which  takes  place  in  the  sensational 
and  ideational  elements  of  consciousness  determines  certain  characteristic  ^^  feel- 
ings of  relation.'"  These  feelings  are  the  same  in  kind  whatever  may  be  the 
particular  sensations  or  ideas  whose  relation  determines  the  particular  case. 
One  class  of  such  feelings,  for  example,  is  dependent  upon  the  sudden  and 
unexpected  character  of  the  change.  Hence  arise  feelings  of  novelty 
and  surprise,  with  all  the  shadings  of  the  latter  as  it  is  intensified  into  as- 
tonishment and  wonder,  or  deepened  into  dread  and  awe.  Here  the  play 
of  emotions  in  a  crowd,  when  some  abrupt  change  takes  place  in  the  fire- 
works they  are  watching,  is  instructive.  With  these  may  be  contrasted 
those  feelings  which  accomj^any  the  continuous  flow  of  similar  sensations 
and  ideas,  free  from  all  abrupt  and  impressive  changes.  The  name  of 
"feeling  of  continuity,"  or  of  "continuous  similarity,"  might  be  given  to 
this  class.  On  the  one  hand  it  is  related  to  the  pleasant  feelings  of  familiar- 
ity, of  being  "at  ease,"  etc.;  on  the  other  hand,  the  unpleasant  feelings  of 
monotony,  weariness,  and  restless  longing  for  change,  may  be  developed. 

The  time-rate  of  the  changing  sensations  and  ideas  determines  the  clas- 
sification of  other  of  these  feelings  of  relation.  A  very  slow  rate  of  change 
in  the  objective  processes  is  apt  to  be  accomjDanied  with  pleasant  feelings  of 
languor  and  mental  drowsiness,  or  with  unpleasant  feelings  of  depression  of 
spirits,  tedium,  and  the  like.  A  moderate,  equable  pace  to  the  sensations 
and  ideas  is  apt  to  be  accompanied  by  a  feeling  of  pleasurable  excitement, 
which  rises  in  intensity  until  these  objective  processes  take  on  too  rapid  a 
time-rate;  then  emerge  those  painful  feelings  of  confusion,  of  being  in  a 
whirl,  of  being  "run  away  with  "  by  one's  own  thoughts,  which  sometimes 
bring  the  mind  to  the  very  verge  of  insanity.  Indeed,  the  affective  jihenom- 
ena  which  characterize  "  melancholia,"  on  the  one  hand,  and  "mania"  (to 
use  the  term  as  German  psychiatry  employs  it),  on  the  other  hand,  are 
largely  dependent  upon  the  time-rate  of  the  processes  of  sensation  and  idea- 
tion. Similar  characteristic  feelings  are  with  us  when  we  are  "dull"  or 
"  brilliant,"  etc.  The  influence  of  certain  drugs  on  the  emotions  comes 
largely  through  the  effect  of  quickened  or  retarded  cerebral  circulation  upon 
the  time-rate  of  the  mental  processes.  Nor  would  it,  perhaps,  be  untrue  to 
the  facts  of  experience  if  we  were  to  speak  of  a  vague  general  feeling  of 
"  expectation,"  as  induced  by  every  relative  condition  of  jiause,  or  cessation, 
in  the  flow  of  the  stream  of  consciousness.     This  feeling,  though  closely 


PRIMARY    FORMS   OF   FEELING  187 

connected  with  the  feeling  of  surprise,  does  not  seem  to  be  precisely  the 
sanio.  ^Vllerc  the  present  sensation  or  idea  gives  some  token  that  the  future 
state  will  bo  pleasurable,  the  feeling  of  expectation  itself  may  be  pleasur- 
able, may  take  on  the  tone  of  hope  or  joy  ;  but  where  something  disagree- 
able is  expected,  the  feeling  of  expectation  assumes  the  form  of  aversion  or 
dread.  But  mere  ])rolonging,  or  closely  frequent  repetition,  of  expectation 
itself  results  in  evoking  the  feeling  of  imiiatience,  which  is  as  distinct  in 
quality  as  any  feeling  well  can  be.  * 

The  permutations  and  combinations  of  all  these  more  primary  forms  of 
the  feeling  of  relation  are  rather  indefinite,  and  the  special  sensations  and 
ideas  which  serve  as  their  occasions  mark  by  their  variety  the  difference  be- 
tween individuals  and  between  diil'erent  stages  of  the  develoi^mont  of  the 
same  individual.  But  that  such  primary  forms  are,  as  feeling^^,  qualitatively 
unlike,  and  that  these  differences  accompany  changes  in  the  time-rate  of 
their  sensational  or  ideational  "  occasions,"  there  seems  no  room  for  reason- 
able doubt. 

[Reference  to  works  on  the  psychology  of  feeling  will  be  found  at  the  close  of  the 
next  chapter.] 


CHAPTEE  X. 

FEELING,  AS  PLEASUKE-PAIN 

Psychologists  and  philosophers  in  all  ages  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  call  attention  to  the  great  significance  of  pleasure  and 
pain  in  human  life.  We  have  already  seen  how  modern  theory 
identifies  these  two  opposing  tones  of  consciousness  with  the 
Avhole  character  of  affective  phenomena.  Art,  of  course — espe- 
cially in  the  forms  of  music  and  poetry  (with  their  accompaniment 
of  rhythmic  movements  in  marching  and  dancing) — is  adapted  to 
arouse  and  to  express  our  pleasurable  or  painful  sensations,  emo- 
tions, and  sentiments.  If  we  employ  the  two  words  "  pleasure  " 
and  "pain"  (as  is  now  customary  in  iDsychological  writings),  to 
include  all  degrees  and  kinds  of  the  agreeable  and  the  disagree- 
able, existence  itself  seems  to  have  its  interest  and  value  largely 
in  these  phenomena.  And  when  we  consider  the  indirect  result 
of  pleasures  and  pains  upon  cognition  and  conduct,  we  may  well 
exclaim  :  "  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  what  life  would  be  if  pleas- 
ure and  pain  were  stricken  out.  .  .  .  leave  them  out,  and  life  and 
the  universe  no  longer  have  meaning."  Hence  biology  some- 
times strives  to  show  how  all  special  sensations  may  have  devel- 
oped from  an  original  of  pain  or  of  pleasure  ;  while  political 
science  does  not  cease  reminding  us  that  Schiller's  "Hiiuger 
and  Love,"  as  pains  and  pleasures  belonging  to  brute  instincts, 
still  largely  drive  men  to  their  work  and  sway  the  nations. 

It  is  not  our  present  purpose  to  call  attention  to  the  rather 
depressing  exaggeration  wliicli  much  of  this  way  of  stating  the 
matter  involves.  We  believe  that  not  even  the  simplest  and 
rudest  psychological  development,  the  lowest  and  meanest  exhi- 
bition of  so-called  human  nature,  can  be  explained  as  due  to  tho 
mere  repulsion  of  pain  and  the  alhiremcnt  of  pleasure.  We 
wisli,  however,  now  to  note  how  extensive,  fundamental,  and  influ- 
ential is  that,  in  most  of  our  feelings,  Mdiich  we  designate  as 
"  pleasure-pain."  In  accordance  with  the  discussion  of  the  pre- 
ceding chapter  we  speak  of  pleasure  and  pain  as  opposite  "tones  " 
of  feeling — both  alike  "  jiositive,"  each  clearly  distingnisliable 
froin  the  other,  and  each  capable  of  varying  indefinitely  in  iuten- 


EXISTENCE   OF   NEUTRAL   FEELINGS  189 

sity.  In  answer  to  the  question  -whetlier  all  fcelinq-s,  absolutely 
•svitliout  exoeption,  are — to  some  extent  at  least — either  ])leasur- 
able  or  painful  (in  other  Avonls,  whether  "  neutral  feeling-s  "  exist), 
no  decisive  theoretical  answer  seems  possible. 

^  1.  The  discussion  over  the  existence  of  "  neutral  feelings  "  has  probably 
absorbed  more  attention  of  late  than  it  deserves— especially  if  ■we  separate  it 
from  the  far  more  important  discussion  of  the  nature  of  all  feeling  as  such. 
Neutral  or  indiiferent  feelings  were  recognized  by  Eeid,  but  disjnited  by 
Hamilton.'  James  Mill  went  so  far  as  to  assert  that  the  greater  number  of 
our  sensations  are  colorless  as  respects  pleasurable  or  painful  feeling — are 
"  indiiferent "  in  tone.  Bain-  asserts  it  as  undoubted  that  "we  may  feel 
and  yet  be  neither  pleased  nor  pained ;  "  and  that  "almost  every  i)leasui-able 
and  painful  sensation  and  emotion  passes  through  a  stage  or  moment  of 
indiiTerence."  "Wundt  argues  that  inasmuch  as  pleasures  and  pains  differ 
in  intensity  and  are  opposites  (and  may,  therefore,  be  plotted  as  having  a 
place  on  either  side  of  a  curve  which  crosses  an  abscissa-line)  there  77iusl  bo 
a  point  of  indifference,  or  neutrality,  lying  between  them.  But  this  argu- 
ment assumes  that  because  a  curve  rejiresents  certain  relations,  in  resjiect 
of  intensity,  in  which  pleasures  and  pains  stand,  therefore  it  rei)resents  all 
their  relations  to  one  another  and  to  all  states  of  feeling.  A  child  stung  by 
a  bee  while  eating  honey  may  bo  figuratively  represented  as  jiassing  along 
this  line  ;  and  yet  it  does  not  follow  that  because  extreme  pain  follows  great 
pleasure  an  ideal  neutral  feeling  intei-venes  between  the  two. 

Returning  to  exjierience,  we  find  another  recent  writer^  exclaiming: 
*'  How  many  visual  images,  musical  sounds  and  noises  daily  throng  our 
consciousness  ?  How  few  of  them  are  associated  with  any  feeling  (that  is, 
l)Ositive  feeling  of  pleasure  or  pain)  whatever !  "  And  doubtless  the  ex- 
perience of  most  men  would,  naively  exjiressed,  agree  with  this  exclama- 
tion. If  in  fairly  good  health  and  occupied  with  work  sufHeiently  exacting 
of  attention,  but  not  too  distasteful  or  too  absorbing,  they  pass  the  larger 
part  of  their  time  without  observable  tone  of  pleasure  or  pain  characterizing 
the  stream  of  consciousness.  We  here  see  again  reason  for  not  adopting 
even  the  modified  statement  of  Lotze  :  "We  apply  the  name  'feelings' 
erclifslveh/  to  states  of  pleasure  and  pain  in  contrast  with  sensations  as  indif- 
ferent perceptions  of  a  certain  content."  Perhaps,  if  we  admit  that  there 
are  few,  if  any,  of  our  feelings  (especially  the  sensuous)  in  which  we  cannot, 
by  puii^osive  attention,  develop  a  discernible  tone  of  feeling,  that  is,  make 
them  to  api:)ear  either  slightly  i^leasurable  or  slightly  painful,  yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  a  large  part  of  our  affective  phenomena  leave  no  distinct 
trace  in  consciousness,  or  on  memory,  as  either  pleasurable  or  painful,  we 
shall  state  the  facts  on  both  sides.  Nor — we  repeat  (see  p.  171)— is  there  any- 
thing in  our  feelings,  as  such,  to  show  reason  why  any  uniform  law  should 
be  observed  in  this  regard.* 

'  See  Works  of  Thomas  Reid  rHamilton's  edition),  p.  311. 

5  The  Emotions  and  the  Will,  p.  13. 

'  Ziehen  :  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Physiological  Psychologry,  p.  130. 

■•  Those  who  desire  dettiiled  discussion  of  this  Cntx  in  psychology  (so  Sully)  may  refer  to  Fr. 
Bouillier :  Du  Plaisir  et  de  la  Douleur,  chap,  viii.;  and  articles  in  Mind,  xiii.,  pp.  80  If.,  and  248  If. 
and  xiv.,  97  ff. 


190  FEELING,    AS   PLEASURE-PAIN 

The  Coiiditioiis,  both  i^hysiolog-ieal  and  iDsychical,  which  de- 
termme  the  toue  of  our  feeling-s — whether  as  feeliug-s  of  Pain  or 
feelings  of  Pleasure — cannot  as  yet  be  reduced  to  anj'  one  prin- 
ciple. It  does  not  follow  from  the  "  opi^osite  "  character,  psy- 
cholog-ically  considered,  of  pleasure  and  pain,  that  their  physio- 
logical conditions  are  to  be  found  in  opposed  i^rocesses  of  the 
nervous  organism.  To  call  pleasure  "  positive  "  and  pain  "  nega- 
tive," or  the  reverse,  onl}'  confuses  investigation ;  no  light  what- 
ever is  thus  thrown  upon  the  problem  from  the  psychological 
point  of  view.  To  the  subject  of  the  feeling,  pleasure  and  j)aiu 
are  alike  real  and  i^ositive — opposites,  to  be  sure,  but  in  no  such 
way  that  an  indefinite  number  of  degrees  of  both  do  not  occur, 
or  that  the  two  tones  of  feeling  may  not  blend  and  modify  each 
other,  especially  in  our  more  comj^lex  and  highly  developed 
states.  Biology,  as  studied  from  the  evolutionary  point  of  view, 
throws  only  a  very  uncertain  light  over  that  problem  which  it 
defines  as  "the  origin  of  our  pleasures  and  pains."  It  assists 
psychology  in  showing  how  increased  amounts  of  pleasure  or 
of  pain  may  become  attached  to  certain  forms  of  physiological 
function,  because  of  the  service  which  pleasurable  and  painful 
•feelings  render  to  the  preservation  of  the  individual  and  to  the 
propagation  of  the  species.  It  also  offers  more  or  less  valuable 
conjectures  as  to  how  some  of  the  most  elementary  vital  and  in- 
tellectual processes  have  come  to  be  associated  with  the  one  or 
the  other  of  these  two  "tones  "  of  all  affective  phenomena.  But 
both  biology  and  psychology  are  obliged  to  assume  the  existence 
of  pleasure  and  pain,  as  well  as  the  peculiar  place  w^hich  "  pleas- 
ure-pains" sustain  in  the  total  mental  development.  This  as- 
sumption would  have  to  be  made  even  if  we  knew  precisely  (as 
we  do  not)  the  universal  and  unalterable  phj'siological  precon- 
ditions of  all  pleasure-pain. 

^2.  If  we  were  at  liberty  to  regard  even  our  bodily  pleasures  and  pains 
as  specific  forms  of  sensation, with  a  distinct  nervous  apparatus  having 
particular  loci  in  the  surface  of  the  body,  where  stimulus  needed  to  be 
applied,  the  task  of  specifying  the  physiological  conditions  of  some  at  least 
of  our  pleasii  re -pains  would  be  simplified.  The  attempt  to  do  this  has  re- 
cently been  made  by  use  of  experimental  methods,  particularly  for  pains 
connected  with  sensations  of  the  skin.  But  even  in  this  limited  way  the 
attempt  has  not  succeeded.  One  observer  of  high  rank  '  has  indeed  claimed 
to  discover  certain  "pain-spots"  (akin  to  the  pres.sure-spots  and  the  tem- 
perature-spots), to  the  excitement  of  which  alone  sensations  of  pain  are  the 

>  Goldpclieider.  See  Archiv  f.  Anat.  n.  Physiol.  (Physiolog.  Abth.),  1S85.  Snp.,  p.  87.  That 
specific  or<rane  of  pain  exist  in  the  skin  is  denied  by  Blix  (Zeitschrift  f.  Biologic,  xxi.,  p.  100\  and 
held  not  proven  by  Wundt  (Physiol.  Psyohologie,  I.,  pp.  302  f.  and  43G  f.),  and  by  most  other  ob- 
servers. 


CONDITIONS   OF   PLEASUKE-PAINS  191 

specific  response.  But  subsequent  observations  and  the  opinions  of  other 
authorities  do  not  sustain  his  chxini.  An  argument  for  this  view  is  derived 
from  the  undoubted  fact  that  the  sensation  of  touch  and  the  feeling  of  pain, 
in  cases  of  painful  touch,  are  separable  both  in  fact  and  in  time.  Thus 
disease  may  occasion  insensibility  to  pain  {tmalyeaia)  without  insensibility 
to  touch  {cma'sthesid),  and  conversely.  Severe  cold  may  rentier  the  ampu- 
tations necessary  after  battle  almost  painless,  even  when  the  patient  senses 
the  operation  as  being  touched  and  cut.  Chloroform  and  hypnotic  sleep 
sometimes  render  the  subject  insensible  to  the  pain  of  sensations  (such  as 
that  coming  from  extracting  a  tooth,  or  from  burning  the  flesh)  without 
destroying  the  sensations  as  such.  Moreover,  Weber  called  attention  to  the 
fact  that  when  the  hand  is  dipped  in  very  cold  or  in  very  hot  water  we  have 
an  intense  sensation  of  being  touched  wliicli  distinctly  precedes  the  feeling 
of  imin.  This  comparative  slowness  of  the  evolution  of  pain  is  noticeable 
in  various  forms  of  strong  excitation  of  the  skin.  And  SchifT,  finding  that 
animals,  after  section  of  the  gray  matter  of  the  sjiiual  cord,  cease  to  feel  jmin 
while  still  susceptible  to  touch,  has  concluded  that  the  nerve-commotions 
necessary  for  the  two  travel  by  diflferent  paths  to  the  brain.  All  these  phe- 
nomena are,  however,  explicable  on  much  better  grounds  than  those  which 
assume  that  the  physiological  conditions  of  pain  and  jileasure  (even  of  the 
skin)  are  found  in  the  excitement  of  sj^ecific  parts  of  the  iieriphei'al  nervous 
apparatus.  The  relative  slowness  of  pain  is  probably  due  to  the  fact  that  a 
more  diffusive  excitation  of  nervous  substance,  both  peripheral  and  central, 
is  necessary  for  the  production  of  i^leasure-jiains  than  of  comparatively  indif- 
ferent sensations.  The  explanation  of  the  aj^parently  difl'erent  paths,  of 
reaching  the  brain  is  probably  connected  with  the  same  fact.  While  nearly 
everything  which  we  do  know  about  the  conditions  of  our  pleasures  and 
pains  is  opposed  to  the  view  which  considers  them  as  specific  sensations. 
Indeed,  if  the  suscei^tibility  of  the  areas  of  the  skin  zs  different  for  painful 
feelings  and  for  sensations  of  temperature  and  touch,  this  may  be  held  to  be 
another  proof  of  the  heterogeneity  of  the  neural  processes  which  underlie 
feeling  and  sensations  in  general. 

^  3.  Every  biological  theory  as  to  the  physiological  conditions  of  our 
l)leasure-pains  holds  that,  in  some  way,  pleasiire  is  significant  of  activities 
which  are  beneficial,  and  pain  is  significant  of  activities  which  are  harwfnl, 
either  to  the  total  organism  of  the  individual  or  to  the  species  or  to  the 
particular  organ  primarily  involved.  This  conclusion,  which  modern  science 
claims  to  arrive  at  inductively,  is  essentially  the  same  as  that  which  was 
assumed,  in  deference  to  teleological  considerations,  centuries  ago.  Aris- 
totle, for  example,  conceived  of  pleasure  as  linked  with  every  normal  and 
natural  activity  ;  pain  is  therefore,  as  the  opposite  of  pleasure,  "  negative  " 
of  what  is  abnormal,  unnatural,  injurious.  From  the  same  a  priori  jjoint  of 
view  a  modern  writer'  declares  :  "Pleasure  is  the  positive  feeling  of  a  thing 
which  accords  with  our  nature,  as  pain  is  the  negative  feeling  of  an  object 
which  is  contrary  to  our  essence." 

The  modern  biological  view  explains  the  physiological  conditions  of 
many  of  our  pleasure-pains ;  but  its  failure  at  various  points  is  only  too 
evident.     In  view  of  the  fact  that  some  human  organisms  endure  for  years 

•  Tiberghien  :  Science  de  I'Ame,  p.  423  f. 


192  FEELING,    AS   PLEASURE-PAIN 

sucli  a  load  of  cliflfused  discomfort  and  concentrated  pains,  -vs'ith  a  constant 
accompaniment  of  depressed  vital  action,  Avliile  so  many  others  succumb, 
with  relatively  little  painful  warning,  to  long-continued  "indulgence  in 
pleasures,"  as  well  as  in  view  of  many  other  facts,  to  be  considered  later 
on,  the  task  before  biology  is  not  small.  One  form  of  this  theory  (so  Bain) 
connects  "  states  of  i^leasure  with  an  increase  and  states  of  pain  with  an 
abatement  of  some,  or  all,  of  the  vital  functions."  But  this  statement 
summarizes  only  a  part  of  the  phenomena  of  pleasure-i^aiu.  For  "an 
abatement  of  vital  function  "  is  sometimes  accompanied  by  the  pleasures  of 
quiet  repose,  etc.;  and  pain  is  sometimes  even  indicative  of  an  increase  of 
vital  function.  Grant  Allen,'  after  objecting  to  Bain's  view  as  "too  vague," 
declares  that  "  pleasure  is  the  concomitant  of  the  healthy  action  of  any  or 
all  of  the  organs  or  members  sujiplied  with  afferent  cerebro-spinal  nerves, 
to  an  extent  not  exceeding  the  ordinary  j^owers  of  reparation  jjossessed  by 
the  system."  But  this  statement  is  scarcely  less  vague  than  the  one  it  is  in- 
tended to  displace.  A  similar  conclusion  is  much  better  stated  by  a  French 
writer,  M.  Payot.-  This  writer  maintains  that  on  occasion  of  the  reaction  of 
the  nervous  system  to  any  external  impression,  either  the  increased  forces 
called  for  by  the  elevation  of  vital  energy  suffice  to  furnish  the  required  re- 
action, or  they  do  not:  in  the  former  case  we  have  pleasure,  and  in  the 
latter  pain.  This  relation  varies  with  age,  health,  nutrition,  etc.  Here  we 
come  very  close  to  the  conclusion  of  another  writer,  ^  who  thinks  that  the 
"sensation  of  pleasure"  resolves  itself  into  the  "sensation  of  power,"  and 
the  "  sensation  of  displeasure  "  is  to  be  identified  with  the  "sensation  of 
powerlessness."  And  this  again  reminds  us  of  the  "sthenic"  and  "as- 
thenic "  emotions  spoken  of  by  Kant. 

But  aside  from  the  purely  conjectural  character  of  this  view,  and  from 
the  truth  that  it  explains  at  best  only  our  sensuous  pains  and  pleasures,  we 
find  all  the  foregoing  statements  inconsistent  with  certain  observed  facts. 
Does  the  slight  bitter,  which  most  healthy  persons  find  disagreeable,  make 
a  larger  demand  upon  the  "  powers  of  reparation  "  (the  forces  called  for  by 
the  elevation  of  vital  energy)  than  the  pleasurable  indulgence,  for  example, 
of  certain  ai^ijetites  ?  And  what  great  change  in  these  powers  of  reparation 
takes  place  during  the  forty-eight  hours  in  which  a  normal  cerebro-spinal 
system  learns  to  receive  with  approbation  the  originally  distasteful  sensa- 
tions produced  by  eating  olives?  A  more  careful  adjustment  to  the  facts 
has  therefore  resulted  in  such  forms  of  statement  as  the  following,  taken 
from  Lotze  :  *  "  Feeling  (that  is,  as  pleasure  and  jiain)  is  only  the  measure 
of  the  partial  and  momentary  accord  between  the  effect  of  the  stimulus  and 
the  conditions  of  vital  activity."  And  now,  if  we  restrict  the  "  conditions  of 
vital  activity  "  to  those  which  belong  to  the  very  organ,  or  part  of  the  organ, 
to  which  the  stimulus  is  applied,  we  have  the  biological  princijile  stated  in 
its  most  highly  elaborate  form.  Doubtless,  stimulation  which  is  out  of  ac- 
cord with  the  immediate  conditions  of  vital  activity  in  the  organ  stimulated 
is  usually  painful ;  stimulation  which  is  not  so  out  of  accord  may  be  ex- 
pected to  result  in  pleasurable  sensations.  And  still  the  theory  is  not 
wholly  satisfactory :  for   (1)  there  is  no  proof  that  many  slight  and  yet  dis- 

•  Phypiolofrical  /EFthctics.  p.  21.  '  2  Rev.  Pliilosoph.,  1890,  p.  497. 

*  Fere  :  Sensation  et  Mouveiuuut,  p.  129.  *  Medicin.  Psychologic,  p.  233  f . 


INTENSITY   AND   TONE   OF   FEELING  193 

agreeable  intensities  of  certain  stimuli  arc  harmful,  except  the  conjecture 
which  the  theory  supports  ;  (2)  the  theory  neglects  too  largely  those  central 
conditions  in  which  (rather  than  in  conditions  of  the  organs  exposed  to 
the  stimulus)  the  very  nature  of  our  pleasure-pains  have  their  physical  basis  ; 
and  (;5)  it  leaves  quite  unexplained  the  largo  field  of  our  non-sensuous  pleas- 
ure-pains. 

Many  facts  are  explained  when  we  consider  the  Kelation  be- 
tween Intensity  of  excitement  and  the  accompanying-  Tones  of 
Feeling-.  Physiolog-ically  considered,  all  the  cerebral  processes 
concerned  in  our  sensations  and  ideas,  when  increased  in  amount 
beyond  certain  limits,  become  occasions  of  painfiil  feeling. 
When,  on  the  other  hand,  these  processes  are  lacking  in  sufficient 
intensity  to  lay  the  appropriate  basis,  as  it  were,  for  clearly  defined 
sensation  or  ideation,  they  may  also  be  occasions  of  another  kind 
of  painful  feeling.  Hence  we  have  pains  of  over-tension,  strain, 
excitement,  which,  in  extreme  form,  may  appear  to  overwhelm  con- 
sciousness in  a  sea  of  pain,  or  crusli  it  under  a  load  of  ang-uish  ; 
but  we  have  also  the  pains  of  uncertain,  wavering-,  and  exces- 
sively feeble  sensation  and  ideation,  llow  7)iuch  intensity  of  neu- 
rat  processes  can  he"'  home''  tcitJiout  pain,  or  even  enjojjed,  varies 
with  an  indejinite  nuTnher  of  considerations  resolvahle  into  the  con- 
stitution, hahlt, present  condition,  and  '^occupation"  of  the  cerehral 
centers.  How  much  intensity  these  centers  are  actually  called 
upon  to  bear  depends,  in  part,  upon  the  constitution  and  condi- 
tion of  the  end-organs  to  which  the  stiinulus  is  applied.  These 
end-org-ans  may  be  relatively  unexcitable  or  hyperaesthetic  (as 
in  cases  of  morbid  sensibility,  either  constitutional  or  due 
to  disease).  The  same  stimulus  applied  to  the  same  organ, 
under  difierent  conditions  of  excitability,  may  thus  be  the  oc- 
casion of  very  different  amounts  of  that  "  semi-chaotic  surplus  " 
in  which  the  cerebral  processes  of  feeling  consist.  While, 
within  the  cerebral  centers  themselves,  the  limits  of  neural 
activit}^  the  excess  of  which  in  amount  is  productive  of  pain, 
vary  g-reatly  for  different  individuals,  ages,  cerebral  conditions, 
etc. 

Psychol og-ically  expressed,  the  corresponding  truth  may  be 
stated  somewhat  as  follows  :  There  is  a  certain  amount  of  psychi- 
cal activity,  whether  as  expressed  in  sensation  or  ideation  and 
thought,  which  is  pleasurable,  or  at  least  not  productive  of  pain. 
More  than  this  becomes  increasingly  painful  as  the  amount  of 
sensation  or  ideation  increases.  Too  strong  sensations  hurt ;  too 
vivid  mental  images  are  likely  to  be  disagreeable  ;  too  intense 
thinking  is  unpleasant — even  apart,  it  would  seem,  from  those 
sensations  of  muscular  strain  and  bodily  pains  in  the  head  which 
13 


194  FEELING,    AS   PLEASURE-PAIN 

are  apt  to  result.  Yery  strong-  feelings,  even  feelings  of  joyful 
emotion  and  high  sentiment,  tend  toward  pain — somewhat  as 
too  much  heat  and  too  much  cold  produce  scarcely  distinguish- 
able painful  sensations.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  feel  more  or 
less  of  painful  rej)ugnance  toward  those  weak  sensations  and 
pale  fragmentary  ideas  which  seem  not  clear  and  decided  enough 
to  assert  their  place  in  the  flowing  stream  of  consciousness. 
Just  as  nothing  is  more  hateful  and  tantalizing  than  those 
"  half-baked  "  memory-images  which  ever  elicit,  but,  bj^  dissolv- 
ing, elude  our  attempts  at  a  firmer  mental  grasp.  In  these 
cases,  however,  we  note  that  the  pain  is  largely  relative  to  our 
purposeful  intention  clearly  to  apperceive  the  sensation-com- 
plexes or  to  recall  the  mental  images. 

From  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  the  relation  betAveen  our 
pleasure-pains  and  the  intensity  of  the  processes  of  sensation 
and  ideation  which  they  accompany  cannot  be  definitely  formu- 
lated. By  experiment  it  may  be  shown,  however,  that  this  rela- 
tion is  not  the  same  for  our  sensations  as  that  which  prevails 
between  changes  in  the  intensity  of  the  sensations  and  changes 
in  the  intensity  of  the  stimuli.  In  other  words,  the  varying 
amounts  of  our  pleasure-pains  do  not  stand  to  the  varyhicj  amounts 
of  our  sensations  as  the  varying  amo^mts  of  the  latter  stand  to  the 
varying  amounts  of  the  stimxdi.  The  former  relation  is  much 
more  indefinite  and  complex  than  the  latter.  This  fact  accords 
both  with  the  more  comjalex  cerebral  basis  on  which  our  pleas- 
ure-pains rest,  and  also  with  the  larger  number  of  psychical  con- 
ditions on  which  they  depend. 

\  4.  Nothing  about  the  conditions  of  our  sensuous  pleasures  and  pains 
is  more  certain  than  that  they  depend  upon  the  intensity  of  the  jirocesses 
which  occasion  them  or  which  they  accompany.  This  fact  we  may  test  by 
numberless  experiments ;  indeed,  life  itself  is  one  long  testing  of  the  fact. 
"Nothing  in  excess,"  if  you  do  not  wish  to  sutler  for  it,  not  even  the  most 
refined  pleasures  of  art  and  religion,  and,  a  fortiori,  the  pleasures  of  appetite, 
is  the  one  rule  for  a  prudent  life.  One  may  even  take  pleasure  in  feeling 
the  edge  of  a  razor  if  one  does  not  press  it  too  hard  ;  and  too  much  honey  is 
more  disagreeable  than  a  weak  solution  of  quinine.  Indeed,  experiment 
with  sensuous  feelings  discovers  at  what  grade  of  the  intensity  of  the  sensa- 
tions the  tone  of  the  feelings  changes  from  pleasure  to  jiain,  or  the  reverse. 
If  the  skin  is  gently  stroked,  or  the  eyes  filled  with  a  moderate  intensity  of 
colored  light,  or  the  ears  stimulated  by  a  not  too  loud  tone,  the  sensations 
are  not  painful.  By  increasing  their  intensity  they  become  more  jileasurable 
up  to  a  certain  point.  But  by  increasing  the  intensity  still  further,  a]iainful 
tone  of  feeling  is  made  to  emerga  ;  and,  by  sufficient  application  of  force,  the 
pain  accompanying  some  of  our  sensations  may  be  made  almost  wholly  to 
submerge  the  objective  character  of  the  sensations  themselves. 


INTENSITY   AND   TONE   OF   FEELING 


195 


Beaunis '  has  represented  the  clei)euclonco  of  our  jileasure-pains  upon  the 
intensity  of  our  sensations,  in  the  four  stadia  which  ho  recognizes,  by  the 
following  scheme  (the  figures  at  the  heael  represent  the  increasing  amounts 
of  the  sensations)  : 


0             10 

1         1 

20 

1 

30 
1 

40 

1 

stadium 

»^ 

Stadium 

H 

X  ^ 

■o  =• 

of 

S=   3- 

of 

S    s" 

CO 

PS- 

3S 

uo  sensation. 

indifference. 

*    o 

60 


90 


100 


Studium 

ot 
pleasure. 


H      Stadium 


2.S- 

3   O 


[According  to  this  author,  not  only  may  the  extent  of  these  stadia  and 
the  moment  of  their  appearance  vary  greatly,  but  with  some  substances  the 
stadium  of  indift'erenco  is  lacking,  or  the  stadium  of  pleasure  much  abbre- 
viated. Beaunis  is  led  to  the  conclusion  that  all  the  sensations,  even  those 
most  apparently  simple,  involve  elements  both  pleasurable  and  painful.] 

How  both  the  intensity  of  the  sensations,  in  dependence  upon  the  inten- 
sities of  the  stimuli,  and  the  intensity  of  the  resulting  pleasures  or  pains, 
in  dependence  on  the  intensities  of  the  sensations,  may  be  subject  to  varia- 
tion, and  yet  not  according  to  the  same  law,  is  illustrated  by  the  follow- 
ing diagi-am."  Here  JE  min.  and  E  max.  represent  the  minimum  and  the 
maximum  intensities  of  stimulation  ;  and  the  abscissa-line  between  them 
represents  the  division  between  pain  (whose  curve  is  below)  and  pleasure 
(whose  curve  is  above).  The  continuous  line  represents  the  relation  of 
intensity  of  sensation  to  intensity  of  stimulation.  The  dotted  curve  rep- 
resents the  pleasure-pain  series,  both  above  and  below  the  abscissa-line. 


MIn 


E  Max 


Fig.  4. 

An  ingenious  conjecture  of  Wundt  maintains  that  the  maximum  point  of 
pleasure  for  any  sensation  lies  about  what  he  calls  the  "  cardinal  value  "  of 
the  sensation,  z.e.,  the  place  where  the  sensation  ceases  to  increase  in  simj^le 
proportion  to  the  strength  of  the  stimulus.     This  is  the  i)lace  where  the  sen- 

'  See  Sensations  Internes,  etc.,  p.  243  £. 

»  Adapted  from  Ziehen  :  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Physiol.  Psychology,  p.  131. 


V 


196  FEELING,    AS    PLEASUKE-PAIX 

sation  is  most  "valuable"  for  purposes  of  clear  perception.  It  would  seem, 
tbeu,  that  our  sensuous  pleasure-i)aius  are,  iu  a  measure,  relative  to  the 
amount  of  cognition  we  get  through  the  sensation.  ^Ye  have  already  re- 
marked how  the  failure  of  weak  and  flickering  sensations  to  jyrove  of  value  in 
securing  cognition  is,  in  part,  the  occasion  of  the  jiain  which  accompanies  them. 

Very  great  Differences  are  to  be  noted  in  the  Intensities  of 
which  the  pleasure-pains  connected  with  the  different  Chisses  of 
Feelings  are  capable.  These  differences  are  either  natural  (such 
as  belong  to  certain  classes  of  sensations  and  ideas  for  all  men), 
or  constitutional  (such  as  belong  to  the  peculiar  temperament 
of  the  individual),  or  acquired  (such  as  fall  under  the  principle 
of  habit,  etc.).  But  besides  these  differences,  which  can  all  in 
some  sort  be  reckoned  with,  there  are  others  which  are  so  variable 
and  capricious  as  quite  to  elude  all  efforts  to  reduce  them  to  law. 
Among  the  different  classes  of  sensuous  pleasure-pains  a  great 
natural  difference  exists  as  to  the  intensity  of  which  they  seem 
capable  ;  and  in  a  somewhat  modified  meaning  we  may  make  the 
same  statement  of  the  different  classes  of  ideas.  Certain  feelings 
of  relation,  for  example — whether  occasioned  by  changes  in  the 
processes  of  sensation  or  of  ideation — are  generallj-  disagreeable  ; 
but  by  disposition  and  inheritance  different  individuals  differ 
greatly  as  to  the  amounts  of  i^leasure  and  pain  which  the  same 
classes  of  sensations  or  ideas  occasion.  It  is  also  true  of  all  men 
that  the  amount  of  sensuous  or  intellectual  activity  which  they 
can  "  bear  "  at  any  particular  time  differs  greatly  ;  and  how  pleas- 
urable or  painful  any  particular  amount  of  activity  will  be  de- 
pends upon  a  rather  incalculable  variety  of  concomitant  condi- 
tions. 

In  general,  ideal  pleasures  and  pains,  when  measured  by  a 
strict  standard  of  quantity,  are  much  inferior  to  those  occasioned 
by  strong  sensations.  We  enact  a  fiction  which  is  convenient 
for  practical  uses,  but  which  is  far  from  representing  a  ps^'cho- 
logical  truth,  Avhen  we  regard  these  ideal  pleasure-pains  as  more 
or  less  determinative  of  the  choices  of  the  individual,  hecanse  of 
the  estimate  put  upon  them  with  respect  si/)/pb/  to  their  position 
in  a  scale  of  intensity.  Ideal  pleasures  and  pains  are  confess- 
edly, as  a  rule,  not  accompanied  by  such  great  disturbance  of 
the  nervous  system  as  are  bodily  pleasures  and  pains.  But  it 
will  appear  more  and  more  clearly  that  the  development  of  the 
individual,  even  in  the  lower  ranges  of  life,  as  estimated  by  in- 
tellectual, sesthetical,  and  ethical  standards,  takes  jilace  on  other 
conditions,  and  is  influenced  by  other  considerations  than  those 
determined  by  qtiantu  of  pL^asure-pains.  This  is  true  even  of 
the  lower  animals,  which,  under  the  influence  of  feelings  and 


CLASSES   OF   PLEASURE-PAINS  197 

ideas  that  we  denoiniuatc  "  instinctive,"  or  following-  blind  im- 
pulse, reject  pleasures  and  accept  pains  in  the  pursuit  of  ideal 
ends.  And  of  man  it  is  emphatically  true  that  the  very  begin- 
nings of  his  psychical  development  are  conditioned  upon  his  iiot 
being  unduly  inlluenced  by  considerations  derived  from  the 
relative  intensities  of  his  pleasure-pains.  Pleasure  and  pain 
are  undoubtedly  powerful  as  spur,  and  bridle,  and  bait,  in  the 
struggle  for  existenceo  But  whatever  biology  and  certain  doc- 
trines of  political  economy  may  see  fit  to  hold  on  this  subject, 
psychology  cannot  find  that  the  facts  testify  to  this  side  of  life 
as  being  by  any  means  all-powerful.  Indeed,  all  human  life  de- 
velops largehj  hij  relegatlnff  the  immediate  effects  of  our  activity,  as 
respects  the  quantities  of  pleasure  or  pain  evoked,  rtiore  and  more  to 
the  hackground. 

§5.  The  marked  diflfereuce  among  the  diflferent  classes  of  sensations,  as 
respects  the  amounts  of  pleasure  and  pain  which  can  accompany  them,  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  popular  language.  Psychology  is  obliged  to  adopt  the  term 
"  pleasure-pain "  to  include  all  degrees  of  the  two  tones  of  feeling,  from 
the  intensest  bodily  anguish  or  ecstasy  of  pleasurable  excitement  to  the 
faintest  agreeable  or  disagreeable  memory-image.  But  by  bodily  2xdn  the 
people  understand  something  sharp  and  decisive  in  its  impression  on  con- 
sciousness, for  the  most  i^art  due  to  intra-organic  or  to  skin  sensations.  The 
more  intensely  disagreeable  feelings  of  grief,  disa^jpointed  love,  and  wounded 
pride,  shame,  or  regret,  they  also  speak  of  as  "pains."  It  is  difficult,  how- 
ever, to  get  the  ordinary  man  to  admit  that  when  the  quality  of  his  food,  or  his 
tobacco,  or  the  color  of  his  wife's  dress,  does  not  quite  "  suit  him,"  he  is 
suffering  "  pain."  Psychology,  by  its  use  of  the  terms,  properly  marks  the 
sameness  of  quale  which  goes  with  such  a  variety  of  quanta  in  the  entire 
"pleasure-pain"  series.  But  the  popular  language  emphasizes  two  im- 
portant psychological  truths :  (1)  the  dejiendence  of  a  distinctly  marked 
tone  of  feeling  upon  the  intensity  of  the  processes  which  occasion  the  feel- 
ing ;  and  (2)  the  fact  that  both  pleasurable  and  painful  tones  of  feeling  are 
relatively  disregarded  in  the  pursuit  of  ideal  ends. 

According  to  Lotze,'  feelings  of  sense  are,  "in  the  case  of  the  different 
senses,  so  much  the  more  intensive  the  less  these  senses  are  capable  of  fine 
objective  perceptions.  Colors  and  their  contrasts  merely  excite  satisfaction 
or  dissatisfaction  ;  dissonances  of  tones  cause  suffering  to  the  hearer  person- 
ally ;  the  i)Ieasure  and  pain  of  smell  and  taste  are  much  more  intensive  :  but 
it  is  only  in  the  skin,  which  of  itself  alone  furnishes  little  cognition,  and  in 
the  interior  parts,  which  contribute  to  cognition  nothing  whatever,  that  the 
pain  assumes  the  character  of  physical  suffering.  The  inirposeful  nature  of 
this  arrangement  is  manifest ;  its  mechanical  basis  is  unknown."  This 
statement,  so  far  as  the  plain  fact  of  variation  in  intensity  is  concerned,  is  true  ; 
but  the  explanation  given  is  not  wholly  satisfactory.  With  the  important 
exception  of  the  skin,  the  organs  of  sense  which  furnish  most  objective  in- 

'  See  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  75  f . 


198  FEELING,    AS   PLEASURE-PAIN 

formation  are,  indeed,  least  subject  to  be  the  occasions  of  intense  pleasures 
or  pains.  Biology  and  psjcliology  enable  us  to  see,  in  some  measure,  both 
why  it  is  so,  and  why  it  should  be  so.  The  nature  and  the  development  of 
sight  forbid  tliat  seeing  disagreeable  colors  or  ugly  shapes  should  occasion 
such  pain  as  cutting,  pinching,  or  burning  the  skin  or  entrails  can  cause. 
The  intensity  of  the  stimulus  which  reaches  the  visual  nerves  is  modified  by 
closing  the  eyelids  and  contracting  the  pupils  and  by  the  photo-chemical 
changes  which  intervene  between  the  light-wave  and  the  optic-nerve.  In- 
deed, it  is  doubtful  whether  any  pains  and  pleasures  of  the  eye  that  are  not 
ideal  are  due  to  excessive  stimulation  of  the  same  nerve  as  that  which 
gives  sensory  impulses  of  color  and  light.  This  nerve  can  be  destroyed  by 
heat — for  example,  on  looking  for  a  long  time  too  closely  upon  a  great  fire 
— without  pain  being  felt.  The  sensuous  pains  and  pleasures  of  the  eye 
may  then  be  considered  as  belonging  to  touch.  The  jiains  and  pleasures  of 
tones,  tastes,  and  smells,  although  still  immediately  sensuous,  are  becoming, 
as  development  goes  on,  more  and  more  matters  of  determination  according 
to  ideal  standards.  The  ear  of  the  Greeks  scarcely  tolerated  as  agreeable 
the  ' '  imperfect  consonances  "  of  the  Major  and  Minor  Third.  But  Handel 
accepted  "Fourths,"  Beethoven  "Fifths,"  and  the  modern  Wagnerian 
music  pleases  many  lovers  of  music,  although  tolerating  the  widest  range 
of  discords.  Some  nations,  whose  music  is  quite  undeveloped  (notably,  for 
example,  the  Japanese),  find  intervals  agreeable  which  are  intolerable  to 
us — apparently  because  of  the  association  of  the  tones  with  the  sad,  weird 
sounds  of  nature,  so  "  consonant "  with  the  national  tone  of  feeling.  Tastes 
and  smells  are  now,  for  the  civilized  man,  no  longer  a  prominent  means  of 
objective  information  necessary  to  his  "survival,"  but  are  rather  of  the 
nature  of  sesthetical  superfluities ;  and,  in  the  realm  of  feeling,  the  steadiness 
of  adherence  to  a  standard  and  to  a  fixed  place  in  the  pleasure-pain  series 
is  thus  necessarily  forfeited. 

Biology  attempts  to  account  for  the  hideous  "  bulk  "  of  our  painful  skin- 
sensations  in  accordance  with  the  princijjles  of  evolution.  In  those  lower, 
perhaps  "  ancestral  worm-like,"  forms  to  which  the  evolutionary  biologist 
refers  and  from  which  he  conjectures  that  man  sjjrung,  we  are  told  that 
strong  and  prompt  painful  reaction  to  such  sensations  would  develop  on 
account  of  their  beneficial  tendency  to  discontinue  or  inhibit  baneful  con- 
tact. This  explanation  would  be  more  applicable  if  it  were  the  intention 
of  nature,  not  to  ijreserve  the  worm,  but  to  piinish  it  with  severest  pain,  in 
the  very  act  of  being  burned,  swallowed,  or  crushed.  For  strong,  i^ainful 
sensations  generally  arise  too  late  to  serve  as  an  effective  warning  ;  they  are 
confusing  rather  than  helpful  to  objective  information  and  purposeful  ac- 
tion ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  by  delicate,  painless,  objective  tactile 
appai'atus  (feelers,  antennpe,  etc.)  that  the  lower  animals  are  made  capable  of 
l^reserving  themselves  and  of  proi^agating  their  kind.  Thus  this  teleology 
of  biology  is  as  unsatisfactory  in  fact  as  it  is  in  ethical  theory. 

f  0.  That,  witliin  certain  rather  wide  limits,  individuals  differ  largely  as 
to  the  estimates  they  put  upon  the  tjuanta  of  pleasure  and  pain  occasioned 
by  different  classes  of  sensations  and  ideas,  all  our  experience  teaches  us  to 
recognize.  "There  is  no  accounting  for  tastes,"  and  "concerning  tastes 
there  should  be  no  dispute."     This  is  partly  duo  to  the  fact  that  different 


PLEASURE-PAINS   OF   RELATION  199 

persons  do  actually  suffer  or  enjoy  under  very  different  conditions.  Some — 
as  we  truly  say —are  "  not  capable  "  of  suffering  as  others  are  ;  and  every  one 
is  more  capable,  relatively  (we  might  add),  of  some  kinds  of  suffering  than  of 
others.  On  the  other  hand,  psychology  must  not  overlook  the  effect  of  ideal 
aims,  not  only  upon  the  estimate  which  different  men  give  to  amounts  of 
pleasure  or  pain,  but  also,  and  chiefly,  upon  the  imjjortant  fact  whether  they 
are  greatly  "  influenced"  (not  to  say  "  governed")  by  any  merely  quantita- 
tive estimate.  So  far  as  ine7-e  amount  of  pain  is  concerned,  all  men  may 
readily  enough  agree  with  Heine:  "Psychical  pain  is  more  easily  borne 
than  physical  ;  and  if  I  had  my  choice  between  a  bad  conscience  and  a 
bad  tooth,  I  should  choose  the  former."  The  fact  here  reckoned  with  is  un- 
doubted :  ideal  pains  and  2)leasures  are  not  comparable  in  mere  intensity  icith 
sensuous  pains  and  pleasures.  The  same  fact  is  assumed  in  the  cynical 
maxim  :  "  The  chief  conditions  of  happiness  are  good  digestion  and  no  con- 
science." 

We  are  obliged,  then,  to  confess  that  neither  the  existence  nor  the  pur- 
pose of  the  definite  amounts  of  2)ain  and  pleasure  connected  with  certain 
activities  of  body  and  mind  can  be  satisfactorily  explained  by  psychology. 
In  general,  however,  when  the  intensity  of  that  unorganizable  siirplus  of 
nervous  excitement,  that  overflowing  commotion  of  the  nervous  centers 
which  is  the  physical  basis  of  feeling,  sui-passes  certain  variable  limits,  pain 
is  the  result.  It  is,  perhaps,  because  the  ideal  feelings  are  usually  supported 
by  less  of  this  "semi-chaotic  surplus,"  that  they  are  less  intense.  On  the 
other  hand,  strong  and  lasting  feelings  which  start  in  an  ideal  way  (the 
emotions  of  rage,  joy,  fear,  revenge,  chagrin,  grief,  etc.)  profoundly  affect  the 
physical  basis  of  life ;  and  they  thus  take  on  a  tone  of  pain  or  pleasure,  as 
respects  quantity,  comparable  to  sensations.  But  the  ijhysiological  prin- 
ciples which  control  here  are  very  complicated  ;  we  do  not  as  yet  know  them 
thoroughly.  And  for  any  adequate  notion  as  to  the  significance  of  pleasure 
and  pain,  and  of  the  distribution  of  their  amounts  among  the  different  bodily 
and  psychical  states,  we  must  look  to  ideal  ends  that  lie  outside  of  the  mere 
facts  of  feeling  in  themselves  considered. 

?  7.  That  certain  "feelings  of  relation  "  are  naturally  painful,  we  have 
already  had  repeated  occasion  to  remark.  Among  such,  in  their  simpler 
forms,  are  the  feelings  of  too  great  surprise,  of  monotony,  of  tedium,  of 
excitement  and  confusion  from  too  great  rapidity  of  the  mental  move- 
ment, etc.  Peculiarly  acute  is  the  painful  feeling  induced  by  the  stimula- 
tion of  sensation-complexes  that  intei-riq^t  the  smooth  flowing  of  the  current 
of  consciousness  when  it  is  full  and  strongly  set  in  a  definite  direction. 
When  we  are  giving  a  large  amount  of  discriminating  attention  to  any  par- 
ticular connected  train  of  sensations  or  ideas,  the  cerebral  and  psychical  dis- 
turbance occasioned  by  sensations  and  ideas  that  do  not  "  train  with  "  those 
which  already  absorb  us,  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  intensities  of  the 
stimuli  involved.  For  example,  if  one  is  listening  to  a  series  of  sounds,  or 
looking  intently  at  some  object,  the  feeling  of  "  distraction  "  caused  by  be- 
ing spoken  to  in  a  whisper  or  lightly  touched  amounts  to  a  sharp  physical 
pain  ;  it  may  arouse,  in  turn,  the  most  intense  irritation  and  anger.  This 
feeling  is,  in  part,  the  base  of  that  resentment  which  most  men  experience  at 
being  internipted  in  speech  or  at  having  their  opinions  denied.     The  whole 


200  FEELING,    AS   PLEASURE-PAIN 

Herbartian  doctrine  on  this  subject  amounts  to  little  more  than  this  :  the 
smooth  runinng  of  our  mental  life — the  flow  of  sensations  and  ideas  related 
so  as  to  serve  the  ideal  aim  of  apperception — is  pleasurable.'  Here  we  may 
refer  again  to  the  connection  of  these  pleasure-pains  of  related  sensation- 
and  ideation-processes  with  the  distribution  of  attention.  To  quote  from 
Dr.  Ward :  ' '  There  is  jileasure  in  proportion  as  a  maximum  of  attention  is 
effectively  exercised,  and  pain  in  i^roportion  as  such  effective  attention  is 
frustrated  by  distractions,  shocks,  or  incomplete  and  faulty  adaj^tations,  or 
fails  of  exercise,  owing  to  the  narrowness  of  the  field  of  consciousness  and 
the  slowness  and  smallness  of  its  changes."  Physiologically  considered,  we 
see  again  how  the  kind  and  amount  of  the  stimulation,  or  the  j^lace  of  its 
application  (to  conjectural  "pain-nerves"  or  "pleasure-nerves"),  has  in 
many  cases  little  to  do  with  the  resulting  amounts  of  pleasurable  or  painful 
feeling  ;  the  way  the  stimulation  fits  in  with  the  existing  cerehral  conditions,  and 
the  amount  of  "disturbance^'  it  occasions  in  the  cerebral  centers,  is  the  chief 
detervn,ining  cause  of  sensuoxis pleasure  or  pain.  These  facts  accord  with  the 
view  already  presented  of  the  nature  and  conditions  of  all  feeling. 

Activity  of  the  nervous  system  and  the  correlated  mental 
states  within  the  limits  of  intensity  which,  for  want  of  accurate 
knowledge  and  precise  formulas,  we  may  call  "  Normal,"  is 
reg-ularly  pleasurable.  Certain  facts,  however,  do  not  correspond 
with  this  rule.  There  seem  to  be  sensations  and  ideating  proc- 
esses which  must  be  considered  "  natural,"  because  they  belong 
to  all  mental  life,  that  are  accompanied  by  painful  feeling,  what- 
ever be  the  degree  of  intensity  they  attain  or  the  condition  in 
which  they  find  the  subject  when  they  arise  in  consciousness. 
Psychology,  which  considers  x:>rimarily  the  phenomena  of  the 
individual  consciousness,  as  such,  must  then  acknowledge  the 
existence  of  "  naturally  "  painful  sensations  and  ideas. 

On  the  other  hand,  excitements  of  feeling,  whose  intensity 
reaches  beyond  the  limit  of  safety  to  the  organs,  and  whose 
ethical  character  is  pronounced  against  by  an  enlightened  con- 
science, are  not  infrequently  accompanied  by  a  predominating 
tone  of  pleasure.  That  which  we  discover,  by  inference  from 
remote  and  indirect  consequences,  to  be  "  bad  "  for  the  organism 
or  morally  indefensible,  is  by  no  means  necessarily  disagreeable. 
Indeed,  complex  emotions  of  every  character,  unless  certain  sen- 
suous factors  become  too  predominating  and  intense  (and  this  is 
ordinarily  the  case  only  in  weak  or  diseased  persons)  are,  on  the 
whole,  pleasurable.  The  statement  is  as  true,  though  not  in  the 
same  way,  of  anger,  resentment,  and  vengeance,  or  of  pride,  ex- 
cessive  self -feeling  and   self- approbation,  as  of  the  finer  and 

1  Something  like  this  truth  is  expressed  by  one  writer  as  follows  :  In  sensation  the  soul's  con- 
dition changes,  and  it  must  sense  the  changes  ("  Sie  muss  empflnden  dass  sie  empfiudet"  ).  This 
"  self-sensing  "  of  the  soul  is  no  longer  mere  sensation :  but  it  \%  fcjeling  ("  Das  Innewerdcn  dieses 
eigenen  Seeleuzustandcs  ist  und  heiest  Fiihlcn  '").    Kucgg  :  Lehrbuch  d.  Peychologie,  p.  25. 


EMOTIOi^AL   PLEASURE-PAINS  201 

more  altruistic  forms  of  emotion  and  sentiment.  Hatred  and 
love,  the  feeling-  of  self-importance  and  the  feeling-  accompany- 
ing the  appreciatio}!  of  others,  are  by  no  means  necessaril}'  oppo- 
sites  when  arranged  in  the  scale  of  pleasure-pains. 

Dii!ering  degrees  of  both  pleasure  and  pain  may  attach  them- 
selves to  the  ditierent  factors  which  enter  into  all  the  more  com- 
plex forms  of  emotion  and  sentiment.  To  state  the  matter  in  an 
abstract  way,  all  elaborate  emotions  and  sentiments  generally  fur- 
nish some  7'easons  why  their  tone  should  he  one  of  pleasure,  and,  other 
reasons  why  their  tone  should  he  one  of2>ain.  They  are  mixed  in 
tone.  But  one  of  these  two  ojiposite  tones  is  likely  to  be  pre- 
dominant, and  to  give  the  characteristic  to  the  entire  complex 
experience.  The  two  opposite  tones,  as  represented  by  the  fac- 
tors Avhicli  have  them,  may  struggle  together,  as  it  were,  for 
supremacy  in  the  total  aHective  complex  ;  they  may  find  it  im- 
possible to  fuse.  The  emotion  or  sentiment  then  assumes  that 
peculiar  condition  of  vacillation  between  predominating  pleas- 
ure modified  by  pain,  and  predominating  pain  modified  by 
pleasure,  with  which  all  are  familiar.  This  entire  "class  of  expe- 
riences justifies  us  in  saying— as  a  general  rule,  which,  however, 
admits  of  certain  marked  exceptions — that  excitement  of  sensi- 
bility, as  such,  tends  to  be  pleasurable  up  to  the  limit  where 
painful  bodily  feelings,  due  to  excessive  strain  or  tension,  or 
else  disagreeable  festhetical  or  ethical  sentiments,  are  aroused 
and  maintained.  In  the  majority  of  cases  of  strong  emotions 
and  sentiments  of  whatever  character,  the  rush  and  onward 
sweep  of  feeling,  with  its  tone  of  pleasure  due  to  the  fact  that 
both  cerebral  and  psychical  excitement  is  at  a  high  pitch  of  in- 
tensity, for  a  time  overwhelms  all  painful  factors,  whether  of  a 
sensuous,  nesthetical,  or  ethical  order.  The  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion :  "  Doest  thou  well  to  be  angry  ?  "  as  sincerely  given  by  the 
subject  of  the  emotion,  regularly  comes  (so  long  as  the  anger  is 
in  full  sweep)  :  "  I  do  Avell  to  be  angry,  even  unto  death." 

?8.  "We  seem  compelled  to  admit  tlie  existence  of  "absolutely"  un- 
pleasant sensations  (i.e.,  sensations  that  are  disagreeable,  irrespective  of 
their  intensity).  This  is,  at  any  rate,  true,  so  far  as  strictly  j^sychological 
analysis  and  explanation  can  go.  Thus  M.  Beaunis '  holds  that  certain 
odors,  savors,  sounds,  and  feelings  are,  qudlitalively  considered,  always  dis- 
agreeable. The  behavior  of  infants,  on  awakening  to  the  life  of  sensation  in 
its  various  forms,  would  seem  to  indicate  this.  The  liking  for  bitter  tastes. 
for  a  considerable  number  of  odors,  for  discordant  and  grating  sounds,  and 
perhaps  for  sensations  of  contact  that  have  become  associated  in  the  experi- 
ence of  the  race  with  disgusting  or  harmful  objects — slimy  worms,  e.g. — if 

•  Les  Sensations  Internes,  p.  202  f . 


202  FEELING,    AS   PLEASDEE-PAIN 

attained  at  all,  must  be  cultivated  under  the  influence  of  favorable  associa- 
tion. 

That  many  of  the  most  primitive  forms  of  those  feelings  which  have  been 
called  ' '  feelings  of  relation  "  are  disagreeable,  irrespective  of  intensity,  has 
already  been  pointed  out. 

^  9.  In  spite  of  the  phenomena  of  "  naturally  "  disagreeable  feelings  of  a 
sensational  or  ideational  stamp,  we  may  maintain  the  general  but  not  uni- 
versal principle  that  excitement  of  sensibility,  as  such,  is  agreeable.  The 
distinction  between  the  opjDOsite  classes  of  intellectual,  sestlietical,  and  ethi- 
cal feelings  is  not  closely  connected,  even  in  the  most  primary  and  elemental 
forms  of  the  arousement  of  sensibility,  with  the  pleasure-pain  series.  A 
careful  analysis  of  any  of  the  leading  forms  of  emotion  will  show  the  truth 
of  this  statement.  Anger,  for  example,  is,  in  a  large  majority  of  instances, 
per  se,  a  pleasurable  emotion.  It  is  only  when  the  factors  of  i^ainful  feeling, 
arising  from  intense  bodily  excitement  or  introduced  on  grounds  of  habitu- 
ally observed  aesthetical  or  ethical  considerations,  become  obtrusive  as  factors 
that  the  complex  emotion  changes  tone  and  becomes  disagreeable  to  the 
subject  of  it.  Most  men  who  have  not  "  weak  "  hearts  or  "  tender  "  con- 
sciences (and  most  men  are  not  afflicted  or  endowed  with  these  hindrances  to 
pleasure)  enjoy  being  angry.  When  the  emotion  has  subsided,  the  arouse- 
ment of  sensibility  in  connection  with  reflection  upon  the  past  emotion — its 
cesthetical  and  ethical  character,  its  consequences,  etc. — is  quite  another 
affair.  Even  in  the  midst  of  the  passion,  the  painful  feeling  of  constriction 
about  the  heart,  of  laboring  resi^iration,  of  the  dangerous  rush  of  blood  to 
the  head,  may  modify  the  whole  emotion,  or  change  it  to  the  opposite  tone 
of  pain.  Even  in  the  midst  of  it  the  "voice  of  conscience,"  or  the  feeling 
of  "  good  taste  "  ^as  we  say — may  give  a  more  or  less  disagreeable  tinge  to 
our  indulgence  of  this  passion.  But  generally  there  can  be  little  doubt,  for 
the  time  being,  the  emotion  of  anger  is,  on  the  whole,  a  somewhat  highly 
agreeable  emotion. 

In  the  so-called  "  natural"  man — that  is,  the  man  previous  to  the  modi- 
fication of  his  conduct  and  feelings  under  the  influence  of  ideal  aims — the 
jjassion  of  vengeance,  whether  as  exercised  in  the  pursuit  or  in  the  punish- 
ment of  the  object  toward  which  it  is  directed,  is  a  pleasurable  feeling. 
The  savage  or  the  child  cliases  his  enemy  in  flight,  and  thrusts  him  through 
with  a  sjiear  or  beats  him  with  a  stick,  in  a  sort  of  ecstasy  of  joy.  The  con- 
flicting emotions,  with  their  characteristic  pleasure-pains,  which  are  called 
forth  in  all  kinds  of  struggle  and  contest  (on  the  field  of  battle,  in  the  prize- 
ring,  etc.),  are,  on  the  whole,  predominatingly  agreeable.  Both  victor  and 
vanquished,  as  a  rule,  share  in  the  pleasurable  excitemeut  of  feeling  which 
the  struggle  involves :  the  former  has  added  to  this  the  pleasures  of  sujierior 
strength  and  skill  belonging  to  his  triumph ;  even  the  latter,  so  long  as  the 
contest  lasts,  is  probably  in  a  predominating  state  of  hajipiness.  It  is  only 
when  the  emotional  phases  of  feeling  are  past,  and  the  influence  of  the  more 
reflective  phases,  together  with  the  revulsions  of  feeling  ordinarily  involved 
in  them,  become  i)rovalent,  that  consciousness  is  suff'used  with  a  decidedly 
painful  tone  of  feeling. 

Connected  with  this  principle  is  the  ex^ilanation  of  many  of  those  more 
startling  exhibitions  of  cruelty  which  the  history  of  crime,  and  even  careful 


RHYTHM   AND   REPETITION  203 

observation  of  the  daily  couJuct  of  children  and  of  "  iinidealized  "  human 
life  generally,  so  abundantly  reveal.  The  Indian  who  eujoijs  the  torture  of 
his  captive  enemy,  the  ''moral  monster  "  who  is  jnoud  to  have  "laughed 
with  glee  "  at  the  pains  of  his  innocent  victim,  the  child  who  takes  what  we 
are  accustomed  to  regard  as  a  "  strange  delight  "  in  pulling  off  the  wings  of 
insects  or  in  pinching  the  tail  of  a  pet  animal,  are  alike  "  natural  "  and  "  un- 
natural "  in  such  behavior.  Their  actions  may  indeed  be  influenced  by  a 
variety  of  motives  and  accomi^anied  by  a  variety  of  more  or  less  conflicting 
emotions.  The  total  result  of  the  fusion  will  be  different  in  different  cases. 
But  at  the  base  of  all  these  cases  lies  the  principle  that,  in  strung  excitement 
of  feeling  of  every  kind,  while  the  emotional  stage  endures,  the  normal  to7ieis  one 
of  pleasure  in  the  excitement.  So  far  forth  Aristotle's  concei^tion — "  The 
feeling  of  pleasure  is  linked  with  every  natural  and  normal  activity  of  mental 
life  " — is  an  understatement  of  the  truth.  Even  in  the  case  of  bodily  pleas- 
ure-pains, it  generally  implies  the  sesthetical  development  of  the  adult  to 
find: 

"  A  surfeit  of  the  sweetest  things 
The  deepest  loathing  to  the  stomach  brings." 

All  feelings,  as  such,  but  especially  as  "  Pleasure-pains,"  are 
subject  to  tlie  laws  of  Khythm  and  Kepetition.  The  ground  for 
both  of  these  laws  is  found  in  the  most  fundamental  conditions 
of  the  life  and  activity  of  the  nervous  system  itself.  AVe  have 
already  seen  that  pleasurable  and  painful  feelings  depend 
largely  upon  those  changes  of  vital  condition  and  action  which 
take  place  in  the  nervous  end-organs  as  related  to  intensities  of 
stimuli,  but,  more  especially,  in  the  cerebral  organs  which  re- 
ceive and  modify  the  nerve-commotions  excited  by  these  stimuli. 
Both  repetition  and  rhythm  have  much  to  do  with  such  vital 
condition  and  action.  The  energy  of  the  nervous  system  is 
limited  :  it  is  exhausted  by  too  frequent  demands  made  upon  it, 
especially  to  energize  in  the  same  way  within  the  same  nervous 
centers ;  it  is  somewhat  rhjH^hmically  repaired,  and  then  again 
exhausted.  The  intermittent  character  of  the  simplest  and  most 
primary  pleasures  and  pains  is  apparent  in  the  behavior  of  the 
infant ;  it  is  illustrated  by  our  experience  throughout  all  adult 
life.  Connected  with  this  we  find  the  tendency  to  pass  quickly, 
and  perhaps  with  an  uncontrollable  impulse,  from  one  form  of 
emotion  to  its  opposite.  "  That  extremes  meet,"  says  Hotfding, 
"  is  nowhere  better  exemplified  than  in  the  life  of  feeling,  where 
the  sharpest  and  most  important  contrasts  are  indigenous."  In 
spite  of  the  tendency  of  so-called  "  disposition  "  and  of  habit,  to 
give  steadiness  to  the  life  of  emotion  and  sentiment,  and  in  spite 
of  all  the  equipment  and  skill  which  the  most  highly  elaborate 
civilization  and  the  most  careful  education  provide,  pleasure  and 
pain  continue  to  characterize  all  human  life  as  the  accompani- 


204  FEELllSTG,    AS   PLEASURE-PAIN 

ments  of  the  most  various  forms  of  feeling-.  The  "  laughter  amid 
tears,"  which  Homer  describes  in  Andromache,  becomes  more 
descriptive  of  all  comialex  affective  phenomena  as  the  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  and  of  the  race  g-ocs  on.  Simple,  unmixed, 
and  frequently  repeated  similar  pleasures  or  pains  belong-  to 
the  relatively  naive  and  childish  stages  of  evolution.  How  all 
modern  art,  especially  music  and  the  drama,  illustrates  this 
truth,  will  appear  more  clearly  later  on. 

In  its  effect  upon  the  life  of  mind,  considered  as  so-called 
intellect  and  will,  repetition  seems  subject  to  laws  which  admit 
of  a  tolerably  definite  determination.  In  reaction-time,  as  in- 
fluenced by  fatigue  and  by  habit,  we  have  means  for  examining 
experimentally,  within  certain  limits,  this  effect.  The  effect  of 
repetition  upon  our  elementary  bodily  pleasures  and  pains  may 
be  examined  in  the  same  way;  but  the  examination  does  not 
yield  equally  satisfactory  results.  In  trying  to  deal  with  the  in- 
fluence of  repetition  upon  all  the  higher  and  more  complex  forms 
of  feeling,  we  speedily  become  lost  in  the  intricacies  of  our  prob- 
lem.    Here  each  individual  aiipears  to  be  a  law  to  himself. 

In  general,  however,  the  effect  of  repetition  upon  feeling 
differs,  in  important  particulars,  from  its  effect  upon  intellection 
and  volition.  "Mind"  and  "will" — in  the  narrower  meanings 
of  these  terms — can  be  trained,  by  being  made  to  repeat  the  func- 
tions belonging  to  them  as  faculties,  in  an  orderly  and  calculable 
way.  Feeling  also  is  subject  to  control  and  modification  through 
its  dependence  upon  the  functions  of  intellection  and  volition. 
But  the  immediate  effect  of  repetition  upon  affective  phenomena 
is  by  no  means  calculable.  Such  a  difterence  is  partly  due  to 
the  diftering  effect  of  attention  in  the  two  classes  of  cases.  By 
repeated  discriminating  attention  our  sensations  and  ideas,  as 
respects  their  objective  reference,  are  made  clearer  and  stronger ; 
fatigue  l)ecomes  less,  and  the  chances  of  a  revulsion,  or  breaking 
away  from  habit,  are  diminished.  But  such  attention  itself  tends 
to  destroy,  or  greatly  to  modify,  many  of  our  most  characteristic 
feelings  with  their  tone  of  pleasure  or  of  pain.  The  exhausting 
character  of  the  emotions,  as  such,  also  influences  the  eftect  of 
repetition  ;  a  frequent  indulgence,  or  a  second  indulgence  com- 
ing too  soon  after  a  first  indulgence  of  any  passion  or  sentiment, 
is  apt  to  have  a  painful  tone  ;  it  is  apt  also  to  be  followed  by  re- 
vulsion to  an  op]iosite  phase  of  the  affective  life.  The  necessity 
of  reckoning  with  this  freaky  and  changeful  cliaracter  of  the 
feelings  occasions  much  uncertainty  and  dilHcidty  for  education, 
for  economic  and  social  measures,  and  for  all  our  dealings  with 
one  another  and  with  ourselves  as  i^sychical  beings.     AVere  it 


OSCILLATION   OF   FEELING  205 

not  ioY  fee/i/iff,  we  could  talk  more  confidently  of  "  laws  "  of  all 
psycliical  life ;  we  could  judge  more  exactly  when  similar  states 
of  such  life  would  recur,  and  what  would  be  the  gross  effect  of 
repeating"  similar  forms  of  stimuli,  and  of  securing  recurrent 
like  conditions  of  environment. 


^  10.  Oscillation  between  bodily  pleasures  and  i^ains,  obscurely  connected 
with  i;nlocalized  and  uninterpreted  sensations,  is  probably  characteristic  of 
the  earliest  psychical  life  of  the  infant.  The  affective  element  or  aspect  of 
consciousness  (the  "state  of  being"  in  which  the  subject  t.s)  undoubtedly 
is  at  first  far  more  absorbing  of  psychic  energy,  as  it  were,  than  the  intel- 
lectually discriminated  objective  aspect  (the  sensation  which  the  subject 
has).  Judging  by  all  the  signs,  the  two  tones  of  pleasure  and  pain  belong 
to  the  earliest  experience  in  every  case.  In  being  born,  and  bathed,  and 
subjected  to  all  the  first  assaults  of  nature  upon  its  various  end-organs  of 
sense,  as  well  as  in  learning  to  digest  its  food,  to  use  its  limbs,  to  gratify  or 
express  its  wants,  etc.,  the  child  is  kept  alternating  between  pleasure  and 
pain.  It  is,  indeed,  out  of  these  primitive  pleasure-pains,  by  influence  from 
associated  sensations  and  ideas,  that  the  later  more  complex  life  of  feeling- 
is  developed.  [For  example,  anger  develops  through  aversion  to  objects 
which  are  connected  with  painful  sensations ;  affection  for  the  nurse  or 
mother  is  cradled  in  the  pleasure  due  to  warmth  of  the  protecting  arms  or 
to  the  softness  of  the  cheek  or  breast  while  held  in  contact.  Impulses  and 
desires  are  evolved  in  variety  as  the  associations  of  pleasure-pains  with  dif- 
forent  activities  and  ends  become  differentiated.] 

Feelings  are  not  only  recurrent,  like  all  other  psychic  phenomena,  be- 
cause they  occur  in  time-form  ;  but  they  are  also  esi^ecially  subject  to  jDecuIiar 
forms  of  rhythmic  change.  In  the  case  of  those  "mixed  "  feelings,  where 
agreeable  and  disagreeable  factors  are  both  present,  the  action  of  discriminat- 
ing attention  may  result  in  an  oscillation  between  pleasure  and  pain.  This 
experience  is  had  in  an  interesting  way  when  we  are  trying  to  determine 
whether  we  like  a  certain  sensation-comiDlex  of  color,  taste,  smell,  sound, 
etc.,  or  not.  Feelings  of  comfort  or  discomfort  often  recur  in  a  somewhat 
rhythmic  way  ;  or  feeling  may  alternate  between  its  two  opposite  tones  in 
dependence  on  recurrent  sensations  or  ideas.  This  is  particularly  marked 
in  respect  of  some  of  the  various  forms  of  vital  feeling.  The  periodic  vital 
action  of  the  nerves  also  manifests  itself  in  periodic  changes  in  the  intensity 
of  feeling.  None  of  our  pleasure-pains  remain  at  a  perfectly  uniform  ten- 
sion, as  it  were.  They  rise  and  fall  in  a  more  or  less  rhythmic  way,  with 
(at  least)  what  has  been  called  "  an  irregular  periodicity."  This  alternate 
swing  of  the  pendulum  may  carry  the  tone  of  affective  consciousness  back 
and  forth  over  the  lino  of  indifference  ;  feeling  is  then  agreeable  in  one 
instant  and  disagreeable  the  next.  The  relative  cessation  of  severe  pains 
may  be  felt  as  pleasiu-e  in  a  state  where,  by  still  longer  contimiance,  the 
same  bodily  or  psychic  processes  become  again  the  occasion  of  pain.  One 
may  even  be  pleased  with  one's  toothache  just  now,  if  it  is  much  less  acute 
than  it  was  an  instant  ago ;  but  to  have  it  continue  without  further  change 
would  be  not  only  uninteresting  and  monotonous,  but  unbearable  pain. 


206  FEELING,    AS   PLEASURE-PAIN 

More  interesting  still,  i^sycliologically  considered,  are  those  alternations 
of  feeling  in  which  the  passage  is  made  from  one  complex  sentiment  or 
emotion,  with  its  characteristic  tone  of  i:>leasure  or  pain,  to  the  so-called 
opposite  sentiment  or  emotion.  The  liability  to  this  in  many  forms  of 
strong  feeling  is  recognized  both  in  polite  literature  and  in  popular  maxims. 
Hence  the  exhortations  of  poets  and  moralists  not  to  love  too  violently,  lest 
hate  or  at  least  distaste  should  follow  ;  not  to  hope  beyond  measure,  if  we 
would  not  fall  over  into  dread  or  despair  ;  not  to  enjoy  anything  in  excess, 
unless  we  are  willing  to  find  it  jDarticularly  loathsome  thereby  ;  not  to  revere 
and  admire  immoderately,  for  fear  of  coming  unjustly  to  contemn  and 
despise.  In  this  respect  all  exijerience  teaches  us  how  much  more  stead- 
fast and  trustworthy  (calculable)  are  some  disijositions  than  others.  Yet 
the  general  and  time-honored  impression,  that  no  one  can  "  sustain  "  any 
one  form  of  emotion  or  sentiment  without  risking  a  movement  toward  its 
opposite,  is  founded  upon  a  vast  amount  of  experience.  The  physiological 
basis  for  this  kind  of  alternation  in  the  life  of  feeling  is  obscure.  Only  in  a 
very  limited  way  can  we  claim  that  the  nervous  system  is  "  rested  "  after 
exhaustion  by  one  emotion  with  excitement  in  the  ojjposite  way ;  for  ap- 
parently all  strong  emotions  alike  involve  an  exhausting  excitement  of  the 
same  nervous  centers.  It  may  be  said,  however,  that  this  general  condition 
of  great  excitability,  this  hyper-agitation  of  the  neural  elements,  which 
strong  feeling  requires,  is  a  preparation  for  its  own  continuance.  Any  small 
change  in  the  character  of  the  stimulus  finds  the  whole  body  of  neural 
material  in  an  explosive  condition.  But  here  the  psychological  explana- 
tion is  much  more  obvious  and  satisfactory.  The  love  of  variety,  the  dislike 
of  monotony  (and  so  the  pleasure  which  new  emotional  excitement  of  any 
kind  tends  to  produce),  the  influence  of  intellectual,  jesthetical,  and  ethical 
considerations  (which  are  either  designedly  or  unexi^ectedly  evoked  to 
"  turn  the  tide,"  as  we  say),  account  for  much  of  our  experience  here.  But, 
after  all,  it  seems  necessary  to  admit  a  sort  of  unexplained  and  "natural" 
tendency  of  all  forms  of  feeling,  especially  when  somewhat  strongly  aroused, 
to  i^ass  over  into  their  opposite.  The  principle  of  "  rhythmic  movement  "  is, 
then,  one  of  a  \evj  extended  although  somewhat  uncertain  application. 

I  11.  Besides  the  naturally  rhythmic  character  of  the  occurrence  of  all 
feelings,  with  their  tone  of  pleasure  or  pain,  it  should  be  noted  that  certain 
characteristic  pleasures  belong  to  the  consciousness  of  rhythm  itself. 
Periodically  recurrent  agreeable  sensations  and  ideas  have  their  pleasurable 
tone  heightened  by  the  feeling  of  their  periodicity  ;  slight  pains,  and  even 
to  some  extent  pains  of  great  intensity,  are  made  less  disagreeable  if  they  are 
felt  rhythmically.  Such  pleasures  of  rhythm  are  particularly  noticeable  in 
the  exercise  of  the  muscles  and  in  the  excitement  of  skin-sensations — with 
the  quickening  of  circulation,  and  the  grasji,  loosening,  and  renewed  grasp 
of  attention  \\\^o\\  the  sensations  and  ideas  occasioned  by  these  bodily  proc- 
esses. The  pleasures  of  dancing,  marching,  swaying  the  body  or  moving  any 
of  its  members  rhythmically  to  and  fro,  are  largely  of  this  order.  Tlie  sing- 
ing of  children  as  they  trip  along,  the  periodic  musical  grunting  of  sailors  as 
they  lift  anchor,  the  mark-time  of  the  coolies,  or  the  pleasant  wailing  of  the 
workmen  as  they  drive  piles,  or  handle  timbers,  in  Japan,  not  only  serve  to 
guide  the  rhythm  of  movement  and  lighten  the  burden  of  the  individual. 


EFFECT   OF   REPETITION  207 

but  also  to  express  the  satisfaction  which  the  rhythmic  movement  itself  oc- 
casions. The  pains  of  muscular  fatigue,  abraded  skin,  and  wearied  organs 
of  sense  are  lightened  or  even  submerged  by  these  pleasures  of  rhythm. 
The  agreeable  feelings  produced  by  hearing  the  reading  of  poetry  or  the  in- 
toning of  services  in  unknown  languages,  or  by  periodically  recurrent  natural 
sounds  (that,  taken  singly,  are  not  interesting),  belong  in  the  same  class. 
Every  listener  feels  the  pleasure  with  which  the  periodic  recurrence  of  the 
air  is  welcomed  in  certain  species  of  musical  comiDositiou.  Akin  to  this  is  the 
agreeable  feeling  with  which  we  regard  regularly  recurring  figures  in  orna- 
mentation as  the  eye  meets  them  when  sweeping  over  its  easier  lines  of 
movement.  Not  even  the  pleasures  of  novelty,  or  the  pains  of  monotony,  can 
make  us  unaware  of  something  not  wholly  to  be  approved  of,  when  one  or 
more  unrhythmic  numbers  intervene  in  our  rhythmic  series.  In  the  higher 
realms  of  ideation  and  of  sesthetical  approbation  other  considerations  sup- 
press, in  large  measure,  these  jDotent  pleasures  of  rhythm  ;  yet  even  in  these 
realms  their  presence  and  power  can  generally  be  detected  by  a  little  careful 
analysis. 

"  How  sour  sweet  music  is, 
When  time  is  broke,  and  no  proportion  kept." 

^  12.  It  has  already  been  said  that  the  effect  of  repetUlon  upon  feeling, 
and  upon  its  tone  of  pleasure  or  pain,  does  not  follow  the  same  laws  as  those 
which  express  our  experience  in  the  realm  of  cognition  and  will.  Indeed, 
the  very  nature  of  our  feelings  as  pleasure-pains  is  such  that  the  iise  of  the 
•word  "  law "  can  be  allowed  only  cum  grano  sails  for  the  individual  cases. 
Experiment  in  the  psychological  laboratory  shows,  for  example,  that  while 
accommodation  of  the  eye  for  perception  from  short  to  long  distances  im- 
proves qiiickly  by  practice,  and  retains  through  a  long  series  of  exiieiiments 
the  benefits  of  practice  (in  spite  of  increasing  pain),  the  accompanying  pain- 
ful feeling  caused  by  the  repetition  may  grow  in  intensity  until  it  becomes 
unbearable.  Hypnotic  subjects  can  rejieat  the  volitions  necessary  to  keep  an 
arm  rigidly  held  out  for  an  incredibly  long  time  :  not  because  they  have 
more  muscular  strength  or  so-called  strength  of  will  than  normal  persons, 
but  because  they  do  not  feel  the  resulting  pains.  In  general,  the  somewhat 
rapid  repetition  of  bodily  pains  of  moderate  intensity  causes  a  cumulative 
effect  in  unbearable  anguish,  rather  than  a  softening  of  their  intensity  under 
the  law  of  habit.  This  is  doubtless  due  to  the  spreading  of  that  "confu- 
sion "  of  the  neural  activities,  over  wider  areas  and  with  a  growing  intensity, 
in  which  the  painful  character  of  the  physiological  condition  consists. 

Repeated  iiloasurable  sensations  of  a  low  degree  of  intensity  often  accu- 
mulate an  agreeable  tone  by  the  repetition  itself.  In  the  j^leasures  of  being 
gently  stroked,  of  having  the  hair  combed,  of  being  soothed  with  humming 
bees  or  murmuring  waters,  of  rolling  sweet  morsels  under  the  tongue,  or  of 
being  fanned  with  cooling  breezes,  this  princijile  of  "summation"  of  feel- 
ing cooperates  with  that  of  rhythmic  movement.  But  "  jerky,  irregular  suc- 
cessions "  of  weak  and  otherwise  pleasant  stimuli  are  very  disagreeable. 

On  the  other  hand,  feelings  which  have  a  strong  tone  of  pleasure  or  pain 
are  usually  dulled  by  frequent  repetition.  Pleasurable  feelings  may  thus  be- 
come less  and  less  pleasurable  ;  and  bodily  and  mental  acti\'ities  of  an  intense 


208  FEELING,    AS   PLEASURE-PAIN 

character,  which  when  occasionally  exercised  are  highly  jileasurable,  may  on 
repetition  become  painful.  It  is  one  of  the  recognized  safeguards  and  reliefs 
of  snft'ering  humanity  that  the  sensibility  is  dulled,  and  the  subject  rendered 
less  impressible  by  the  frequent  recurrence  of  strong  bodily  or  mental  pains. 
This  principle,  which  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  "  decay  of  feeling,"  un- 
der the  influence  of  "  accommodation  "  and  habit  is,  however,  far  less  sim- 
ple and  universal  in  its  aijplication  than  is  generally  supposed.  It  is  doubt- 
less based  upon  two  physiological  laws  :  (1)  severe  j^ain  exhausts  or  devital- 
izes the  nerve-centers  and  renders  them  less  capable  of  strong  reactions  ;  (2) 
the  nervous  elements  and  the  entire  nervous  system  adjust  or  "  accommo- 
date "  themselves  to  habitual  forms  of  excitation,  however  j^ainful  and  in- 
jurious such  forms  may  be.  But  these  very  physiological  laws  recall  our 
attention  to  the  basic  fact  that  ' '  feeling  "  expresses  the  most  individual  es- 
sence of  the  neural  and  psychical  life.  It  is  / — without  any  objective  refer- 
ence whatever — wlio  suffer  and  enjoy;  my  pleasures  and  my  pains  express  for 
the  time  being,  what  state  I  am  in. 

In  accordance  with  what  has  just  been  said,  the  effect  of  repetition  upon 
feeling  varies  greatly  in  different  persons,  according  to  temperament,  habits, 
and  ideal  aims.  With  some  persons  the  same  repeated  sensations  or  ideas 
are,  on  account  of  the  repetition,  disagreeable,  because  they  awaken  feelings 
of  monotony  and  painful  craving  of  change;  while  new  sensations  and  ideas 
(even  those  that,  in  themselves,  are  somewhat  intensely  disagreeable)  because 
they  are  new,  are  invested  with  interest  and  felt  as  a  jDleasurable  change. 
With  others,  however,  nothing  is  more  disagreeable  than  to  be  compelled  to 
see,  hear,  smell,  taste,  touch,  or  think  about  anything  which  is  not  already 
quite  familiar.  The  pleasure-pains  of  such  are  eminently  conservative. 
Their  pleasures  are  the  mild  jileasures  bred  of  familiarity  ;  their  jiains  are 
chiefly  the  negative  pains  of  "  missing  "  some  sensation  or  idea  from  their 
daily  round.  If  others  agree  with  Charles  Lamb  in  highly  estimating  the 
pleasures  of  first  landing  in  a  foreign  country,  they  are  more  than  content 
with  the  pleasures  of  always  abiding  in  the  ancestral  home.  To  all  music- 
lovers,  in  certain  moods  "the  fascinating  minor  moiiotonous  themes  of  the 
West  Indian  strains,"  which  Gottschalk  used  to  play,  are  more  agreeable 
than  are  more  varied  themes. 

It  is  only  in  the  case  of  the  more  ideal  feelings,  the  i)leasure-]iains  of  our 
higher  intellectual,  sesthetical,  and  ethical  life,  that  the  effect  of  repetition 
can  be  reckoned  with  somewhat  accurately.  It  is  here  that  we  can  most 
confidently  employ  repetition  for  the  training  of  the  affective  field  of  con- 
sciousness. In  repeating  the  more  mild  and  complex  pleasures  of  this  kind 
we  are  more  sure  to  acquire  a  "taste"  for  them.  And  hero  taste  once 
acquired  may  develop  into  an  absorbing  passion,  whose  very  nature  is  such 
that  it  permanently  conti'ols  the  entire  disijosition  and  conduct,  and  makes 
possible  the  welcome  of  frequently  repeated  affective  phenomena  of  a  high 
degree  of  intensity.  The  reverse  of  this  process  is  that  progressive  triumph 
over  the  deterrent  and  enslaving  power  of  pain  which  is  brought  about  by 
the  pursuit  of  ideal  aims. 

All  our  Feelin^-s,  with  tlieir  tone  of  pleasure  or  pain,  come 
under  the  two  principles   of  Diffusion  and  Association.     The 


DIFFUSION    AND   ASSOCIATION  209 

pliysiological  preconditions  of  feeling  arc  such  that  they  tend 
to  ditiuse  themselves  more  and  more  widely,  as  the  stimulation 
which  occasions  them  is  continued.  Every  state  of  predoininat- 
hujly pleasurcibU  or pah^ful  eviotion  tends  to  involve  the  tchole  area 
of  the  brain,  and  to  influence  a  larger  7iujnber  of  the  outlying 
organs  througli  the  sup?'C7ne  control  which  this  central  organ  has  over 
(dl  the  bodily  functions.  Even  our  intellectual  and  volitional 
processes  are  "felt"  as  having"  a  reactionary  influence  on  the 
organs  of  sense,  and  on  those  internal  organs  whose  condition 
and  functions  determine  so  largely  the  basis  of  bodily  feeling, 
of  disposition,  mood,  etc. 

In  order  to  describe  and  explain  the  influence  of  "  association  " 
(in  the  more  precise  use  of  the  word)  upon  feeling,  it  is  first  neces- 
sary to  consider  how,  and  how  far,  aflective  phenomena  admit  of 
being  ideated  ;  and  w'hat  are  the  connections  maintained  between 
these  x>lienomena  and  those  of  cognition  and  volition.  This 
subject  will  be  examined  later  on.  But  we  now  employ  the 
term  "  association  "  in  a  vaguer,  less  correct,  and  yet  indispen- 
sable way.  Many  of  our  apparently  most  fundamental  pleasure- 
pains  have  become  connected  with  sensations  and  ideas  by  proc- 
esses of  "  fusion  "  or  primary  association.  The  connection  has 
indeed  become  lost  out  of  consciousness  ;  it  was,  nevertheless, 
however  "  natural  "  it  now  appears,  originally  established  by 
some  particular  associative  activity.  Thus,  not  a  few  tastes, 
smells,  sounds,  and  skin-sensations,  are  immediately  felt  as 
pleasurable  or  painful,  with  various  degrees  of  intensity  (either 
lower  or  higher),  because  of  some  forgotten  experience.  The  in- 
fant's taste  for  sweet,  for  example,  may  be  largely  acquired  by 
connection  with  the  mixed  pleasures  of  being  nursed  on  milk  of 
a  delicately  saccharine  flavor.  We  find  certain  simple  curves 
and  figures  pleasant,  or  ugly,  without  recognition  of  the  fact 
that  this  is  due  to  the  slightly  agreeable  or  disagreeable  muscu- 
lar sensations  evolved  by  mastering  them  with  a  moving  point 
of  regard.  Long  before  we  are  capable  of  making  our  owti 
pleasure-pains  data  of  self-knowledge,  these  processes  of  difiu- 
sion  and  fusion  have  operated  to  complicate  even  the  more 
primitive  forms  of  conscious  affective  phenomena. 

?  13.  The  amount  of  wide-spveading  feeling  which  some  sensations  of  a 
low  degree  of  intensity  occasion  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  immediate 
excitatoiy  effect.  The  nausea  which  follows  certain  slight  disagreeable 
tastes  and  smells,  the  general  depression  which  small  disappointments  or  re- 
buttals often  occasion,  the  effect  on  the  whole  tone  of  our  experience 
wrought  by  aromatic  flavors  or  by  stimiilation  from  ammonia  or  eau  de 
cologne,  the  con-\Tilsious  of  mirth  caused  by  tickling  or  by  small  bits  of 
14 


210  FEELITTG,    AS   PLEASURE-PAIlSr 

grotesque  imagery,  etc.,  arc  instances  of  this  truth.  Such  effects  are  cTouot- 
less  due  to  what  Mr.  Sully '  has  called  "  organic  consensus."  But  this 
phrase  only  exijresses  the  general  fact  that  the  entire  nervous  mechanism 
acts  as  a  unity  of  molecular  mechanisms  ;  it  cannot  suffer  neural  commotion 
in  one  part  without  being  affected  throughout.  To  this  vague  general  state- 
ment it  must  be  added  that,  since  a  "  semi-chaotic  surj^lusage  "  of  neural 
excitation  is  characteristic  of  feeling,  the  rapid  and  wide  diffusion  of  this 
kind  of  excitation  is  a  resulting  characteristic.  A  little  pain  or  pleasure 
felt,  "  disturbs  "  the  neural  mechanism  in  a  more  expansive  way  than  a  large 
amount  of  sensation  or  ideation  with  no  marked  characteristic  tone  of  feel- 
ing. 

Strong  emotions  and  passions,  where  the  whole  organism  is  robust  and 
healthy,  may  even  exercise  a  purgative  and  sanitary  influence.  Vigorous 
Martin  Luther  tells  us  of  the  i^hysical  benefit  he  received  from  sometimes 
"getting  mad  "  to  the  very  core  of  his  being.  The  passions  of  love,  ambition, 
devotion  to  art,  etc. ,  not  infrequently  raise  to  a  higher  condition  of  function 
all  the  neural  and  psychic  energies  of  the  man  who  yields  to  them. 

§  14.  "We  have  already  had  occasion  to  note  how  the  simpler  factors  of 
psychic  states  become  fused  and  modified  by  the  development  of  function,  in 
the  case  of  the  "  sensation-complexes."  This  fusion  and  absorption  of  the 
single  factors  into  one  complex  resultant  lies  far  below  all  "association  of 
ideas  "  properly  so  called.  It  is  indeed,  an  important  basis  of  all  intellect- 
ual development ;  inasmuch  as  assimilation  and  discrimination  must  go 
hand  in  hand  in  the  evolution  of  mental  life.  Popular  language  notes  the 
application  of  this  jirinciple  to  feeling  when  it  tells  of  "  being  attracted  "  or 
"  repelled  "  without  knowing  why  ;  of  "  some-how-or-other  "  liking  this  and 
disliking  that.  The  i^erson  who,  on  first  trial,  pronounces  against  the  taste 
of  olives,  may  have  to  be  told  that  perhaps  this  is  because  they  "suggest" 
the  taste  of  leather.  All  colors,  when  iminfluenced  by  association  and  con- 
trast, are  probably  to  be  regarded  as  i^leasant,  if  not  too  intense  ;  b;it  to 
most  persons  certain  colors  seem  "  naturally  "  disagreeable. 

The  use  of  tlie  word  "  association  "  indicates  liow  far  from 
what  is  truly  simi^le  and  iDrimitive  in  the  life  of  feeling*  we  have 
already  departed.  TVe  must  therefore  now  turn  to  the  consider- 
ation of  other  elementary  forms  of  mental  processes  in  order  that 
we  may  understand  the  higher  forms  of  affective  phenomena. 

[Among  the  recent  general  works  on  psychology  accessible  in  English,  the  treatment 
of  feeling  is  most  satisfactory  in  the  following  three  :  Hoft'ding,  pp.  2:il-;i07.  Sully  :  The 
Human  Mind,  II.,  pp.  1-171.  Baldwin:  Feeling  and  Will,  pp.  8U-379.  For  the  psychol- 
ogy of  bodily  pleasures  and  pains — see  Bain:  The  Emotions  and  Will,  pp.  l-fiS.  Spencer: 
Principles  of  Psychology,  I.,  §  123  f.,  and  Marshall,  articles  in  Mind,  Ixiii.  and  Ixiv.  Spe- 
cial monographs  of  value  are  Beaunis  :  Les  Sensations  internes.  Bouillicr  :  Du  Plaisir  et 
de  la  Douleur.  Kiirncr :  Das  Kfirperliche  Gof  iihl.  Kiilpc  :  Zur  Thcorie  d.  sinnlichen 
Gefiihle.  Horwicz:  Zur  Natnrgeschichte  d.  Gofiihle.  Braubach  :  Psychologic  d.  Gefiihlcs. 
Von  Ehrenfels:  Fiihlen  n.  Wollen.  Nichols:  The  Origin  of  Pleasure  and  Pain.  Paulhan  : 
Lea  Ph(''n()menes  aflVctifs,  etc.  Jnngniann  :  Das  Gcmiith,  etc.  Nitsche :  Vcrsuch  einer 
einheitlichen  Lehre  von  d.  Gefiihlen  (especially  comjiact  and  sngijcstive).  Steinitzer  : 
Gemiithsbcwegungen.  Lctourneau  :  Physiologic  dcs  Passions.  Lchmaun  :  Die  Haupt- 
gesetze  d.  menschl.  Gefiihlslcbens.] 

'  The  Human  Mind,  II.,  p.  3C  f. 


CHAPTER  XI. 
CONATION  AND  MOVEMENT 

There  is  obvious  need  of  a  M-ord  which  shall  stand  for  that 
third  aspect  of,  or  factor  in,  all  psychic  facts  which  is  neither 
sensation  or  ideation  with  their  objective  reference,  nor  feeling 
regarded  as  passive  condition  of  being.  This  need  is  not  satis- 
factorily met  by  the  word  "Will."  For,  first,  this  term  is  sur- 
rounded by  ethical  and  theological  prejudices  from  which  it  is 
difficult  to  free  it;  accordingly  it  is  ill  adapted  to  designate 
such  a  primitive  psychical  phenomenon.  But,  second,  in  reality 
the  will  is  a  development  conditioned  u^oon  a  course  of  varied 
experiences.  For  these  reasons  we  have  already  chosen  the 
word  "  conation,"  to  correlate  with  sensation  and  feeling,  in  the 
most  fundamental  use  of  the  latter  terms. 

Here  again  that  must  be  said  of  conation,  as  such,  which  has 
been  found  to  be  true  of  sensation  and  feeling.  Conation,  con- 
sidered as  simply  this  and  nothing  more  (without  reference  to 
the  guidance  of  discriminative  consciousness  for  the  reception 
or  rejection  of  some  objective  element  and  without  motif  from 
the  spur  of  feeling  (or  coloring  from  its  tone)  is  an  abstraction 
of  psychological  science.  Consciousness  gives  no  experience  of 
simple  unmixed  conation. )  Closely  connected  with  this  similarity 
of  the  three  fundamental  forms  of  all  psychic  life,  an  important 
contrast  emerges  to  view  when  we  compare  conation  with  sensa- 
tion and  feeling.  We  have  been  led  to  distinguish  Jcinds  of 
sensation  and  feeling ;  but  psychic  facts,  so  long  as  they  are 
considered  simply  in  their  conative  aspect,  have  only  one  kind. 
The  most  radical  distinction  which  can  be  made  among  dif- 
ferent primary  conations  applies  rather  to  the  connected  phe- 
nomena of  presentation  and  feeling  than  to  the  conations  them- 
selves. The  differences  belong  only  to  the  occasions  on  which, 
or  the  circumstances  under  which,  the  different  conative  phe- 
nomena manifest  themselves.  As  such,  there  is  only  one  sort  of 
conation. 

The  psychology  of  conation,  considered  as  a  primitive  proc- 


212  CONATION   AND   MOVEMENT 

ess  iu  mental  life,  is,  therefore,  of  necessity,  very  meagre.  Here 
science  can  do  little  more  than  to  notice  the  universal  psychic 
fact,  conjecture  its  physiological  conditions,  and  point  out  its 
place  and  connections  in  the  scheme  of  fundamental  motor  ac- 
tivities. It  is  only  when  intelligent  grasp  and  afiective  appre- 
ciation of  ideal  aims  (in  the  most  general  meaning  of  the  word 
"  ideal ")  have  developed,  that  psychology  can  return  to  the 
conative  aspect  of  all.  josychic  facts  and  establish  a  doctrine  of 
the  development  of  will  and  character. 

None  the  less  is  it  true,  however,  that  the  presence  of  the 
aspect,  or  factor,  of  "  conation "  must  be  recognized  in  all 
psychic  facts,  and  iu  all  development  of  psychic  faculty.  To  be 
the  subject  of  any  iDsychosis  is  always — to  speak  roughly — to  be 
doing  something.  Every  sensation  and  idea,  every  phase  of 
changeful  feeling  may  be  said  (with  no  immeaning  figure  of 
speech)  to  furnish  the  soul  with  a  challenge  to  arouse  itself  and 
"  act  out  its  own  nature,"  "  or  express  its  will."  Nay,  more  :  so 
far  as  we  can  obtain  evidence  concerning  the  very  beginnings 
of  mental  life,  coetaneous  with  the  first  having  of  sensations  and 
the  most  primitive  experience  of  being  affected  with  pleasurable 
or  painful  feeling,  spontaneity  of  active  consciousness,  psychical 
doing  and  striving,  may  be  discerned.  Speaking  broadlj^  and 
using  terms  whose  meaning  and  justification  will  be  considered 
later  on,  we  may  say  :(We  never  know  nor  feel,  that  we  do  not 
also  will.  I  Conation  (or  volition)  enters  into  all  perception, 
memory,  imagination,  thought.  No  state  of  suffering  or  happi- 
ness is  so  passive  or  so  "  overwhelming  "  that  it  is  not,  bj'  the 
conative  activity  which  accompanies  all  conscious  life,  accepted 
or  striven  against,  and  thus  modified  by  that  spontaneity  of 
action  which  belongs  to  the  nature  of  the  subject  of  this  life. 

Conation  is  uniformly  connected  with  two  most  important 
classes  of  effects  :  These  are  (1)  the  movements  of  the  bodily 
members  ;  and  (2)  the  determination  of  the  direction  and  amomit 
of  attention — the  fixation  and  distribution  of  psychic  energy  iu 
the  so-called  field  of  consciousness.  To  test  these  statements,  let 
one  ask  one's  self  this  question :  Besides  "  having  "  a  great  va- 
-I'iety  of  sensations  and  ideas,  and  "  being  affected  "  with  manifold 
changing  feeling —  What  can  I  do  ?  The  naive  answer  to  this 
question  will  be  found  to  resolve  itself  into  claims  corresponding 
to  such  statements  as  follows  :  "  I  can  make  certain  bodily  move- 
ments as  I  vMl ; "  and,  "  I  can  attend,  within  certain  limits, 
to  v;liat  I  will."  Scientific  psychology  refines,  explains,  and 
circumscril^es  these  statements  by  analyzing  the  psychic  facts 
to  which  they  appeal,  and  by  specifying  the  organic  conditions 


ATTENTION   AS   CONATION  213 

on  the  basis  of  which  these  facts  occur ;  but  the  import  of  the 
statemeuts  remaius  essentially  unchanged  under  all  scientific 
examination. 

Bodily  movement  and  the  fixation  and  distribution  of  atten- 
tion, however,  are  themselves  most  closely  interrelated  and  mu- 
tually dependent.  This  important  truth  is  not  sufficiently  recog- 
nized in  au}^  merely  popular  estimate.  Indeed,  if  we  include,  on 
the  motor  side,  all  so-called  "  automatic  "  excitation  of  the  cere- 
bral motor  elements,  and  all  inchoate  movements  and  tendencies 
to  movement,  or  conditions  of  "  tension  "  and  "  strain  "  in  the 
external  motor  apparatus,  it  may  be  claimed  that  attention  and 
movement  are  probably  always  correlated.  It  has  already  been 
found  that  acts  of  primary  attention  are  strictly  correlated  with 
initation  of  the  striated  muscle-fiber ;  and  hence  the  claim  of 
some  writers,  already  referred  to :  Attention  "  acts  only  upon 
muscles  and  throvigh  muscles  "  (see  p.  67  f .).  Let  but  attention  be 
directed  toward  any  sensation  or  sensuous  object,  and  at  once 
the  organ  through  which  the  object  of  sense  is  presented,  or  the 
area  of  the  organ  which  receives  the  sensory  stimulation,  is 
thrown  into  a  changed  motor  condition.  Probabh^  also  mental 
images  cannot  be  attended  to  without  the  realization  of  changes 
both  in  the  correlated  cerebral  centers  and  in  the  corresponding 
external  organs.  Again,  the  direction  of  attention  to  any  par- 
ticular part  of  the  motor  apparatus,  or  even  to  the  mental  image 
representative  of  any  iDarticular  movement  as  p)ossible  to  be  exe- 
cuted by  any  part,  immediately  tends  to  realize  itself  in  corre- 
sponding actual  movement.  On  the  other  hand,  all  forms  of  or- 
ganic movement,  whether  of  the  bodily  members  as  masses  or  in 
the  form  of  molecular  changes  in  the  so-called  motor  areas  of  the 
cerebrum,  tend  to  excite  and  to  fix  attention. 

Moreover,  ^11  primary  attention,)  regarded  as  spontaneous 
psychic  activity,  however  occasioned  or  influenced,ljnay  be  said 
to  have  its  conative  side)  Indeed,  thus  regarded,  attention  is 
preeminently  conative — an  elementary,  and  yet  true  "act  of 
will."  In  other  vroYds,\.aitent{on  regarded  as  active  consciousness 
implies  conation  f)  and  i?iasinuch  as  primary  attention  helongs  to 
every  field  of  consciousness,  and  attention  is  a  most  general  form  of 
all  mental  life,  conation,  as  the  activity  of  attention,  helongs  to  every  ^ 
psychosis.  To  this  conative  aspect  of  all  mental  life  corresponds 
all  centrally  originated  and  centrally  modified  or  directed  move- 
ment of  the  bodily  organs.  Thus  the  early  development  of  Avill 
is  primarily  conditioned  upon  the  increasingly  complicated  and 
purposeful  fixation  and  distribution  of  attention  with  its  corre- 
lated movement  of  the  bodily  organs. 


214  CONATION   AND   MOVEMENT 

^  1.  The  employment  of  the  word  "  conation  "  as  the  correlate  of  sensa- 
tion and  feeling  in  the  triple  division  of  elementary  psychic  functions  is  not 
without  objections.  Like  every  other  term  it  is  liable  to  be  misunderstood, 
or,  if  clearly  understood,  it  may  be  misapplied  or  its  appropriateness  alto- 
gether denied.  We  choose  to  accept  it  and  limit  its  use  on  account  of  the 
necessities  of  the  case.  The  psychological  distinction  between  intelligent 
and  so-called  blind  "  appetencies  "  or  iisychic  forthjouttings  (op«'^eis-)  is  as  old 
as  Aristotle.  The  recognition  of  "exertive  or  couative  powers,"  as  corre- 
sponding to  fundamental  distinctions  that  jjertain  to  all  psychic  facts,  we 
have  already  seen  was  promulgated  by  Kant.  The  English  ethical  writer, 
Cudworth,  in  "  A  Treatise  on  Free  Will,"  speaks  of  the  "  hegemonic  of  the 
soul"  as  acquiring  more  and  more  power  over  the  feelings  by  "conatives 
and  endeavors."  Hamilton,'  after  discussing  and  rejecting  various  other 
terms,  adopts  the  word  "conation"  as  covering  both  desires  and  volitions. 
The  use  of  the  term  here  adopted  is  both  more  wide  and  general  in  one  di- 
rection, and  more  restricted  in  other  directions,  than  either  of  the  foregoing 
uses.  "  Desires  "  are  complex  psychical  phenomena,  implying  at  least  an 
obscure  presentation  of  something  desirable  to  be  had,  and  especially  the 
arousement  of  feeling  in  one  direction  and  in  an  "influential  "  way.  Desires 
are  therefore  more  predominatingly  presentative  and  affective  than  are 
merely  conative  ijhenomena.  And  although  we  undoubtedly  designate  by 
"volitions"  (as  distinguished  from  mere  "wishes"  or  "  desires "),  those 
jjsychoses  in  which  the  conative  element  is  predominant,  unless  we  exclude 
from  this  term  its  implication  of  the  conception  and  selection  of  an  end,  it 
is  wider  in  some  directions  and  narrower  in  others  than  the  term  conation. 

(The  term  "  active  consciousness  "  has  been  suggested  as  the  equivalent 
of  conation  considered  as  the  third  of  the  three  fundamental  and  coordinate 
modes  of  mental  life.j  Thus  Sully"  says  :  "  The  most  obvious  common 
characteristic  in  this  variety  of  actions  or  conative  jn'ocesses  is,  as  already 
suggested,  that  peculiar  element  which  is  best  marked  off  as  active  conscious- 
ness." This  phrase,  indeed,  suggests  a  most  important  truth  respecting  the 
conative  aspect  of  all  mental  life.  This  truth  is  that  of  the  fundamental, 
irreducible,  and  indefinable  fact  of  conscious  psychic  activity  itself.  The 
phrase  seems,  however,  to  introduce  a  distinction  between  actions  and 
motor  activity  which  is  somewhat  cohfusiug  and  diflicult  to  keej^  in  mind. 
Even  the  most  passive  form  of  suffering  which  I  "  undergo  "  is  an  action,  a 
mode  of  the  behavior  of  the  psychical  subject  of  states.  But  besides  its 
passive  aspect — its  being  a  state  which  I  undergo — the  conative  aspect  of  all 
suffering  is  emphasized  when  I  consider  that  it  is  /  which  undergo  this 
suffering — by  "bracing  up"  against  it,  or  resisting  it,  or  by  patiently  or 
imi:)atiently  enduring  it,  or  by  striving  to  free  myself  from  it,  by  withdraw- 
ing the  body  from  the  painful  irritation  or  distracting  attention  from  the 
pain.  As  Hoffding  has  said  :  "  We  speak  of  volition  whenever  we  are 
conscious  of  activity,  and  are  not  merely  receptive.  But  ....  we 
never  are  purely  receptive." 

Another  writer  ^  has  proposed  an  analysis  of  "  motor  consciousness  "  as 
the  starting  point  for  the  discussion  of  Will.     But,  strictly  speaking,  motor 

'  Lectures  on  Metaphysics,  p.  12T  f.  ^  The  Humau  >Iind,  U.,  p.  173. 

3  Baldwin  :  Feeling  and  Will,  p.  2S0  f 


CONATION   AS   PSYCHIC    FACT  215 

consciousness  is  tingoJ  through  and  through  with  sensations  of  motion  and 
bodily  feelings  ;  it  is  by  no  means  pure  conative  consciousness,  although  it 
properly  implies  a  dominant  element  of  such  consciousness.  The  vrord 
'"impulse"  (Irieb)  might  be  substituted  for  conation  (it  would  be  jn-ef- 
erable  as  the  less  technical  word),  were  it  not  needed  to  designate  certain 
more  complex  mental  states,  akin  to  desire,  which  emphasize  other  factors 
than  the  strictly  conative. 

g  2.  The  psychological  equivalent  of  the  term  "  conation"  can  only  be  rec- 
ognized ;  it  cannot  be  defined  or  reduced  to  anything  simpler  by  no  matter 
how  subtle  and  searching  analysis.  Reflective  consciousness  can  be  best  as- 
^sted  to  the  act  of  recognition  by  describing  what  is  not  meant  by  conation, 
as  we  have  chosen  to  employ  this  term.  Therefore,  first,  no  unconscious 
2)rocess  of  bodily  or  mental  life  is  here  designated.  We  must  be  warned, 
then,  against  both  the  metaphysical  and  the  biological  or  physiological  use 
of  the  terms  "  conation,"  "impulse,"  "volition,"  "will."  Concerning  the 
question  whether  Will  is  indeed  the  ground  of  the  world,  its  real  being 
(so  Schopenhauer),  or  the  core  of  human  i:)ersonality  (as  "  the  heart  of 
the  heart" — so  the  theologian  Miiller),  scientific  psychology  does  not  in- 
quire. Neither  does  it,  so  long  as  it  avoids  metaphysical  implications,  ask 
whether  a  psychical  principle,  like  the  faculty  of  willing,  can  stand  in  re- 
lations of  a  vein  causa  to  physiological  processes  in  the  brain  or  elsewhere. 
It  simply  finds  conative  consciousness  given  as  an  undoubted  factor  in 
determining  the  amount  and  direction  of  attention,  the  control  of  the  mental 
train,  and  of  the  movements  of  the  bodily  organism.  As  j^sycJiological  sci- 
ence our  investigation  accepts  this  ordering  of  phenomena  ;  it  is  no  less 
fundamental  and  conclusive  than  are  those  data  upon  which  physics  strives 
to  establish  the  principles  of  the  conservation  and  correlation  of  energy. 
Moreover,  all  the  information  which  cerebral  physiology  can  furnish  regard- 
ing the  processes  that  accompany  or — if  one  please — underlie  conation,  voli- 
tion, striving,  etc.,  consists  only  of  conjectural  preconditions  for  this  i^ri- 
mary  and  indubitable  psychological  fact.  [We  turn  aside  barely  an  instant 
to  affirm  that  the  more  acute  and  prolonged  metaphysical  analysis  becomes 
the  more  clear  is  the  conviction  that  the  most  highly  developed  notions  of 
"Reality,"  "Cause,"  and  "  Energy  "  ("  conserved  "  and  "  correlated  "),  with- 
in the  physical  realm,  are  themselves  dependent  upon  this  veiy  datum  of 
conation,  or  active  consciousness,  belonging  primarily  to  man's  mental  life. 
These  notions  cannot  consistently,  therefore,  in  the  name  of  so-called  physi- 
cal science  deny  the  existence  and  validity  of  the  psychological  fact  on  which 
they  all  repose.] 

But,  second  (and  positively),  <^j  conation  we  cto  mean  to  designate  a 
primary  and  indubitable  datum  of  consciousness./  To  repeat  the  truth 
.which  came  before  us  while  studying  the  nature  of  attention  : — All  psychic 
life  manifests  itself  to  the  snhject  of  that  life  as  bein^,  in  one  of  its  fundamental  * 
aspects,  its  own  spontaneous  activiti/.  All  complex  lisychic  facts  are  fully 
described  only  when  we  add  to  the  phrases — I  have  siach  sensations,  and  rec- 
ognize such  objects,  and  feel  affected  so  and  so — this  other  equally  i)erti- 
nent  and  necessary  declaration  :  /  now  act  in  this  or  that  way.  Prior  to  the 
debate  which  Materialism  and  Determinism  excite,  and  equally  indisinitable 
in  whichever  way  this  debate  may  be  decided,  is  our  immediate  recognition 


•it 


216  CONATION  AND  MOVEMENT 

of  tliis  datum  of  self-activity.  Conscious  activity-,  as  tinged  by  tlie  feeling 
of  being  resisted,  is  called  "  striving."  Conative  consciousness  is,  therefore, 
at  the  same  time  spontaneity  of  activity,  and  consciousness  of  activity.  This 
is  equally  true  whether  the  striving,  as  regarded  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
l^ractical  ends  aimed  at,  be  successful  or  not.  "Hold  still!"  the  mother 
says  to  the  child,  or  the  surgeon  to  the  patient  writhing  under  pain.  "  I  am 
trying  to,"  is  the  reply ;  and  it  matters  not  whether  the  phrase  appended  be 
— "  but  I  cannot,"  or  "  and  I  will." 

§  3.  Like  all  other  fundamental  forms  of  i^sychical  life,  conation  dif- 
fers in  the  degree  of  its  manifestation  within  wide  ranges  of  magnitude,  and 
in  dependence  upon  constitution,  temjDerament,  mood,  habit,  cultiire,  etci 
It  is  partly  this  variation  to  which  we  refer  when  we  speak  of  men  of  "  weak 
wills"  and  "strong  wills,"  "steady  purposes"  and  "fickleness  of  jmr- 
pose,"  etc.  It  is  the  amount  and  persistency  or  changeableness  in  time 
of  conation  which  forms  the  basis  for  the  different  "  kinds  "  of  will  so  called 
— in  so  far  as  classification  has  to  do  at  all  with  the  conative  asjiect  of  con- 
sciousness itself.  Otherwise  the  development  of  will  and  the  formation  of 
character  dei^ends  upon  the  knowledge  attained  as  to  diiiereut  ends,  and  as 
to  the  means  of  reaching  them,  and  upon  the  kind  and  amount  of  feeling 
aroused  by  contemi^lation  of  these  ends.  While  here,  as  in  every  domain  of 
mental  life,  the  great  princiijle  of  habit  takes  an  unceasing  and  conspicuous 

^he  Pliysiolog-ical  Conditions  of  Conation,  so  far  as  science 
can  disentaug-le  them,  seem  to  lie  in  that  "  automatic  "  molecular 
activity  which  belongs  to  every  living-  cell,  but  peculiarl}^  to  the 
central  nervous  masses.;  The  sentence  which  we  have  already 
quoted  from  physiology  concerning-  the  amoeba — it  "has  a  will 
of  its  own  " — indicates  that  certain  molecular  changes  in  the 
lowest  living  forms  appear  to  have  an  altogether  mysterious 
internal  origin.  It  is  indeed  difficult  to  make  sure  that  any  par- 
ticular form  of  internal  commotion  does  not  arise  through  irri- 
tation of  the  surface  by  stimuli  belonging  to  the  environment. 
To  prove  a  negative  here  is  always  difficult.  Some  writers  on 
physiology  strive  to  explain  all  the  movements,  not  only  of  the 
simpler  amoeboid  bodies  but  even  of  the  most  complex  organ- 
isms, as  falling  somehow  under  the  term  "  reHex."  But  he  who 
has  watched  even  an  amoeba  under  the  microscope,  and  noted  the 
unexpected,  inexplicable,  "  self-originated "  character  of  much 
of  its  motor  activity,  will  probably  be  gravely  dissatisfied  with 
such  easy-going  explanations.  The  more  careful  and  unprej- 
udiced our  study  of  the  behavior  of  micro-organisms  becomes 
the  more  difficult  do  we  find  it  to  bring  all  the  phenomena  of 
their  movements  under  terms  of  a  molecular  mechanism  that  is 
excited  to  re-act  solely  by  the  application  of  stimuli  to  its  pe- 
riphery. As  the  student  of  i)hysiology  rises  higher  in  the  scale 
of  life,  he  finds  the  number  and  complication  of  the  phenomena 


-*: 


PHYSIOLOGICAL   CONDITIONS   OF   CONATION  217 

that  baffle  explanation  by  way  of  merely  reflex-motor  hypoth- 
eses greatly  increased. 

According"  to  a  general  biological  law,  the  constitution  and 
functions  of  the  higher  nervous  centers  become  more  important 
and  determinative  for  the  whole  realm  of  bodily  and  of  psychic 
life,  as  we  ascend  the  animal  series.  At  the  head  of  this  series 
stands  man.  The  supreme  nervous  centers  of  man  arc  at  the 
same  time  most  intricately  organized  as  physical  structures,  and 
also,  relatively,  most  influential  for  the  control  of  all  the  physi- 
cal and  mental  development  of  the  animal.X  Accordingly,  the 
"automatic"  (or  centrally  originated)  functions  of  the  human 
brain  are  far  more  comprehensive  and  controlling)  than  are  the 
automatic  activities  of  any  other  nervous  mechanism.  J  In  other 
words,  what  the  h'ain  of  a  human  being  is,  and  Avhai;  it  does  of 
itself — so  to  speak — has  far  more  influence  in  determining  the 
character  and  the  development  of  the  entire  life  of  the  individual, 

lan  in  the  case  of  any  other  animal. 

"'Ifp'ife  not  wil^  perfect  certainty  but  with  a  high  degree  of 
pi'cJibabilitJ^that  we  are  able  to  say:  "automatic"  {or  centrally 
or'uJ^ited^i),t^llvqas  activity  is  the  peculiar  phynical  correlate  of  active 
consciousness ,  of-'dhe  conative  element  h^ilLpsychic  lif<^  The  en- 
larged amount  of  this  form  of  neural  activity  in  man's  brain  cor- 
responds, on  the  physical  side,  to  his  superior  intelligent  control 
over  his  own  bodily  and  mental  evolution.  The  "  automatically  " 
acting  brain  and  the  "  autonomous  "  (or  self-active  and  controll- 
ing) mind  may  be  said  to  be  correlated.  How,  exactly,  we  shall 
express  the  terms  of  this  correlation — whether  as  reciprocal 
cause  and  effect,  or  as  two  "aspects"  of  one  entity,  metaphysics 
must  inquire,  and  determine,  if  it  can.  But  scientific  psychology 
simply  recognizes  the  nervous  "automatism  "  of  the  brain  as  ap- 
parently the  indispensable  physical  condition  of  that  conative 
element  which  consciousness  recognizes  as  present  in  all  psychic 
facts.  On  the  one  hand,  scientific  physiology  vaguely  accounts 
for  this  automatism  by  speaking  of  the  constitution  and  vital 
functions  of  the  brain,  the  changing  character  of  the  blood 
supply,  the  influence  (perchance)  of  mind  over  body,  etc.  (Dn 
the  other  hand,  scientific  psychology  recognizes  the  presence  of 
conation  as  an  unexplained  psychic  fact — itself  needed  to  ex- 
plain the  possibility  and  the  character  of  all  truly  human 
psychical  development.) 

1 4.  By  "  reflex "  changes  physiology  understands  those  which  are 
brought  about  in  the  striated  muscles,  vaso-motor  apparatus,  etc.,  by  ap- 
plying stimuli  to  the  periphery,  and  having  the  nerve-commotions  thus  in- 
duced pass,  by  the  afferent  nerve-tracts,  to  the  central  organs  ;  whence  they 


218  CONATION    AND   MOVEMENT 

are  tlien  "reflected"  backward  by  efferent  nerve-tracts,  to  the  periphery 
again.  But,  especially  in  the  case  of  the  more  highly  organized  animals,  this 
so-called  "  reflection  "  always  depends  for  its  character  upon  the  structure 
and  condition  of  the  central  organs  themselves.  However,  in  a  large  class 
of  such  changes  the  reflex  process  takes  i^lace  with  the  regularity  of  a  ma- 
chine ;  its  kind  and  amount  are  determined  by  the  kind  and  amount  of  the 
stimulation,  by  the  place  of  the  application,  etc.  On  the  contrary,  by  "au- 
tomatic "  changes  are  meant  those  induced  by  nerve-commotions,  which 
originate  in  the  central  organs  themselves,  and  then  jaass  down  the  efferent 
nerve-tracts.  The  excitement  of  the  central  organs  may  be  conjecturally  as- 
cribed to  any  one  of  several  causes  ;  all  that  is  necessary,  in  order  to  justify 
our  speaking  of  it  as  "automatic,"  is  that  the  kind  and  quantity  of  nerve- 
commotion  started  should  be  determined  by  conditions  lying  within  the 
central  organs. 

In  all  the  vertebrate  animals,  including  man,  the  spinal  cord  is  the  type 
of  complicated  reflexes.  This  fact  may  be  determined  experimentally  by 
severing  the  cord  from  the  brain  in  the  case  of  the  lower  animals,  and  then 
observing  what  functions  this  disconnected  cord  can  perform.  Esj)ecially  in 
man's  case,  is  it  found  that  the  control  of  the  cord,  and  of  the  functions  of 
the  lower  parts  of  the  brain,  depends  upon  the  higher  cerebral  centers. 
Within  these  centers  the  automatic  activities  arise  which  so  largely  de- 
termine what  shall  be  done  by  the  lower  and  inferior  portions  of  the  neiTous 
system,  and  so  by  the  entire  body. 

But,  further,  modern  experimental  physiology  has  discovered  that  certain 
particular  areas  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres  are  related  in  a  special  way  to 
the  particular  classes  of  sensations,  and  to  the  complicated  and  purposeful 
movements  of  certain  parts  of  the  body.  Thus  it  has  shown  that  deflnite  and 
intelligent  conation  requires  the  integrity  of  these  areas.  It  has,  however, 
discovered  no  one  area,  or  center,  which  sustains  a  special  and  unique  rela- 
tion to  all  conation,  as  such.  ("We  seem  warranted,  then,  in  saying  that  there 
is  no  special  organ  of  will ;  but  that  wlieiiever  conation  exists  in  consciousness 
then,  at  the  particular  cerebral  area  corresponding  to  the  definite  characters  of  the 
conation  (the  movement  of  a  particular  jjart  of  the  body,  or  the  focusing  of 
attention  in  a  given  direction,  etc.),  ^^ automatic"  nervous  action  is  taking 
place.    ) 

I  5.  Regarded  objectively — that  is,  as  mere  movement  without  any  i^sychi- 
cal  antecedent  or  equivalent — these  "automatic"  (or  centrally  originated) 
changes  of  the  bodily  members  are  only  analogous  to  so-called  acts  of  will. 
They  require  time  for  the  elaboration  (analogue  of  "  decision")  of  the  proc- 
ess which  results  in  movement ;  the  nature  of  the  movement,  and  even  the 
question  whether  there  will  be  movement  at  all  (analogue  of  "  choice  "),  is 
always  relatively  uncertain.  For  example,  it  can  be  predicted  how,  and  how 
nnich,  the  decapitated  "  frog-preparation"  will  move  the  limbs  under  differ- 
ent stimulations  of  acid  or  of  the  electrical  current.'  Leave  to  the  frog  its 
medulla  oblongata  and  optic  lobes,  and  it  will  croak,  when  stroked,  with  the 
regularity  of  a  music-box  ;  it  will  also  perform,  in  the  most  orthodox  fashion, 
many  remarkable  feats  of  co-ordinating  the  muscles.     But  one  can  never  tell 

'  For  a  statement  and  discussion  of  the  laws  of  such  "  reflexes,"  see  the  author's  Elements  of 
Physiological  Psychology,  Poi-t  i.,  chapter  iv. 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  EXPRESSION  FOR  CONATION  219 

whether  the  full-brainecl  frog  will  leap  or  croak  in  response  to  stimulation  ; 
ami  if  it  leaps  at  all,  one  is  in  even  more  doubt  as  to  the  direction  and 
amount  of  its  movement.  If  the  legs  of  the  normal  animal  be  dipped  in 
dilute  acid,  the  brain  and  the  cord  will  be  longer  (more  "  deliberate  ")  about 
removing  them  than  will  the  cord  alone.  Thus  also  the  pigeon,  whose  cere- 
bral hemisi)heres  have  been  removed,  differs  from  the  normal  bird  no  less  in 
respect  to  the  amount  of  "spontaneity"  which  its  movements  show  than  in 
respect  to  deficient  sensations  and  intelligence.  In  general,  one  can  predict 
far  better  what  molecular  nervous  mechanisms  that  are  largely  or  purely  re- 
flex, that  have  no  "will"  or  "pleasure,"  will  do;  but  when,  or  how,  the  su- 
perior central  organs  will  act  automatically,  will  will,  or  will  please  to  do — 
this  is  quite  another  matter. 

For  although  the  language  just  employed  is  figurative  and  the  facts 
described  are,  perhaps,  not  psychological  phenomena  at  all,  it  correctly 
expresses  our  statements  concerning  the  real,  but  as  yet  quite  inexplicable, 
physiological  basis  of  conation. 

(Jrhe  fully  developed  Psychological  Expression  for  Conation  is, 
then,  as  follows  :  I  act  and  I  know  that  I  act4-this  as  truly  as  I 
see,  or  hear,  or  feel  pleasure  or  i^ain,  and  know  that  I  have  the 
sensation,  or  am  subject  to  the  pleasure  or  jDain.  For  2)Sj/chol- 
ogy,  active  consciousness,  is  identical  with  consciousness  of 
activity.  Hence  the  motto :  "  In  "Willing,  we  work,  but  "Wishes 
play  zviih  us."  Indeed,  if  any  statement,  based  upon  purely  psy- 
chological grounds  and  having  to  do  with  the  description  and 
explanation  of  facts  of  consciousness,  as  such,  can  be  depended 
upon,  it  is  that  which  affirms  the  continual  presence  of  conation 
as  consciousness  of  activity.  Indeed,  here  we  reach  the  most 
fundamental  of  all  psj'chic  phenomena.  Whatever  the  sensation 
may  he,  among  the  great  variety  of  all  possible  sensations,  and 
lohether  the  dominant  tone  of  the  infantile  conscioxisness  he  for  the 
moment  pleasurable  or  pain  fid, (conscious  striving  enters  into  all  the 
most priraary  psychical  states.^ 

Now,  since  "  automatism  "  appears  to  be  the  peculiar  physio- 
logical condition  of  this  spontaneity  of  psychical  activity,  (it  is 
sometimes  proposed  to  consider  conation,  or  active  consciousness, 
as  the  consciousness  of  the  automatic  (or  centrally  initiated) 
nervous  processes  of  the  brain.  /  But  furthermore,  these  processes 
result  in  the  "innervation"  of  the  organs  of  sense  in  connection 
with  the  fixation  of  attention,  of  the  muscles  of  the  body  that, 
by  contraction  and  relaxation,  carry  the  limbs  through  space. 
Centrally  originated  jjrocesses,  which  flow  down  the  outgoing 
nerve-tracts  and  "  innervate  "  (and  so  induce  motion  in)  the  pe- 
ripheral parts,  are  called  "  motor "  processes ;  and  the  cerebral 
areas  where  these  motor  processes  are  set  up  are  also  called 
"  motor."    Hence  the  much  debated  question  whether  the  con- 


220  COl^ATION   AND   MOVEMENT 

scioiisness  of  activity  is  a  consciousness  of  "  motor  "  processes 
of  "  innervation  "  in  the  centers  of  the  brain. 

Our  position  toward  this  much  debated  question  requires 
mention  of  the  following  three  points  :  (1)  jTo  speak  as  though 
any  form  of  mental  life  were  a  "consciousness  of"  a  nervous 
process,  whether  centrally  or  peripherally  originated,  is  to  use  a 
misleading  figure  of  speech.]  It  can  scarcely  be  too  often  re- 
peated :  the  nervous  processes  are  regarded  by  psychology  only 
as  tlie  physical  preconditions  of  those  facts  with  which  it  properly 
deals ;  the  latter  are  the  facts  of  consciousness,  as  such.  The 
question,  therefore,  requires  to  be  restated,  as  follows  :  JDoes 
the  character  of  consciousness  depend  at  all  ujjon  the  automatic 
cerebral  processes  ?fand,  if  we  answer  this  question  affirmatively 
— Is  not  conation,  or  the  consciousness  of  activity  (the  "  doing  " 
aspect  of  all  psychoses)  chietly  correlated  with  these  i^eculiar 
processes  ?  Now,  both  these  questions  may,  with  good  show  of 
reasons,  be  answered  affirmatively,  (2)  'The  "  feeling  of  effort,  V 
or  the  consciousness  of  exerting  ourselves  in  the  "  accomplish- 
ment of  something,"  as  this  feeling  exists  in  all  our  developed 
mental  life,  is  exceedingly  complex/  It  doubtless  contains  a 
large  admixture  from  peripheral  sources.  The  sensations  of  ten- 
sion, .strain,  and  motion,  which  blend  with  all  our  active  con- 
sciousness, give  to  it  an  emotional  character.  They  make  our 
movements,  and  our  attempts  at  movement,  inferesfhig  ;  because 
they  are  tinged  with  pleasure-pains  of  various  kinds.  Their  im- 
portance in  the  development  of  will,  of  conduct,  and  of  character, 
is  very  great,  and  will  be  considered  later  on.  But  (3)  our  entire 
active  consciousness,  our  awareness  that  we  are  doing  something, 
is_?wy^jwholly  a  compound  of  sensations  originating  in  the  con- 
dition of  the  external  organs.  In  other  words,  in  all  motor  con- 
sciousness there  is  a  conscious  conative  element  lohicli  is  the  correlate 
of  the  automatic  motor  nervous  2yrocesses  that  innei'vatc  the  organs  of 
sense  and  of  7notio?i. 

Closely  connected  with  the  iiosition  just  taken  is  another  of 
equal  psychological  importance.  In  the  momentary  flow  of  con- 
sciousness, and  in  the  larger  history  of  psychical  development, 
conation  is  indissolubly  linked  Avith  motor  changes.  All  my  ex- 
perience, so  long  as  I  consider  it  from  the  psychological  point 
of  view,  affirms  : — I  will  ;  and  innervation  of  the  organs  of  sense 
or  of  motion  follows,  hecanse  I  will.  Or — to  state  the  case  as  is 
fitting  at  the  present  stage  of  our  discussion^^r?<^'?'/^'<3  consciousness, 
with  its  dominant  of  conation,  is  regnlarhj  foUoiced  hy  modif  cations 
of  sensation  and  feeliruf  ^  and  upon  the  basis  of  such  constantly 
recurring  experience  all  the  intelligent  development  of  mental 


CONATION   AS   DETERMINATIVE  221 

life  is  based.  Conation,  as  distinsruished  from  sensation  and 
feeling",  is  then  a  determining'  factor  wliicli  must  constantly  be 
reckoned  with  in  the  description  and  explanation  of  psychic  phe- 
nomena. [This  position  is  forever  true  in  scientific  psychology', 
whatever  the  metaphysics  of  physics  and  physiology,  on  the  one 
hand,  or  of  theology,  on  the  other  hand,  may  theoretically  con- 
clude as  to  the  meaning  and  propriety  of  the  word  "  cause  " 
when  applied  to  relations  between  body  and  mind.] 

I  Conation  as  a  determining  factor,  wdiether  with  reference  to 
the  fixation  and  distribution  of  attention  or  to  the  movement 
of  the  larger  masses  of  the  body,  operates  in  two  directions.  It 
determines  positively  or  it  determines  negatively.  It  controls 
both  by  incitement  and  by  inhibition,  f  Thus,  in  the  develop- 
ment of  purposeful  volition,  and  in  the  choice  of  ideal  ends,  it 
comes  about  that  I  will  either  to  attend  or  not  to  attend,  either 
to  move  or  not  to  move.  I,  moreover,  consciously  select,  as  it 
were,  and  innervate  the  difterent  organs  of  sense  and  groups  of 
muscles  connected  with  the  various  movable  members  of  the 
bod}'.  As  the  different  mental  images,  ideas,  and  conceptions 
free  themselves  more  and  more  from  their  more  obvious  sensu- 
ous bases,  and  the  aesthetical  and  ethical  feelings  develop,  I  may 
also  subject  the  entire  mental  train  and  bodily  conduct  to  remote 
and  deliberately  chosen  ends. 

§  6.  It  is  doubtful  whether  there  are  any  experimental  means  of  deciding 
beyond  question  how  far  our  so-called  "feeling  of  efltbrt  "  is  determined  by 
centrally  initiated  and  outgoing  motor  processes.  The  negative  answer  to 
the  question  is  given  by  writers  like  Ferrier,  James,  Miinsterberg,  G.  E. 
Midler,  and  others ;  the  affirmative  is  maintained  by  Bain,  Wundt,  Beaunis, 
Preyer,  and  many  more.'  We  have  already  ranged  ourselves  with  the  latter 
authorities.  Following  are,  in  part,  the  proofs  of  this  view :  (1)  From  the 
earliest  dawn  of  consciousness  to  the  highest  point  of  mental  develoioment 
no piireJi/  "  reflex"  and  no  j^iireh/  "  automatic  "  nervous  processes  take  place 
in  the  brain.  These  two — i.e.,  the  processes  i^erijiherally  excited  and  des- 
tined to  return  upon  the  external  organs  after  having  passed  through  the 
central  organs,  and  the  processes  set  uii  in  the  latter  organs  themselves  as 
tlie  result  of  intra-organic  stimulation — are  ceaselessly  conjoined.  Exj^eri- 
ment  can   never   disentangle   them.     No  brain  ever  reacts  on  sensory  im- 

'  This  inquiry  hag  been  conducted  with  an  enersry  and  warmth  somewhat  proportionate  to  its 
importance.  It  will  be  seen,  on  a  little  reflection,  how  really  great  this  importance  is  for  those  who 
hold  to  the  strictest  interpretation  of  the  theory  of  correlate  processes  in  brain  and  mind.  The  af- 
firmative answer  seems  to  snch  to  contradict  the  attempt  of  those  who  give  the  negative  answer, 
viz.,  the  attempt  to  reduce  everj-thing  in  the  psychical  life  to  a  sensuous  and,  as  it  were,  passive 
basis.  The  works  just  referred  to  are  chiefly  the  following  :  Ferrier  :  The  Functions  of  the  Brain 
(Isted.),  chap.  ix.  James  :  Feeling  of  Effort.  Miinsteiberir :  Die  Willcnshandlung,  pp.  62  and  67  ff. 
Miiller  :  Pttucer's  Archiv,  xlv.  (18S9).  p.  SO  f.  Bain  :  The  Senses  and  the  Intellect,  p.  .59  f.,  and  The 
Emotions  and  the  Will,  p.  303  f.  Wundt :  Physiolog.  Psychologic,  U.,  p.  463.  Beaunis  :  Les  Sen- 
sations internes,  chap.  si.    Preyer  :  Mind  of  the -Child,  I ,  p.  201  f.    Bastian  :  Rev.  Philosoph.,  1S92. 


222  CONATIOX   AND   MOVEMENT 

pulses  irrespective  of  its  own  vital  constitution  and  intraorganic  condition. 
This  is  the  same  thing  as  saying  that  all  reflexes  which  pass  through  the 
brain  involve  automatic  elements.  The  latter,  the  self-originated  elements, 
are  the  more  imi^ortant  the  more  complex  the  brain  is  and  the  more 
highly  developed  it  becomes.  (2)  Automatic  activities,  having  a  varied 
motor  outcome,  undoubtedly  take  place  in  the  central  organs,  especially  of 
all  the  more  highly  organized  animals.  In  proof,  Bain  has  emphasized 
(pertinently,  if  iinduly)  the  vast  amount  of  random  activity,  the  ceaseless 
moving  of  limbs — kicking,  striking  out,  contortion,  squirming,  etc. — of  the 
newly  born  child.  We  cannot,  indeed,  separate  these  movements  from  the 
excitations  of  sense  which  are  storming  every  area  of  its  body.  But  Preyer 
IDoints  out  that  even  the  embryonic  child  frequently  moves  under  circum- 
stances such  as  that  no  possible  sensory  impulses  would  seem  to  account  for 
it.  Other  important  biological  facts  do  not  accord  with  the  theory  which 
holds  that  all  movement  originates  in  sensory  impulses. 

(3)  The  attempt  strictly  to  mark  off  from  one  another  the  sensory  and  the 
motor  elements  in  the  brain  is  not  successful.  But  this  very  fact  tends  to 
establish  the  proi^osition  that  those  centrally  originated  changes  which  stand 
just  antecedent  to  the  down-going  nervous  imjiulses,  by  which  the  end-or- 
gans are  innervated,  have  their  characteristic  effect  upon  consciousness.  It 
is  to  them  that  we  look  for  the  conative  elements  of  consciousness,  the 
awareness  of  that  activity  which,  in  expei-ience,  is  followed  by  motor  effects. 
To  suppose  that  such  johysiological  and  cerebral  "  innervation  "-processes 
have  no  correlate  in  consciousness  is  to  go  contrary  to  all  that  we  know  con- 
cerning the  physiological  conditions  of  all  consciousness.  (4)  Various  ex- 
perimental proofs  exist  of  the  view  that  active  consciousness  (improperly 
called  "  sensations  of  innervation ")  dejoends  upon  those  centrally  initiated 
neiwous  processes  which  are  connected  with  the  motor  innervation  of  the 
end  organs.  On  the  whole,  the  evidence  seems  conclusive,  although  there 
is  no  single  item  which  may  not  be  disputed.  Among  favorable  facts,  the 
following  are  important :  {a)  The  whole  complex  feeling  of  effort  does 
not  appear  to  run  parallel  in  intensity  with  the  actual  movement  accom- 
plished by  contracting  any  of  the  muscles  ;  and  this  indicates  an  element 
in  this  feeling  which  is  of  purely  central  origin,  (b)  Subjects  afflicted  with 
peripheral  paralysis  still  have  the  feeling  of  effort  in  s;ich  manner  as  to 
imply  that  it  is  partially  of  central  origin,  (c)  The  extreme  rapidity  with 
which  some  minute  voluntary  adjustments,  like  those  of  the  larynx,  have 
to  be  performed  seems  to  indicate  that  "  the  outgoing  currents  must  be 
measured  out  in  advance  of  our  feeling  of  these  effects." '  (r/)  The  dimin- 
ished eflSciency  of  our  muscles  when  we  are  fatigued  by  rejieated  volitions 
seems  to  be  due  rather  to  cerebral  exhaustion  than  to  exhaustion  of  the 
muscles,  (e)  In  judging  of  the  difference  between  movements  willed  and 
those  actually  executed  we  seem,  in  some  mysterious  way,  to  be  dependent 
on  our  estimate  of  the  "  impulse  to  action"  even  more  than  upon  our  esti- 
mate of  the  actual  movements  of  the  active  organ.  (/)  Another  observer  * 
finds  evidence  of  the  truth  of  this  view  in  the  "discovery  that  right- 
handedness  develops  in  infancy  only  under  conditions  of  muscular  effort." 

'  On  this  point  see  A.  D.  Waller  :  Brain,  1S91,  pp.  189-249. 
-  Baldwin  :  eee  Science,  svl.,  1890,  pp.  247  and  302. 


CONATION   AS   DETERMINATIVE  223 

Tliis  fact  must  be  duo  to  tlio  cliikTs  vaguo  consciousnoss,  centrally  origi- 
iiivtod,  of  greater  motor  readiness,  or  "  higher  i:)ressure  "  toward  outward  dis- 
charge, in  the  use  of  the  right  arm  than  of  the  left. 

"We  conclude,  then,  that  while  our  knowledge  of  the  amount  and  direction 
of  the  motor  effect  is  mainly  due  to  sensation-complexes  which  originate  in 
the  condition  of  the  external  organs,  wo  have  also  a  consciousness  of  self- 
activity  whose  physiological  correlate  is  the  central  process  of  innervation. 
In  the  somewhat  figurative  language  of  M.  Fouill'de,'  "  the  feeling  of  cere- 
bral discharge"  is  an  element  of  prime  importance  in  "  the  appreciation  of 
energy  deployed."  But  confessedly  we  localize  the  movement  resulting 
and  judge  its  extent  and  direction  largely  through  sensations  of  muscles, 
joints,  and  skin. 

?i  7.  From  the  psychological  point  of  view'  (as  distinguished  from  the 
doubtful  metaphysical  or  physiological  points  of  view)  active  consciousness, 
or  conation,  is  a  factor  e.rpevienced  as  determining  changes  in  the  imme- 
diately following  psychic  facts.  The  order  of  the  psychic  facts,  of  the 
changes  as  they  appear  in  consciousness,  docs  not,  however,  inform  us  accu- 
rately as  to  the  order  of  the  physiological  processes.  Thits,  in  the  rapid  per- 
formance of  all  impulsive  and  habitiial  movements  a  large  part  of  what  goes 
on  is  purely  reflex,  or  unconscious  automatic,  physiological  processes.  This 
part  has,  that  is  to  say,  no  discernil)le  representative  in  consciousness.  It  is 
done /or  the  psychic  life  by  a  physical  automaton  rather  than  in  or  by  the 
psychic  life.  When  this  automaton  once  becomes  trained  under  conscious 
psychical  influences,  it  joerforms  many  highly  complicated  and  purposeful 
motor  changes,  without  "troubling"  the  flow  of  consciousness  to  pay  atten- 
tion to  them.  At  any  time,  however,  these  motor  changes  may  break  over 
into  the  flowing  stream  of  consciousness  and  strongly  affect  its  entire  char- 
acter as  respects  sensation,  feeling,  and  conation.  Thus  one  winds  one's 
watch  unconsciously,  biitis  awakened  to  the  fact  that  one  is  winding  it  by  the 
unpleasant  sensations  and  efforts  which  follow  the  attempt  to  go  on  turning 
the  key  after  the  watch  is  wound  up  ;  or  one  takes  unconsciously  from 
one's  pocket  a  bunch  of  keys  and  "  finds  one's  self,"  with  a  feeling  of  sur- 
prise and  confusion,  trying  to  open  the  door  of  the  study  with  the  key 
belonging  to  a  box  in  the  safety- deposit ;  then  one  recalls  that  one  was 
thinking  about  money  matters,  and  not  about  studies,  as  one  approached 
the  door. 

Complicated  unconscious  or  so-called  subconscious  movements,  in  the 
greatest  variety,  take  an  important  part  in  the  development  of  organic  life. 
But  their  existence  and  influence  do  not  abate  one  whit  the  certainty  or 
force  of  the  other  conviction  :  conatimi,  as  a  datum  of  consciousness,  deter- 
mines for  our  suhsequeni  conscious  ea-perienco  the  color  and  direction  of  the  cur- 
rent of  eonsciottsness. 

§  8.  The  effect  of  conation  in  the  fixation  and  distribution  of  attention 
has  already  been  remarked.  Experiment  confirms  the  popular  persuasion 
that  active  consciousness  not  only  determines  the  speed,  ener^,  rhythm, 
and  sweep  of  our  muscular  contractions,  and  so  the  complexity  and  form  of 
the  resulting  movements,  but  also  is  able  within  certain  limits  to  suppress 
or  inhibit  the  movements  which  would  otherwise  be  called  forth  by  external 
•  Rev.  Philosoph.,  Dec,  IS89,  p.  576  f. 


r 


224  CONATION^  AND   MOVEMENT 

or  iuternal  stimuli.  Thus  Briicke  has  shown  that  we  can,  by  striving 
against  it,  lessen  the  effect  of  the  direct  stimulation  of  a  muscle  by  electricity. 
Eichhorst  has  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  trembling  of  palsy  can 
partially  be  supju-essed  at  will ;  another  experimenter  has  shown  that  the 
reflex  stimulation  of  the  eyelids  with  vapor  of  ammonia  can  be  voluntarily 
inhibited.     Scores  of  similar  experiences  might  be  j^ointed  out. 

The  mechanism  of  inhibition  is  exceedingly  obscure ;  but  the  most  re- 
cent researches  seem  to  show  that  it  does  not  differ  essentially  from  that 
employed  in  the  positive  innervation  of  the  muscles  by  active  consciousness. 

The  reaction-time  of  inhibition,  after  brief  practice,  does  not  differ  from 
that  of  direct  impulse.'  When  the  tension  and  amjalitude  of  the  muscular 
excursion  are  varied,  the  cliange  in  inhibition-time  follows  closely  upon  the 
change  in  impulse-time.  The  attempt  has  been  made  to  account  for  the  in- 
hibition of  muscular  contraction  as  due  to  the  contraction  of  "  antagonistic 
muscles."  But  conation  has  the  same  inhibitory  jjower  over  muscles  that 
have  no  antagonistic  muscles.  It  seems  fair  to  infer  then,  that  the  in- 
fluence of  conation  over  movement  may,  in  the  two  forms  of  impulse  and  in- 
hibition, originate  in  the  same  psycho-physical  centers  and  follow  the  same 
paths  outward.  Tlie  masseter  muscle,  the  muscle  used  in  the  accommo- 
dation of  the  eye,  and  the  muscles  controlled  by  the  facial  nerve,  are 
instances  of  so-called  "  autonomous  "  muscles.  This  latter  group  has  the 
most  direct  anatomical  connection  with  the  higher  motor  centers — the 
centers  in  which  resides  the  supreme  power  of  autonomous  innervation. 
And  what  a  servant  of  a  unlUng  soul  are  the  muscles  controlled  by  the  facial 
nerve  ;  and  how  by  striving  for  and  against  the  expression  of  consciousness 
through  these  muscles,  does  the  psychic  life  manifest  itself  ! 

iThe  earliest  manifestations  of  mental  life,  as  a  blending  of 
sensation,  feeling,  and  conation,  are  seen  in  certain  Classes  of 
Movements.  The  principles  on  which  the  bodily  movements 
are  classified,  are  necessarily  somewhat  indefinite.^  This  grows, 
in  part,  out  of  the  fact  that  either  sensation,  or  feeling-,  or  cona- 
tion may  be  prominent  in  the  total  state  of  consciousness  which 
is  connected  with  the  use  of  the  different  muscles.  Hence  to  in- 
trospective analysis  the  psychical  origin  of  the  movement  seems 
in  general  to  be  in  the  more  obtrusive  of  these  psychical  factors. 
Thus  one  may  move  any  limb,  or  the  whole  bodj^,  because  one 
sees,  or  hears,  or  touches  some  object — and  this  without  feeling 
or  conation  being  prominent.  But,  again,  sensations  of  a  rela- 
tively weak  intensity,  if  connected  with  pleasurable  or  painful 
feeling,  may  give  rise  to  relatively  strong  movements,  which 
have  the  end  of  retaining  an  attractive,  or  removing  a  repulsive, 
mental  excitant.  And,  in  not  a  few  cases,  complicated  and 
strong  bodily  movements  follow  immediately  upon  intense  feel- 
ing, when  no  intelligent  apprehension  of  any  end  to  be  attained 

'  Seo  for  these  and  other  facts  the  exceedingly  interesting  article  of  J.  Orschansky,  Archiv  f. 
Anat.  u.  Physiol.  Psycholog.,  Abth.,  1889. 


CLASSES   OF   MOVEMENTS  225 

by  movement  is  present  in  consciousness.  Yet  apfain,  not  a  few 
movements  originate,  especially  in  the  earlier  and  relatively  un- 
organized stages  of  mental  life,  when  no  sensation,  idea,  or  feel- 
ing is  to  be  detected  in  the  tield  of  consciousness,  to  which  the 
exciting  cause  of  the  movement  can  be  ascribed ;  and  yet  the 
movements  cannot  be  classed  among  purely  physiological  re- 
flexes, because  the  excitant  of  them  is  to  be  found  in  a  dominant 
-condition  of  consciousness.  Here  conation,  in  the  sense  in  which 
we  are  using  the  word,  may  be  said  to  originate  movement. 
Mere I'^Dclncal  fuiihpuiilng — as  it  were,  blind  and  unconscious  of 
an  end,  and  not  eiiected  by  any  discernible  form  of  sensation  or 
feeling — is  often  the  antecedent  of  random  changes  in  the  posi- 
tion of  the  limbs,  of  quiverings  and  rollings  of  the  internal  or- 
gans, tensions  and  strains  of  the  aimlessly  innervated  organs  of 
sense. 

We  anticipate  what  will  appear  more  clearly  after  subsequent 
discussion  in  saying,  that  representative  images,  or  '#.  ideas,"  may 
also  serve  as  the  dominant  excitants  of  bodily  movements.  It  is 
this,  indeed,  which  makes  possible  the  development,  as  a  living 
imity,  of  the  continuous  stream  of  consciousness  and  of  the  re- 
ciprocal changes  of  bodily  organs  in  their  changing  relations  to 
consciousness  and  to  the  external  environment.  jAs  conation  be- 
comes more  purposeful,  the  resulting  bodily  habits  become  more 
adjusted  to  "  ideal "  ends.  ^  Hence  the  dependence  of  volition, 
choice,  and  so-called  "  free  "  will,  upon  memory  and  imagination.^ 
Thus  conduct  is  made  to  correspond  to  ideas — in  the  broader 
sense  of  the  latter  word. 

One  general  psycho-physical  principle  of  great  import  must 
be  accepted  in  this  connection.     All  forms  of  sensory,  emotional, 
and  ideational  cerebral  excitement  tend  constantly  to  "  overfloio  "  the 
cente?'s  and  areas  in  loJiich  they  originaie,  to  flow  doicn  the  motor 
tracts,  and  then  to  set  in  Tnovement  the  different  connected  parts  of  the 
eyiernal  motor  apparat^is.     Where  the  cerebral  excitement  is  not 
intense  and  is  definitely  located — as  in  the  case  of  great  num- 
bers of  the  sensations,  representative  images,  and  conations — 
I  the  cerebral  motor  discharge  is  limited  to  single  muscles  or  to 
I  coordinated  groups  of  muscles.     But  the  summation  of  repeated 
excitations  of  a  small  intensity,  and  single  excitements  of  an 
originally  high  degree  of  intensity,  tend  not  only,  of  course,  to 
i  diffuse  the   cerebral  nerve-commotions  over  larger  and  larger 
areas  of  the  central  organ  itself,  but  to  overflow  down  an  increas- 
;  ing  number  of  the  motor  tracts,    ^ence  the  well-known  fact  that 
any  strong  mental  excitement— whether  of  the  predominatingly 
sensory,  emotional,  or  conative  type — throws  into  action  a  large 
15 


226  CONATION   AND   MOVEMENT 

portion  of  tlie  motor  apparatus,  unless  tliis  tendency  to  move- 
ment be  suppressed.  And  liere  again,  the  partial  or  complete 
suppression,  or  inhibition,  may  arise,  apparently,  in  several 
different  ways.  To  express  the  matter  popularly  we  may  say  : 
one  intense  sensation,  or  vivid  mental  image,  or  strong  feeling, 
or  earnest  striving,  may  be  prevented  from  finding  expression 
in  movement  by  another  intense  sensation,  or  vivid  mental 
image,  etc. 

The  general  theory  of  the  relation  of  psychical  excitements 
to  bodily  movements,  when  worked  out  in  detail  with  a  careful 
regard  to  the  facts,  shows  us  that  jthe  ordinary  distinctions  as 
to  the  classes  of  movements  are  only  relative.  /  In  general,  the 
"  co-respondent,"  or  correlate,  of  mental  excitement  is  bodily 
movement ;  when  the  psychical  life  is  stirring,  in  whatsoever  de- 
gree or  manner,  a  corresponding  effect  may  be  expected  in  the 
physical  motor  apparatus.  This  all  comes  about  naturally  and 
necessarily,  on  account  of  the  nature  of  the  brain  and  periphe- 
ral nervous  system,  and  of  its  relation  to  psychical  states.  Hence 
movements  which  are  the  same,  externally  considered,  may  origi- 
nate in  any  one  of  several  different  ways  ;  and  any  movement 
may  belong  at  one  time  to  one  of  the  princixaal  classes  of  move- 
ment and,  at  another  time,  to  another  one.  jHence  the  very  same 
movement,  externally  considered,  may  run  through  two  or  three 
different  psychical  phases  before  it  ceases  as  movement.  [  This 
explains,  also,  the  difficulty,  and  even  impossibility,  of  telling  to 
which  one  of  the  classes  exclusively  any  particular  movement  is 
to  be  assigned./  Thus  some  muscular  action  may  begin  as  an 
unconscious  reflex  and  be  finished  as  a  voluntary  and  purpose- 
ful movement;  or  it  may  begin  as  "  sensory -motor,"  or  "ideo- 
motor,"  and  end  by  dropping  down  into  the  condition  of  an 
almost  purely  unconscious  reflex.  And,  finally,  from  neglect  of 
taking  all  this  sufficiently  into  account  many  foolish  disputes,  or 
gravely  erroneous  psycho-physical  theories,  having  a  bearing 
on  ethics  and  religion,  have  arisen. 

In  the  case  of  semi-conscious,  or  of  awakening  and  undevel- 
oped mental  life  (infants,  or  hypnotic  subjects,  or  instances  of 
acquired  "  tact  "  ),  we  have  no  safe  means  for  dividing  the  bodily 
movements  into  clearly  separable  classes.  .Indeed,  the  great 
majority  of  adult  movements — perhaps  we  might  even  venture  to 
say,  all  such  movements— ^must  be  considered  as  mixed  cases:/ 
that  is  to  say,  all  the  different  main  classes  of  movements  are 
covered,  or  at  least  touched,  by  each  particular  case  of  conscious 
and  purposeful  movement. 

With  the  foregoing  cautious  in  mind,  the  following  may  be 


CLASSES   OF   MOVEMENTS  227 

g-ivcn  as  the  principal  classes  of  movements  *  dependent  upon 
the  relation  in  which  the  movements  stand  to  the  dominant 
aspect,  or  factors,  of  the  exciting"  psycho-physical  life :  (1)  Ran- 
dom automatic  movements,  by  which  are  to  be  understood  such 
movements  as  originate  chiefly  in  conation  ("  blind  will  "),  with- 
out definite  influence  from  any  particular  form  of  sensation,  idea, 
or  feeling.  (2)  Seiisory-motor  movements  are  those  whose  chief 
psychical  excitant  consists  in  some  form  of  sensation.  ["  Con- 
bvhus  reflexes  "  is  a  term  sometimes  given  to  this  class  of  move- 
ments, to  sig-nify  that  the  sensory  excitation  in  which  the  move- 
ment chiefly  originates  does  not  result  in  a  purely  physiological 
reflex,  but  provokes  an  effect  in  consciousness.  Purely  uncon- 
scious reflexes  (merely  physiological  reflexes,  although  some- 
times called  "  sensory-motor  ")  do  not  interest  psychology  other- 
wise than  indirectly.  Through  their  connection,  under  the  law 
of  habit,  with  various  forms  of  conscious  movement,  they  are, 
however,  of  the  greatest  interest  to  psychology.  Since  by  "  sen- 
sation "  we  are  pledged^  understand  a  factor  in  consciousness, 
wo  employ  the  term  "^nsory-motor "  for  these  conscious  re- 
flexes.] (3)  ^^ ^stlieticoftriotor''  is  a  term  j)roi30sed  (tentatively) 
for  those  movements  which  have  their  chief  psychical  excitants 
in  affective  consciousness,  in  feelings,  as  having — ordinarily  if 
not  always — a  tone  of  jileasure  or  pain. 

By  different  combinations,  as  it  were,  of  the  three  foregoing 
grounds  of  classification,  we  are  led  to  distinguish  (4)  hiipulsive 
and  (5)  instinctive  m.o\em.e\iiii.  By  "impulsive  movements"  we 
understand  those  in  which  conation  excites  and  determines  move- 
ment in  connection  with  sensation  and  feeling,  but  without  de- 
liberation or  intelligent  appreciation  of  an  end.  And  by  "  in- 
stinctive movements "  we  understand  the  same  kind  of  move- 
ments as  those  just  called  impulsive,  whenever  the  sensations, 
feelings,  and  resulting  movements  are  related  to  an  end  con- 
nected w^th  the  preservation  and  propagation  of  the  species,  and 
presumably  developed  upon  a  basis  of  inherited  tendencies. 

(6)  iTdco-viotor  movements  are  excited,  chiefly,  by  the  presence 
of  an  idea  in  consciousness.)  But  inasmuch  as  no  idea,  or  con- 
ception, is  a  perfectly  colorless  affair,  devoid  of  all  "  attach- 
ment" of  feeling  and  so  unfit  to  act  as  a  so-called  "motive,"  all 
ideo-motor  movements  are  also  a^sthetico-motor.  Finally,  as  pos- 
sibly (or  probably)  involving  the  comliination  of  conscioiis  fac- 
tors emphasized  by  each  one  of  the  first  three  forms  of  move- 

'  Horwicz  rightly  classifies  the  bodily  movements  only  after  remarking  that  a  strict  division 
cannot  be  maintained.  Psycholog.  Analysen,  comp.  i.,  p.  7  f.  and  81  f.  See  also,  Lotzc  ;  Mcdicin. 
Psychologic,  p.  287. 


228  CONATION   AND   MOVEMENT 

ment  (and,  therefore,  often  discussed  as  either  impulsive  or  in- 
stinctive), another  class  (7)  called  iiiiitatiae  movements  must  be 
recog-nized.  This  class  comprises  those,  as  a  rule,  somewhat 
complex  co-ordinated  and  expressive  contractions  of  the  muscles 
that  are  called  out,  in  one  individual,  by  the  presentation  of  the 
movements  resulting-  from  conscious  ideas  and  feelings  in 
another  individual,  without,  however,  awakening  the  ideas  and 
feelings  themselves,  or  the  conscious  purj^ose  to  express  them. 
In  infants,  smile  answers  "  in  imitation  "  of  smile,  frown  of 
frown,  grimace  of  grimace,  etc.  But  here,  and  even  in  the  case 
of  many  similar  movements  in  adults,  it  is  difficult  to  tell  how 
much  of  the  result  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  faint  startings  of 
inchoate  ideas  and  feelings  that  express  themselves  in  sym^ja- 
tlietic  forms  of  movement,  how  much  to  sub-conscious  but 
complicated  generic  and  inherited  reflexes,  and  how  much  to  in- 
voluntary but  conscious  conation  finding  its  way  along  the  well- 
worn  channels  of  motor  discharge. 

^'^  §  9.  Few  truths  in  psychology  are  more  frequently  recognized  than  the 
effect  of  mental  excitement  in  the  production  of  bodily  movements.  The 
infant  comes  into  the  world  and  spends  his  early  waking  hours  in  almost 
ceaseless  movement — crying,  cooing,  kicking,  thrusting  out  with  his  fists, 
wriggling,  squirming,  rolling  his  eyes  and  head,  etc.  This  activity  is  natu- 
rally regarded  as  due  to  overflowing  vitality  and  sensitive  response  to  various 
forms  of  stimuli.  To  the  observer  it  seems  to  proclaim  :  "  I  am  here,  not 
simply  to  see  and  hear,  to  feel  and  think,  but  to  do  something.  I  must  leavu 
to  mould  and  to  make,  must  be  prepared  for  action,  not  only  by  getting  ac- 
quainted with  my  bodily  members,  but  also  by  getting  them  in  hand."  As 
the  physiologist  would  express  his  side  of  the  truth  :  "  The  whole  brain  is 
made  up  of  structures  that  subserve  sensory-motor  processes,  and  into  such 
processes  all  its  functions  may  be  resolved  "  (Hughlings  Jackson).  "  Every 
structure  of  the  brain  concerned  with  sensation  proper  is  connected  directly 
or  indirectly  with  a  part  concerned  with  motion "  (Gowers).  Thus  the 
ceaseless  bodily  movement  of  the  child  is  the  correlate  of  its  psychical  ex- 
citability ;  its  mobility  and  sensitivity  correspond  in  the  development  of 
psychical  life.  What  is  true  of  the  infant  is  true  of  those  adult  individuals 
and  of  those  races  which  have  most,  in  this  respect,  of  infantile  character- 
istics. But  since  conation  expresses  itself  in  inhiliition  as  well  as  in  im- 
pulsive movement,  and  since  training  of  will  and  cliaracter  involve  not  fol- 
lowing impulses  quite  as  much  as  the  positive  following  of  selected  ideas, 
the  suppression  of  the  "natural "  tendencies  to  movement  is  a  necessary  part 
of  the  formation  of  safe  and  intelligent  motor  habits.  Even  hero,  however, 
what  we  call  "suppression  "  is  accomplished  with  difficulty  and  pain,  and  it 
is  rather  apparent  than  real.  If  mental  excitement  is  itself  allowed  to  rise, 
it  inevitably  expresses  itself  in  tensions  and  strains,  in  irregular  or  spas- 
modic action  of  internal  organs,  and  in  the  pull  of  the  antagonistic  muscles, 
etc.  ;  it  is  chiefly  the  more  obvious  and  massive  muscular  contractions  which 
are  really  sui)pressed. 


SENSATION  AS    "  DYNAMOGENETIC  "  229 

The  general  fact  jnsfc  indicated  has  been  called  a  "  law  of  mental  dyna- 
mogeuesis,"  and  has  been  stated  by  one  writer '  in  the  following  terms  : 
"  Every  slate  of  couHciousriess  tends  to  realize  itself  in  an  appropriate  muscular 
movement ;  "  by  another  author  '^  it  has  been  illustrated,  in  an  interesting 
way,  in  an  entire  monograph.  "Active  consciousness"  and  "motor  con- 
sciousness " — in  the  wider  meanings  of  these  two  terms — are  thus  found 
constantly  to  intermingle  and  to  develop  in  mutual  dependence. 

I  10.  The  iiist  movements  of  the  child  which,  physiologically  considered, 
are  of  central  origin  and,  psychologically  considered,  are  chiefly  ascribed  to 
conation,  have  been  called  " impulsive "  or  "  instinctive,"  etc.  "Random 
automatic  "  seems,  however,  a  more  appropriate  term.  As  Preyer  has  said, 
such  movements  should  not  be  called  instinctive,  "  because  they  have  no 
aim."  Among  them  this  author  would  place  the  movements  of  the  human 
embryo  in  the  womb,  the  child's  beating  of  itself  with  its  own  hands,  its 
rolling  "aimlessly  hither  and  thither  when  fast  asleep,"  etc.  That  such 
movements  as  the  latter  are,  in  part,  mere  jjhysiological  reflexes,  and,  in 
part,  conscious  sensory-motor  reflexes,  we  have  already  seen  reason  to  be- 
lieve. But  the  early  "protrudings  of  lips,"  the  "asymmetrical  grimaces," 
"abductions,  addiictions,  and  rotations"  of  the  arms,  "crowiugs  and  similar 
exercises  of  voice,"  which  the  infant,  when  awake,  so  abundantly  displays, 
are  probably  largely  due  to  conation — blind  psychical  strivings.  Something 
akin  to  and  yet  the  reverse  of  this  occurs  not  infrequently  in  adult  conscious- 
ness in  the  case  of  those  random  automatic  ideation-processes,  those  unac- 
countable and  p^irposeless  forthputtiugs  of  ideas,  which  occur  in  times  of 
unregulated  mental  excitement. 

I  11.  Every  sensation  maybe  said  to  have  a  "  dynamogenetic  "  value  and 
influence,  in  proportion  to  its  intensity  as  well  as  to  the  way  in  which  it  fits 
in  with  the  entire  content  of  consciousness.  If  a  person  is  engaged  in 
exerting  pressure  with  a  maximum  of  energy,  any  form  of  perijiheral  exci- 
tation may  affect  the  potential  of  energy.  That  sensations  generally  excite 
movement  of  the  organs  connected  with  the  origin  and  exploration  of  the 
sensations  themselves  is  a  fact  confirmed  by  abundant  experience.  Every 
smell  is  a  challenge  to  sniff  in  or  blow  out  the  air  of  the  nasal  passages ; 
eveiT  taste  provokes  the  tonp:ue  to  move  ;  every  sound  incites  us  to  inner- 
vate the  organ  of  hearing  and  turn  the  head  in  its  direction.  And  let  but 
the  finger  casually  light  upon  some  object,  it  can  scarcely  refrain  from  press- 
ing the  object,  tracing  its  outlines,  and  determining  by  motion  its  compo- 
sition. While,  conversely,  if  any  object  light  upon  or  move  over  some  area 
of  the  skin,  the  sensation  it  produces  elicits  all  the  motor  activities  con- 
nected with  the  management  of  that  particular  area.  And  that  the  eyes 
shall— "impulsively,"  as  we  say — focus  upon  and  follow  any  bright  and 
moving  object  is  a  sort  of  primary  datum.  The  hypothesis  that  all  our 
movements  are  determined  by  sense-stimuli  was  maintained  for  the  develop- 
ment of  visual  consciousness,  as  an  inference  from  the  mechanical  view  of 
nature  before  the  investigations  of  modern  psychology.  John  Toland  main- 
tains it  in  his  Letters  to  Sophie  Charlotte,  Queen  of  Prussia. 

\  12.  The  influence  of  feeling,  in  the  form  of  interest  and  pleasure-pain, 
upon  the  motor  organism  is  almost  too  obvious  to  need  mention.  Through 
>  Baldwin  :  Feeling  and  Will,  p.  281.  "  Fere  :  Sensation  et  Mouvement. 


230  CONATIOiS^   AXD    MOVEMENT 

this  influence  desires  and  volitions  develop  in  relation  to  each  other.  But 
the  primary  relation  is  antecedent  to  all  conscious  desires  and  volitions. 
The  sentient  animal  immediately  and  necessarily  moves  under  the  influence 
of  pleasure  or  pain.  These  forms  of  i^sychical  life  set  the  entire  motor  ap- 
paratus in  a  state  of  activity,  and  thus  profoundly  modify  the  so-called 
motor  consciousness.  Thus  men  go  into  convulsions  over  strong  pains,  or 
weak  pains  repeated  and  summated,  as  it  were  ;  they  leap  and  dance  with 
ra"-e  or  joy.  The  depressing  forms  of  feeling,  the  loss  of  interest  and  low- 
toned  monotonous  grief,  occasion  the  relaxation  and  depressed  tone  of  cer- 
tain groups  of  muscles  ;  and  so  the  afiiicted  ones  sink  their  heads  upon 
their  breasts,  let  arms  and  legs  lie  flabby,  and  fall  "  all  in  a  heap."  Chil- 
dren and  hypnotic  subjects  furnish  marked  examples  of  this  influence  of 
feeling  over  the  motor  apparatus  and  the  motor  consciousness.  Every  large 
insane  asylum  contains  markworthy  instances  of  the  same  psychological 
truth. 

I  13.  Few  words  have  been  used  more  indefinitely  than  the  words  "  im- 
pulse "  and  "instinct."  The  consideration  of  their  full  legitimate  meaning 
must  be  reserved  until  later  on.  Obviously,  almost  all  of  those  movements 
which  merit  the  names  "  impulsive "  or  "instinctive,"  arise  from  genuine 
psychic  states  having  the  threefold  aspect  of  sensation,  feeling,  and  cona- 
tion. Thus  the  infant  sees  the  bright  candle  or  fire,  feels  a  vague  drawing 
toward  it  in  the  form  of  awakened  interest,  and  "  impulsively"  grasps  after 
it.  Or  it  hears  a  sound,  is  attracted  by  it,  and  "instinctively"  turns  its 
head  in  the  direction  of  the  sound.  In  many,  and  in  perhaps  the  larger 
number  of  such  cases,  however,  the  intervening  factors  are  eliminated,  and 
the  sensations  causing  the  movement  fuse  with  the  sensations  caused  by 
the  accomplishment  of  the  movement.  To  this  complex  of  sensations,  the 
feeling  of  pleasure  or  of  pain  and  the  feeling  of  effort,  or  of  activity,  become 
attached. 

We  agree  with  those  authors  who  hold  that  a  distinction  between  "  the 
impulsive"  and  "the  instinctive"  should  be  observed,  even  when  these 
terms  are  applied  to  primary  classes  of  movement.  The  impulsive  move- 
ments are  more  individual,  the  instinctive  more  common  and  generic.  In- 
stinctive movements  are,  therefore,  more  definite  and  uniform  ;  they  are 
correlated  with  statical,  or  constantly  recurring,  stimuli  in  the  environment ; 
they  are  ordinarily  more  complex  and  wonderful  when  compared  with  all 
discoverable  influences  from  external  stimuli ;  and  they  plainly  have  for 
their  end  the  relations  of  the  individual  to  the  species.  Instinctive  move- 
ments of  various  kinds  are,  indeed,  performed  by  the  human  physical  and 
psychical  mechanism  ;  but  in  man's  case  they  are  relatively  less  numerous 
and  important  and  far  less  astonishing  than  in  the  case  of  many  of  the  lower 
animals.  Human  embryos,  human  infants  even,  can  do  nothing  comparable 
to  the  larva  of  the  stag-beetle  that  digs  for  itself  a  suitahle  (!)  cavity,  on  oc- 
casion of  its  passing  into  the  chry.salis  state  ;  or  comparable  to  the  worker- 
bees  which  are  said  to  construct  cells  "  usually  for  just  the  number  of  eggs 
the  queen  will  lay." 

I  14.  Even  the  ' '  idea "  of  movement  tends  to  realize  itself  in  actual 
movement  ;  while  the  relation  of  the  mental  imago  of  any  particular  move- 
ment to  the  corresponding  actual  movement  is  such  that  the  latter,  in  a  voluu- 


INFLUENCE   OF   SUGGESTION  231 

tary  way,  is  uot  possible  without  the  former.  Tho  attempt  has  been  made  to 
show  that,  in  individuals  and  in  races,  the  energy  of  momentary  effort  is  re- 
lated to  the  habitual  exercise  of  intellectual  functions."  In  general,  negroes 
are  said  to  have  less  power  of  grasj)  to  exert  pressure  than  have  white  men ; 
intelligent  persons  more  power  than  persons  of  low  intellect,  and  so  on.  It  is 
even  claimed  that  "  momentary  exercise  of  intelligence  provokes  a  momen- 
tary exaggeration  of  the  energy  of  voluntary  movements."  However  all  this 
may  be,  everybody  knows  that  to  "  think  of  "  doing  anything  creates  its  own 
tendency  to  actualization  in  doing.  To  think  of  jumping  from  a  bridge,  or 
tower,  or  bank,  is  too  strong  a  temptation  for  some  persons  safely  to  try  to  re- 
sist it.  One  cannot  well  hold  the  ' '  idea  "  of  kicking,  striking,  eating,  singing, 
dancing,  fencing,  etc.,  without  starting  motor  tendencies  in  these  particular 
directions.  Indeed,  in  a  large  class  of  our  most  complicated  motor  activities, 
the  movement  follows  upon  the  idea  with  little  or  no  conscious  intervention 
of  feelings  of  interest  or  sign  of  jmrposeful  conation.  Thus  I  have  the 
idea  of  consulting  a  particular  book  in  my  library  to  verify  a  reference 
(such  a  page),  and  at  once  I  rise  from  my  chair  and  go  through  the  exceed- 
ingly complex  evolution  of  movements  necessary  to  realize  my  idea.  Yet  in 
such  a  case  as  this  it  might  also  be  said:  "I  desired  to  consult  the  book 
and  therefore  I  did  thus  and  so  ;  "  or,  "  I  willed  to  consult  the  book,  and 
therefore  I  did  thus  and  so." 

It  is  chiefly  under  this  head  that  certain  movements  must  be  classed 
which  have  been,  of  late,  investigated  in  connection  with  hypnotic  phenom- 
ena. These  movements  are  said  to  be  caused  by  "suggestion."  It  is  im- 
possible to  describe  confidently  the  entire  complex  psychic  state  which,  in 
infancy  or  in  the  hypnotic  subject,  corresponds  to  the  term  "mental  sugges- 
tion." But  after  the  stage  of  mental  development  has  been  reached  in  which 
genuine  "ideo-motor"  influences  can  work,  it  is  to  these  chiefly  that  we 
must  look  for  an  account  of  some  of  the  most  startling  of  the  phenomena  of 
suggestion.  Every  sensation-complex  awaked  by  excitement  of  any  part  of 
the  periphery,  every  word  of  command,  or  of  warning,  or  of  information, 
immediately  awakens  its  appropriate  "  escort  of  ideas,"  and  these  suggest 
and  effectuate  the  appropriate  movements.  Suggest  to  the  hypnotic  sub- 
ject that  he  is  drinking  ink  instead  of  water,  and  he  begins  to  gag  and  to 
spew  appropriately  ;  or  that  he  is  drinking  lemonade  instead  of  vinegar,  and 
he  smiles  and  smacks  his  lips  with  pleasure.  Put  into  his  mind  the  idea 
that  his  hands  are  bloody,  and  his  face  will  express  disgust  and  horror ;  while 
his  monotonous  energy  in  washing  them  will  rival  that  of  the  somnambulist. 
Lady  Macbeth. 

We  shall  soon  see,  however,  that  suggestion  is  a  term  which  may  be 
employed  to  cover  a  large  portion  of  the  mechanism  of  our  entire  life  of 
ideation  and  movement. 

I  15.  The  imitative  movements  of  early  childhood  have  a  complex  but 
not  easily  ascertainable  psychical  origin.  Here,  too,  doubtless  much  must 
be  ascribed  to  unconscious  and  conscious  reflexes— much,  doubtless,  but  by 
no  means  all.  Somewhere  from  the  foui-th  to  the  seventh  month  clearly 
imitative  movements  may  be  observed  in  the  child.  Preyer  tells  us  "  that 
at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  week,  he  obseiTed  an  infant  "making  attempts 

'  See  Fere,  Sensation  et  Mouvement,  p.  76.  "  The  Mind  of  the  Child,  I.,  p.  283. 


232  CONATION   AND   MOVEMENT 

to  purse  the  lips  when  I  did  it  close  in  front  of  him."  Later  the  same  child 
develoi^ed,  in  response  to  the  excitement  of  seeing  and  hearing  the  same 
thing  in  others,  those  expressive  movements  of  the  limbs,  head,  face,  and 
vocal  organs,  with  which  all  observers  are  familiar.  Nod  before  the  infant 
and  it  nods  ;  protrude  the  tongue,  and  the  corresponding  movement  may  be 
accomplished  by  it ;  beckon  or  point,  and  it  will  successfully  iindertake  the 
same.  Let  an  adult  cough  or  cry,  a  sheep  bleat  or  a  dog  bark,  and  the 
young  human  animal  will  try  its  motor  apparatus  to  produce  a  correspond- 
ing sound — often  with  wonderful  success  the  first  time,  and  while  yet  at  an 
age  of  low  intelligence.  Indeed,  almost  any  motor  habits  may  be  success- 
fully cultivated  under  this  i^rinciple  of  imitation.  Idiots  are  often  most 
excellent  imitators  ;  and  Darwin  tells  us,  in  his  account  of  the  Fuegians, 
how  imitation  prevails  among  savages  and  certain  animals.  Hypnotic  sub- 
jects can  be  made  to  perform  a  wide  range  of  movements  in  the  same  way. 

It  is  not,  however,  among  childreu,  idiots,  and  savages  alone  that  imita- 
tive movements  abound.  In  watching  those  fencing,  dancing,  acting  a  part 
— movements  in  any  way  under  the  influence  of  common  sympathetic  feelings 
-—the  tendency  to  imitate  the  same  movements  ourselves  is  often  difficult  to 
resist.  We  smile  at  other's  smiling,  if  there  be  no  reason  to  the  contrary ; 
and  sounds  of  weeping,  or  of  that  "  woe"  to  which  Thackeray  makes  refer- 
ence in  his  essay  on  crossing  the  English  Channel,  are  apt  to  elicit  like 
motor  activities  in  us.  In  all  these  cases  the  amount  and  kind  of  con- 
scious feeling  and  ideation  which  are  awaked  in  the  jDrocess  of  imitation 
depend  upon  the  character  and  stage  of  the  individual's  develo]3ment.  But 
certain  feelings  and  ideas  are  connected  with  what  is  inherited  and  instinctive 
with  the  entire  human  race.  For  it  is  human  to  grasp  and  to  fight,  to  smile 
and  to  cry,  to  pout  and  nod  and  purse  the  mouth,  etc. 

I  16.  The  development  of  motor  consciousness  and  of  movements  of  the 
bodily  organism,  under  all  these  different  classes,  is  necessarily  conducted 
with  constant  reference  to  certain  principles.  Among  them  the  following 
may  be  noted  here  :  (1)  the  principle  of  interference.  Certain  muscles  and 
coordinated  groujos  of  muscles  cannot  possibly  be  moved  simultaneously. 
Sensations,  feeling,  ideas,  that  express  themselves  by  excitement  of  "an- 
tagonistic "  movements  cannot,  therefore,  simultaneously  realize  themselves. 
When  then  they  occur  in  rapid  succession,  or  in  confused  conflict  in  the 
field  of  consciousness,  they  necessarily  "  interfere  "  with  each  other's  appro- 
priate expressions  in  movements.  The  face  of  an  hypnotic  subject  may  be 
made,  it  is  said,  to  express  i^leasure  on  one  side  and  pain  on  the  other,  at 
the  same  time  ;  and  all  men  may  weep  and  laugh  by  turns,  and  with  no  long 
interval  between.  But  at  the  same  instant  one  cannot  abduct  and  adduct 
the  same  limb,  or  rotate  it  in  opposite  directions  ;  few  can  rival  the  hypnotic^ 
subject  to  whom  reference  was  just  made. 

(2)  The  principle  of  fatigue  effects  the  cessation  of  movements,  after  they 
have  been  long  continued,  or  intensely  executed  ;  it  ojiorates  also  to  select 
those  which  shall  be  triumphant  in  the  momentary  struggle  for  existence. 
Especially  is  this  so  when  we  consider  that  pain  accompanies  fatigue.  He 
who  tries  the  trick  of  seeing  how  long  he  can  hold  his  arm  straight  out, 
•'  decides  "  at  the  end  of  a  few  minutes,  that  although  ho  could  energize 
longer  the  appropriate  muscles,  he  prefers  to  stop  the  pain  and  let  tlie  arm 


PRINCIPLES   OF   MOVEMENT  233 

fall.  lu  numerous  much  more  subtle  ways  the  principle  determines  what 
movements  shall  be  "  preferred  "  to  others.  In  general,  movements  of  the 
body,  like  ninning  waters,  select  the  channels  that  involve  least  resistance. 
And  (3)  the  universal  psycho-physical  principle  of  habit  prevails  in  the  en- 
tire realm  of  movement.  By  volition,  for  definite  ends,  we  can  indeed 
"break  the  cake  of  custom  "  and  mould  it  anew  ;  but  even  this  takes  place 
only  under  the  principle  of  habit. 

It  is  evident  tli.at,  in  speakinpc  of  conation  and  movement  as 
we  have  done  in  this  chapter,  and  especially  in  referring  to  the 
vast  realm  of  ideo-motor  and  imitative  movements,  we  have 
somewhat  anticipated  the  treatment  of  subjects  which  are  to 
follow.  But  this  was  inevitable.  And  it  is  to  the  nature  of  the 
representative  image  and  its  i)lace  among  the  elements,  as  well 
as  its  part  in  the  development  of  mental  life,  that  we  must  now 
turn  in  order  afterward  to  show  how  sensation,  feeling,  and  cona- 
tion combine  to  make  such  development  possible. 

[In  connection  with  the  works  already  quoted  in  this  chapter  and  in  the  chapter  on 
Attention,  and  in  addition  to  the  cliaptcrs  on  "Will"  in  the  general  treatises  on  Psychol- 
ogy (of  which  James,  II.,  xxvi.;  HiifTding,  vii.,  A  and  B;  and  Baldwin,  II.,  xii.-xv.,  are 
among  the  best),  the  student  of  this  subject  should  familiarize  himself  with  the  phenom- 
ena of  purely  physiological  and  automatic  reactions  and  of  reaction-time.  For  the  former 
subject  consult  any  of  the  standard  jihysiologies,  and  the  author's  Elements  of  Physio- 
logical Psychology,  i.,  chaps,  iv.  and  vii. ,  and  ii.,  chaps,  i.,  ii.,  ix.,  and  x.  Wundt :  Physio- 
log.  Psychologic  {3d  ed.),  I.,  Absch.  i.,  chaps.  4  and  .5,  and  II.,  Absch.  v.  For  the  latter, 
the  same  works  ;  Ladd  :  op.  cit.,  ii.,  chap.  viii.  Wundt :  II.,  Absch.  iv.;  and  the  collateral 
literature  referred  to  in  these  treatises.  Among  the  monographs  treating  of  primary  Co- 
nation and  Will  are  the  following  :  Spitta  :  Die  Willensbestimmungen,  etc.  Chmielowski  : 
Die  organischen  Bestimmungen  d.  Entstehung  d.  Wille.  Mach.:  Grundlinien  d.  Lehre 
von  d.  Bewegungsempfindungen.  Schneider  :  Der  menschliche  Wille,  i.-x.  Preyer  :  The 
Mind  of  the  Child,  L,  Second  Part.  Miinsterberg  :  Die  Willenshandlung.  O.  Kiilpe : 
Die  Lehre  von  Willen,  etc.  Philosoph.  Stud.,  v.,  pp.  179  ff.  and  381  fF.  Fe'rc  :  Sensation  et 
Mouvement.  Of  value  are  also  works  on  Physiognomy  such  as  Warner,  Physical  Ex- 
pression, and  Lowenfeld,  Physiognomik  and  Mimik.] 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  EEPEESENTATIVE  IMAGE  OR   "IDEA" 

It  was  formerly  one  of  the  commonplaces  of  psychology  to 
point  out  the  dependence  of  all  our  mental  development  upon 
the  faculty  of  memory.  And,  indeed,  it  is  self-evident  that  only 
as  i3sychical  states  may  be  consciously  connected  tog-ether  can 
the  subject  of  the  states  come  to  know  anything  either  about 
himself  or  about  things.  Modern  psychology  has  been  wont, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  deny  that  memory  should  be  spoken  of  as 
a  "  faculty  "  at  all ;  it  has  rather  emphasized  the  continuity  of 
psychical  life  as  a  mere  mechanism  of  sensations  and  of  images 
representative  of  past  sensations.  In  what  sense  memory  is  a 
faculty,  and  in  what  relation  it  stands  to  the  development  of  all 
faculty,  will  be  considered  later  on.  Our  present  task  is  scientif- 
ically to  describe  the  nature,  conditions,  and  relation  to  its  so- 
called  "  original,"  of  that  elementary  form  of  psychosis  which  is 
emphasized  in  memory.  For  lack  of  a  better  term,  we  shall  use, 
indifferently,  for  this  elementary  psychosis,  the  words  "  mental 
image  "  and  "  idea."  ^  Our  study  of  this  psychic  element,  in  a 
fundamental  way,  will  enable  us  subsequently  to  see  how  far  all 
exercise  and  development  of  mental  faculty  depends  upon  the 
nature  and  laws  of  the  recurrence,  fusion,  and  reciprocal  in- 
liuence  of  ideas.  In  other  words,  in  all  perception  and  self-con- 
sciousness, in  all  complex  forms  of  emotion,  desire,  and  volition, 
as  well  as  in  memory  and  imagination,  strictly  so  called,  idea- 
tion, or  mental-imaging,  plays  an  important  part.  We  must 
"  ideate "  in  order  to  know,  to  feel,  to  will ;  vnfhont  mental 
images,  or  ideas,  the  organization  and  continuity  in  development  of 
mental  life  is  absolutely  impossible. 

Here,  however,  a  caution  is  needed,  even  at  the  risk  of  seem- 
ingly needless  repetition.  Wo  do  not  cspoiise  that  theory  of 
mental  life  which  accounts  for  it  all  as  the  result  of  "  fusions  " 
and  "  conflicts  "  of  ideas  ;  or  as  the  resultant  of  "  aggregations  " 

•Sir  William  Hamilton  says  of  the  word  "idea:"  "In  England  Locke  may  be  said  to  have 
been  the  first  wlio  naturalized  the  term  in  its  Cartesian  universality.  When,  in  common  lansuasre, 
employed  by  Milton  and  Drydcn,  after  Descartes,  as  before  him  by  Sidney,  Spenser,  Shakespeare, 
Hooker,  etc.,  the  meaning  is  Platonic." 


NATUKE  OF  THE  MENTAL  IMAGE  235 

and  "  agglomeratious  "  of  seusatious  and  fainter  images  of  sen- 
sations. We  are  as  far  from  agreeing  with  Herbart  as  wo  are 
from  accepting  the  theories  of  Mr.  Spencer  on  these  points.  It 
has  already  been  sufficiently  explained  what  is  meant  by  an 
"  element "  of  mental  life,  by  the  "  fusion  "  of  such  elements,  and 
by  their  "  reciprocal  influence."  Simple  unconnected  mental  im- 
ages of  sensations,  feelings,  or  conations,  no  more  exist  in  con- 
sciousness, as  it  offers  its  phenomena  to  our  scientific  study, 
than  do  such  sensations,  feelings,  conations  themselves.  And 
ideation-processes  are  no  more  "  factors "  or  "  elements "  of 
complex  psychoses,  in  the  sense  of  being  distinct  entities  (like 
tlie  atoms  and  molecules  of  physical  masses)  than  are  any  other 
of  the  fundamental  psychical  processes.  But  the  introspective 
and  experimental  analysis  of  modern  psychology  cannot  be 
abandoned,  because,  in  spite  of  repeated  explanations,  some 
readers  will  probably  persist  in  misunderstanding  our  neces- 
sarily ligurative  terms. 

The  Nature  of  the  "  mental  Image,"  or  "  idea,"  can  best  be 
understood  by  carefully  studying  what  takes  place  in  conscious- 
ness as  any  parti-cular  one  of  the  more  simple  psychoses  loses  its 
vivid  and  realistic  character — as  it  "  fades  away  "  (so  we  are 
pertinently  accustomed  to  say)  in,  and  then  from  consciousness. 
For  this  purpose  either  one  of  the  three  fundamental  forms  of 
mental  life  may  be  emphasized.  Thus  we  may  speak  of  the 
mental  image  of  a  sensation,  the  mental  image  of  a  feeling,  the 
mental  image  of  a  conation,  or  act  of  will.  The  conditions  un- 
der which  these  different  elementary  processes  are  allowed  to 
fade  away,  and  so  pass  into  the  idea  corresponding  to  each  (to 
"  ideate "  themselves,  as  it  were)  may  be  almost  indefinitely 
varied.  Thus  the  basis  of  a  somewhat  accurate  scientific  treat- 
ment of  the  nature  and  conditions  of  ideation  in  general  may  be 
laid.  These  earliest  "  residua,"  or  first-occurring  traces  in  con- 
sciousness of  the  actual  processes  of  sensation,  feeling,  or  cona- 
tion, may  be  called  "  primary  images,"  or  "  after-images,"  corre- 
sponding to  the  processes  they  more  or  less  ideally  represent. 
They  might  also  be  called  "  ideas  of  first  intention." 

In  all  study  of  the  nature  of  the  mental  image  the  effect  of 
attention  is  most  important.  If  we  persistently  attend  to  the 
sensation,  feeling,  or  conation,  it  fades  away  and  passes  through 
the  different  recognizable  stages  of  ideation  much  more  gradu- 
ally, as  a  rule,  than  it  otherwise  would.  But  if  we  let  it  "  slip 
away,"  whether  voluntarily  or  involuntarily,  or  if  some  sensation, 
feeling,  or  impulse  occurs  to  interrupt  the  original  impression, 
then  this  impression  generally  seems  not  to  undergo  the  stage 


236  THE   REPRESENTATIVE   IMAGE   OR    "  IDEA  " 

of  the  after-image  or  primary  idea.  Speaking  in  vulgar  but 
expressive  fashion,  one  may  declare  :  All  idea  of  what  I  was 
just  seeing,  feeling,  doing,  is  "  driven  out "  of  my  head — this, 
when  the  interruption  of  my  psychosis  was  esj)ecially  abrui^t, 
because  of  the  intense  or  interesting  character  of  the  new 
psychosis. 

But  now  the  absorbing  practical  question  may  arise  :  Can  I 
recall  the  sensation,  feeling,  volition,  of  the  moment  ago  ?  This 
question  may  take  either  one  of  several  suggestive  forms.  For 
example  :  Have  I  any  "  idea,"  or  can  I  "  call  up  "  any  idea,  of 
my  just  previous  mental  state  ?  or.  What  vjas  it  I  was  thinking 
about,  or  doing,  an  instant  ago  ?  or,  Will  the  idea  of  that  ever 
arise  again  in  my  mind?  Let  it  be  supposed,  however,  that 
this  effort  at  recollection  is  successful ;  and  that  we  then  turn  our 
attention  to  the  psychosis  in  which  it  results.  And  now  the 
form  of  our  representative  consciousness  will  probably  be  found 
to  differ,  in  several  respects,  from  that  of  the  so-called  after- 
image, or  idea  of  first  intention.  Figuratively  speaking  still, 
it  may  be  said  to  have  less  intensity  as  an  element  of  the  complex 
mental  state,  less  life-likeness,  less  "  sensuous  "  character,  as  it 
were.  If  now,  once  more,  a  considerable  period  has  elapsed 
since  the  experience  of  the  sensation,  feeling,  or  volition,  whose 
image  we  desire  to  recall,  such  image,  on  appearance,  wdll  prob- 
ably have  lost  still  further  in  the  same  qualities  of  intensity, 
life-likeness,  etc.,  as  compared  both  wdth  the  original  experience 
and  also  with  its  memory-image,  while  as  yet  this  image  was 
fresh. 

It  appears,  then,  that  the  immediately  discernible  nature  of 
our  ideas  differs  considerably,  in  dependence  upon  two  very 
important  sets  of  considerations.  These  are,  first,  certain  rela- 
tions of  likeness,  or  unlikeness,  to  the  so-called  "originals," 
whose  representatives  they  are  said  to  be  ;  and,  second,  upon 
the  amount  of  time  which  has  elapsed  between  the  original 
psychosis  and  the  occurrence  in  consciousness  of  these  rej^re- 
sentatives. 

Hero,  however,  an  important  further  distinction  must  be  made. 
In  this  chapter  we  are  to  speak  of  the  relation  of  ideas,  as  repre- 
sentative ("images  o/*,"  etc.),  to  their  original  sensations,  feel- 
ings, and  volitions  ;  and  also  of  the  effect  which  the  lapse  of  time 
appears  to  have  upon  this  relation,  and  so  upon  the  nature  of  the 
ideas ;  but  the  discussion  of  these  subjects  is  only  preparatory 
to  treating  of  the  "  consciousness  of  relation  "  and  the  "  con- 
sciousness of  tim(\"  These  more  complex  forms  of  conscious- 
ness involve  a  high  degree  of  development  of  several  so-called 


THE   AFTKK-IMAGES   OF   SENSATIONS  237 

faculties — of  intellect,  self-consciousuess,  and  of  voluntary  and 
leco^nitive  reminiscence.  The  mechanism  of  ideation  must  be 
understood,  however,  in  order  to  understand  all  these  faculties, 
and  indeed  the  possibilit}'  of  any  continuity  or  continuous  de- 
velopment of  the  iDsychical  life. 

§  1.  Certain  fundamental  truths  may  be  learned  even  from  the  terms 
emi)loyed  to  express  our  simplest  experiences  in  the  way  of  ideation.  The 
noun  imago  in  Latin  might  be  api^lied  to  a  "mask,"  an  "apparition,"  a 
''  ghost"  or  "phantom,"  and  hence  a  something  which  is  recognizably  lUce, 
l)ut  really  is  not,  something  else.  The  adjective  "representative"  only 
adds  emphasis,  therefore,  to  a  notion  contained  in  the  noun  itself.  The 
word  "  image"  is  obviously  intended  chiefly  for,  and  is  primarily  applicable 
to,  our  visudl  experience.  We  see  images,  and  think  of,  or  remember,  the 
objects  which  they  represent.  But  in  psychological  language,  however  rough 
the  terminology  may  seem,  it  is  as  necessary  and  aiipropriate  to  inquire  con- 
cerning the  possibility  and  nature  of  "  images  "  of  the  skin,  muscles,  ear, 
tongue,  etc.,  as  of  the  eye.  Strong  objections  may  be  made  to  the  use  of 
the  word  "idea"  as  the  equivalent  of  the  term  representative  image.  Aiid 
in  the  history  of  psychological  and  iihilosophieal  language  few  words  have 
had  a  greater  variety  of  meanings  or  more  varied  and  mischievous  abuse 
than  this  word.  Etymologically  it  is  the  equivalent  in  Greek  (a'Soy)  of  the 
Latin  species.  For  whatever  other  uses  than  this  the  English  word  idea 
may  be  demanded,  it  can  scarcely  be  spared  from  this  use.  By  an  idea, 
then,  we  shall  now  understand  a  representative  image  in  general,  whether 
it  be  a  memory-image  or  an  image  of  the  imagination.  In  this  way  an  entire, 
much-needed  set  of  psychological  terms  can  be  consistently  employed  ;  such 
as  "ideation,"  to  "ideate,"  etc.  The  I'elations  of  the  idea  to  the  concept 
and  the  difference  in  different  ideas  considered  as  elements  of  memory,  or 
of  imagination,  or  even  of  perception  and  thought,  will  be  discussed  later  on. 

The  words  image  and  idea  suggest  that  the  psychical  jirocesses  and 
products  to  which  they  correspond  are  both  like  and  unlike  the  originals 
which  they  are  said  to  represent.  This  fact  is  jiopularly  expressed  by  saying 
that  the  former  is  the  "  image  of,"  or  "  idea  of,"  the  latter  ;  or  that  every 
correct  image,  or  true  idea,  is  like  that  which  it  represents.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  assumed  that  images,  or  ideas  of  sensations,  feelings,  cona- 
tions, are  not  really  (that  is,  they  are  in  some  resi^ects,  at  least,  unlike)  the 
sensations,  feelings,  conations,  which  they  represent.  Thus  the  uelations 
between  the  objects  of  memory,  imagination,  or  thought,  and  those  of  j^er- 
ception  and  self-consciousness,  although  far  more  complex  than  this  lan- 
guage indicates,  depend,  in  part,  upon  the  relations  of  likeness  and  unlike- 
ness  between  the  "  simple  ideas  "  and  their  so-called  "  originals." 

I  2.  The  sensations  of  all  the  different  senses  have  their  correspond- 
ing after-images.  This  fact  has  already  been  explained,  esi^ecially  in  the 
case  of  the  eye,  as  dejiendent  uj^on  physiological  conditions  (p.  127).  Any 
excitement  of  the  organism,  whether  peripheral  or  central,  lasts  for  a  time 
after  the  stimulus  has  been  removed  ;  the  state  of  excitement  reverberates 
in  the  central  organ  after  the  end-organ  has  quieted  down.  But  for  jjurposes 
of  present  experiment  let  one  study  the  fading  away  in  consciousness  of  any 


238  THE   KEPEESENTATIYE  IMAGE   OE    "  IDEA  " 

sensation,  while  attention  is  directed  strictly  to  the  changes  of  quality,  in- 
tensity, etc.,  whicli  thus  take  place.  For  example,  let  one  fixate  the  retinal 
image  of  a  caudle,  or  a  colored  spot,  and  then  close  the  eyes  and  note  what 
follows.  The  immediate  after-image  is  as  clearly  a  sensation  (as  respects 
intensity,  life-likeness,  and  objective  reference)  as  was  the  original  experi- 
ence. For  this  reason  the  term  "  aher-se)isations  "  has  been — not  improjierly 
— proposed  for  these  phenomena.  But  soon,  and  usually  in  an  intermittent 
way,  this  after-image,  with  its  strongly  sensuous  coloring,  disappears ;  and 
it  is  found  impossible,  even  with  persistent  striving,  to  make  it  reappear  in 
precisely  the  same  form.  We  may  either  be  compelled  to  content  ourselves 
with  stating  in  language  what  sort  of  a  sensation  was  formerly  had ;  or  we 
may  be  able  to  reproduce  in  the  concrete  form  of  an  image,  but  with  fainter 
intensity  and  less  of  sensuous  life-likeness,  the  representative  of  the  actual 
sensation.  These  two  forms  of  reproduction  should  be  carefully  distin- 
guished ;  it  is  of  the  latter  only  we  are  treating  at  the  present  time.  It 
is  the  latter  only  that  can  be  called  a  "  copy,"  or  representative,  of  the 
original  simple  imj)ression,  in  any  true  meaning  of  the  words. 

"What  is  true  of  after-images  and  ideas  of  first  intention,  resulting 
from  visual  impressions,  is  also  true,  though  less  obviously,  of  the  im- 
pressions of  the  other  senses.  Tastes  often  linger  in  the  mouth,  and 
smells  in  the  nostrils,  so  that  we  are  scarcely  able  to  tell  —  it  is  said  — 
whether  we  "  really  do  "  taste  and  smell,  or  only  "imagine"  that  we  taste 
and  smell.  Sensations  of  sound  leave  after-images  that  ordinarily  dis- 
appear more  promptly.  But  even  in  their  case  the  distinction  between 
"sensing"  and  "imaging"  sounds  cannot  always  be  drawn  with  cer- 
tainty. For  example,  the  violinist  may  make  us  hear  the  dying-away  of  the 
note  in  a  diminuendo  passage  by  the  trick  of  continuing  to  draw  his  bow 
over  the  string  without  actually  touching  it.  Here  the  fainter  and  fainter 
auditory  sensation  is  replaced  by  the  image  without  our  being  able  to  detect 
the  transition  between  the  two.  Intense  sensations  of  pressure,  by  careful 
attention,  may  have  their  after-images  delayed  for  a  time,  and  seem  to  fade 
away  somewhat  after  the  manner  of  visual  after-images.  In  the  case  of  sen- 
sations of  temperature,  our  uncertainty  about  the  character  of  the  objective 
stimulus  makes  it  always  difficult  to  distinguish  between  sensations  and 
images  of  sensations.  The  laboratory  trick  already  referred  to  (p.  76),  shows 
that  the  imaging  of  a  low  intensity  of  the  sensation  of  heat  may  easily  be 
mistaken  for  the  sensation  itself. 

§  3.  The  effect  of  time  upon  the  fading  away  of  the  primary  image  may 
be  made  the  subject  of  experimental  investigation.  In  fact,  there  are  scores 
of  sensations,  feelings,  and  volitions,  whose  after-images  fade  quickly  out  of 
consciousness,  perhaps  never  to  recur  ;  but  which  are  capable  of  being  de- 
tected if  we  only  search  for  them  in  time.  For  example,  let  one  who  is 
absorbed  in  reading,  reflection,  or  conversation,  be  questioned :  What  were 
you  just  doing  ?  or.  What  was  I  just  doing  ?  or.  What  just  happened  in  the 
room  ?  (supposing  such  jierson  has  been  twirling  his  moustache ;  or  you 
have  reached  over  the  table  for  a  pen  ;  or  the  clock  has  struck) ;  and  if  the 
question  follows  within  2  to  10  sec,  of  the  event,  it  can  be  answered  cor- 
rectly. If,  however,  the  question  comes  later  than  this,  the  primary  image 
will  have  faded  beyond  recall.     Thus  Weber  found  that  the  primary  mem- 


THE   FADING   OF   MENTAL   IMAGES  239 

ory-imago  of  weights  sank  rapidly  the  first  10  sec;  and  Lehmann  found 
that  11  sliiido  of  gray  coiihl  bo  recognized  with  certainty  only  as  long  as  the 
interval  did  not  exceed  60  sec.  Another  observer  '  placed  the  greatest  accu- 
racy for  memory  of  the  pitch  of  tones  (corresi)onding,  presumably,  to  the 
most  vivid  and  life-like  condition  of  the  primary  image)  after  an  interval  of 
about  ten  seconds  from  the  sensation.  From  this  point  the  curve  of  accu- 
racy of  the  imago  fell  off  i^retty  regularly  until  the  interval  reached  between 
10  and  20  sec.  ;  then  it  ceased  to  fall  oft",  and  still  further  beyond  fell  oil" 
again  more  rapidl}^  with  increasing  time.  Another  observer,"  by  studying 
the  eiitect  of  time  on  his  memory  of  series  of  "  nonsense  syllables,"  learned 
by  heart,  found  that  the  process  of  forgetting,  for  longer  intervals,  is 
rapid  at  tirst  and  then  slower.  After  one  hour  half  the  original  amount  of 
work  must  be  done  in  order  to  reloarn  the  same  series  ;  after  eight  hours, 
^  of  the  same  work.  But  even  after  twenty-four  hours  the  memory-image 
retained  i  its  strength  ;  after  six  days,  i  ;  after  thirty  days,  i.  This  ob- 
server inferred  this  law  for  the  fading  of  the  memory-image  :  "The  ratio 
of  what  is  retained  to  what  is  forgotten  is  inversely  as  the  logarithm  of  the 
time." 

On  the  other  hand,  in  certain  cases  the  memory-image,  with  all  the 
intensity  and  sensuous  life-likeness  belonging  to  its  most ' '  primary  "  charac- 
ter, lingers  for  a  long  time,  or  persistently  reappears  in  consciousness.  Mi- 
croscopists,  after  prolonged  work  with  the  microscope,  sometimes  find  that 
the  images  of  the  objects  seen  in  its  focus  live  for  hours,  or  even  days,  in 
the  "fundus  of  the  eye."  Musicians  often  hear  the  sounds  made  by  their 
pupils  for  hours  after  each  lesson.  Dr.  Moos  tells  of  a  patient  whose  acous- 
tic images  persisted  with  the  intensity  of  sensations  for  fifteen  days  after  a 
musical  smnce.  After  working  for  days  together  on  brain  preparations  with 
fine  gauze  over  them,  M.  Baillarger  would  all  at  once  see  the  gauze  cover- 
ing other  objects  in  the  field  of  perception.  Another  worker  in  science, 
when  promenading  the  streets  of  Paris,  frequently  saw  the  images  of  the 
preparations  with  which  he  had  been  busy  projected  on  surrounding  ob- 
jects. 

^  4.  A  study  of  the  reverse  relation  between  sensations  and  their  images 
seems  to  lead  us  to  the  same  general  truth.  Starting  from  the  sensation  we 
may  trace  its  fading  into  the  more  and  more  "ideal"  form  of  the  primary 
or  secondary  mental  image.  But  starting  from  the  "  purest "  of  mental 
images  we  may,  by  increase  of  intensity  and  life-likeness,  render  it  indistin- 
guishable from  the  sensation.  Thus  the  different  degrees  of  temporaiy  or 
persistent  hallucination  originate.  In  sleej)  and  in  hyimotic  conditions  the 
mental  image  regularly  has  the  sensuous  and  objective  character  of  the  orig- 
inal from  which  it  is  said  to  be  derived.  In  dreams,  it  is  true  that  our 
mental  imagery  often  takes  its  rise  from  exaggeration  and  misinterpretation 
of  actual  sensations.  Thus  one  dreamer  "  imagined"  the  torture  of  a  stake 
driven  through  his  foot  by  burglars,  because  he  "  sensed  "  a  feather  between 
his  toes  ;  another  imagined  that  the  horse  of  the  diligence  in  which  he 
was  travelling  had  fallen  and  lay  panting,  because  he  was  himself  enduring, 
in  sleep,  the  disagreeable  sensations  of  asthma.     But  even  such  phenomena 

'  H.  K.  Wolfe  :  Ueber  das  Tongediichtniss.  Philosoph.  Studien,  iii.,  Heft  4. 
2  Ebbinghaus  :  Ueber  das  Gediichtnies,  p.  85  f.    Leipzig,  1885. 


240  THE   REPRESENTATIVE   IMAGE   OR    "  IDEA  " 

as  these  show  how  evanescent  is  the  distinction  between  the  sensation  and 
its  idea. 

Again,  it  has  been  pointed  out '  that  different  i^ersons  liave  different 
degrees  of  success  in  the  imaging  of  different  classes  of  sensations.  Some 
are  more  successful  than  others  with  auditory  sensations,  some  with  tactile 
and  muscular  sensations  ;  most  are  most  successful  with  visual  sensations. 
Defects  corresponding  to  the  different  characteristic  excellences  are  fre- 
quent enough.  Thus  one  man  finds  it  nearly  impossible  to  visualize  dis- 
tinctly the  face  of  an  absent  friend ;  while  a  melody  to  which  he  has  listened 
the  evening  before  will  be  sounding  in  his  brain  the  live-long  day.  Another 
can  see  before  him  the  vivid  pictures  of  those  long  dead ;  but,  to  save  his 
life,  could  scarcely  recall  the  tune  he  has  just  heard  sung  or  played. 
Stumpf  tells  of  a  young  aspirant  to  learn  the  violin  who  was  unable  to  play 
correctly,  not  because — as  was  at  first  supposed — he  had  ' '  no  ear  "  for  pitch, 
but  because  he  had  no  ideas  of  the  tactual  and  musciilar  order,  so  as  to 
control  accurately  his  fingers  in  spacing,  or  the  movements  of  his  bow- 
arm.  It  is  only  in  some  minds  that  sweet  smells  and  tastes  linger.  Some, 
however,  quickly  pass  from  the  idea  of  certain  smells  or  tastes,  suggested 
by  the  bare  mention  of  the  substances  which  occasion  them,  into  a  condition 
of  nausea  and  vomiting,  or  of  pleasantly  quickened  vitality — so  effectively 
life-like  are  their  mental  images  of  these  sensations. 

In  the  case  of  certain  individuals  and  in  certain  abnoi'mal  states  of 
brain  and  mind,  ideas  have  all  the  intensity,  life-likeness,  and  objectivity  of 
powerful  sensations  themselves.  Some  have  the  power,  at  will,  so  to  create 
the  image  of  a  remembered  object  of  sight  as  to  present  it  to  themselves 
with  the  clearness  of  outline,  strength  of  coloring,  and  covering  power 
of  actual  percepts.  These  rare  cases  are  similar  to  what  is  more  frequent 
among  hypnotic  subjects.  Every  student  of  insanity  knows  how  "fixed 
ideas  "  tend  to  objectify  themselves  until  they  become  indistinguishable  by 
the  subject  of  them  from  the  most  undeniable  i:)erceptions.  Angelic  or  de- 
moniac voices,  at  first  fitfully  imagined,  come  to  be  persistently  heard  ad- 
dressing the  ear ;  forms  of  ideal  origin,  and,  at  first,  of  occasional  aijpearanee, 
at  last  accompany  the  willing  or  unwilling  vision  everywhere.  Hallucina- 
tions of  smell  and  taste,  but  above  all  of  the  skin  and  internal  organs,  are 
closely  connected  with  various  forms  of  insanity.  In  all  these  matters  the 
range  of  experience  is  very  great ;  and  an  almost  unbroken  continuity  of 
cases,  with  slight  variations  in  degree  for  each  form  of  sensation  and  idea- 
tion, can  be  made  out.  The  dulness  and  slowness  of  some  persons,  of  even 
a  good  degree  of  intelligence,  in  the  process  of  image-making,  is  astonish- 
ing. But  some,  like  the  man  of  whom  Bonnet  tells  us,  see  jDcople,  birds, 
carriages,  houses,  etc.,  without  external  cause  ;  and  there  is  the  well-known 
case  of  Gothe,  who,  when  he  closed  his  eyes  and  bent  his  head,  could 
plainly  see  a  flower,  with  other  flowers  growing  out  of  it,  as  long  as  he  chose. 
The  religious  ecstatic — like  Benvenuto  Cellini,  who  saw,  in  answer  to 
prayer,  the  disk  of  the  sun  in  his  subterranean  prison,  and  the  artistic 
devotee — like  the  English  painter  who  painted  portraits  from  sitters  jilaced 
by  his  imagination  in  the  chairs  before  him,  or  the  immortal  but  deaf  Beet- 
hoven, wlio  constructed  by  ideation  the  harmonies  he  heard,  are  examples 
'  Especially  by  Gallon  in  his  Inquiry  into  Uuman  Faculty,  and  by  many  other  investigators. 


PHYSIOLOGICAL   CONDITIONS   OF   IDEATION  241 

of  this  i")ower.  But  between  them  and  the  jworest  adopt  at  image-making 
lie  all  degrees  of  efficiency.  Wo  conclude,  then,  that  although  sensations  and 
their  representative  images,  as  such,  do  not  differ  simj)!!/  in  seiisuous  intensity, 
they  do  dfferonly  in  degree  of  the  same  essential  characteristics.  What,  besides 
intensity,  such  characteristics  are,  will  soon  be  made  apparent.  Things 
perceived  and  things  remembered  or  imagined  undoubtedly  differ  in  an 
indefinite  number  of  ways  ;  and  yet  these  greater  and  more  complex  dif- 
ferences arc  largely  based  upon  the  primary  differences  between  sensations 
and  ideas. 

The  Physiological  Conditions  of  the  occurrence  and  recur- 
rence of  mental  Images  are  to  be  found  in  certain  general  bio- 
logical laws,  as  well  as  also  in  specific  qualities  of  the  nervous 
substance  of  the  cerebral  centers.  Indeed,  the  molecular  changes 
of  even  non-living  bodies,  in  certain  instances,  seem  to  furnish 
an  analogy  to  these  physiological  changes.  For  in  non-living 
bodies  systems  of  molecules  may  receive  a  certain  "  set "  which 
determines  the  nature  of  their  entire  future  behavior  toward  each 
other  ;  and  by  repeated  actions  of  a  certain  kind  they,  apiDarently, 
acquire  so-called  "  tendencies  "  to  similar  actions  in  the  future. 
But  this  imperfect  analogy  of  a  physical  sort  only  in  a  small 
degree  accounts  for  what  has  sometimes  been  called  the  "  mem- 
ory "  of  living  tissues.  Here  the  fundamental  laws  of  metabolism 
(or  change  of  the  substance  entering  into  any  living  structure, 
as  old  particles  are  excreted  and  new  ones  absorbed),  of  cell- 
propagation,  of  nutrition,  and  growth,  must  be  taken  into  ac- 
count. The  preservation  and  development  of  the  life  of  every 
organ,  and  so  of  every  complex  organism  with  its  numerous  in- 
teracting organs,  involve  these  laws  ;  they  may  even  be  extended 
to  the  individual  cell. 

In  general,  then,  the  pli5"siology  of  living  bodies  provides 
that  there  shall  be  continuity  in  development ;  that  in  all  present 
changes  the  past  stages  of  development  and  the  i^revious  forms 
of  functioning  shall  be  taken  into  the  account.  In  a  word,  every 
living  structure  carries  in  itself,  in  some  sort,  the  history  of 
what  has  happened  to  it  up  to  the  present  time,  and  of  all  that 
it  has  done  under  the  influence  of  the  different  forms  of  stimuli 
which  have  acted  upon  it.  The  more  complex  the  structure  is, 
and  the  more  varied  its  experience  in  the  past  has  been,  the 
more  of  developed  capacity  it  possesses  to  meet  the  varied  de- 
mauds  for  further  activities.  But  the  more  of  solidarity  it  has 
attained,  and  the  more  its  activities  have  been  directed  into, 
and  repeated  in,  certain  definite  lines,  the  stronger  is  its  ten- 
dency to  react,  whenever  new  similar  stimulation  occurs,  in  the 
customary  ways.     Speaking  figuratively :  It  "  remembers  "  wlmt 


242  THE   KEPRESENTATIVE   IMAGE   OR    "  IDEA  " 

it  has  done  ;  habit  rules  ;  it  does  each  time  what  it  remembers  as 
"ris'ht  "  to  do. 

Every  portiou  of  the  nervous  system  falls  under  the  physio- 
lo^-ical  laws  which  give  conditions  to  this  so-called  "  organic 
memory."  This  is  true  of  the  ganglionic  nerve-centers  scattered 
throuo-hout  the  internal  cavities  of  the  trunk,  of  the  nervous 
portions  of  the  end-organs  (such  as  the  retina  of  the  eye),  of  the 
spinal  cord  with  its  various  centers  for  the  performance  of  com- 
plicated reflex  activities,  and  of  the  lower  organs  of  the  brain. 
But  it  is  pre-eminently  true  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres,  where 
the  so-called  "  psychic  "  nerve-cells  and  nerve-fibers  are  found. 
This  structure  is,  of  all  molecular  structures,  by  far  the  most 
complicated  and  sensitive.  But  the  life  of  every  brain  has  a 
history ;  the  history  of  every  brain  is  a  different  history,  and 
every  brain  carries  its  history  w^ritten  within  itself.  Since,  then, 
it  falls  under  the  principles  of  habit,  growth,  tendency,  etc., 
this  collection  of  psychic  nerve-cells  and  nerve-fibers  has,  in 
the  highest  degree,  all  the  characteristics  of  the  so-called  or- 
ganic memory.  And  it  is  these  characteristics  which  furnish 
the  physiological  conditions  of  the  occurrence  and  the  recur- 
rence of  the  mental  image. 

^  5.  The  practice  of  photography  depends  upon  the  fact  that  a  plate  of 
dry  collodion,  after  being  exjoosed  for  an  instant  to  the  sun's  rays,  retains 
for  weeks  in  the  darkness  the  effects  of  the  indescribably  delicate  changes 
which  it  then  underwent.  Every  impression  taken  from  it  is  an  expres- 
sion of  this  truth  ;  only  thus  does  the  impression  become  the  image  of 
the  object  photographed.  A  French  writer'  has  shown  that  "latent  im- 
ages" may  be  "to  some  extent  garnered  uid  in  a  sheet  of  paper,"  kept  there 
for  a  long  time,  and  then  revealed  at  the  call  of  certain  reagents.  Even  a 
good  old  Cremona  violin  has  the  history  of  its  past,  in  the  form  of  an  "  in- 
organic memory,"  stored  up  in  the  molecular  alterations  of  its  woody  fiber. 
When  touched  again  it  reproduces  the  tones  it  has  been  trained  to  produce. 

These  inorganic  tendencies  of  a  molecular  kind,  however,  only  faintly 
foreshadow  the  organic  ;  it  is  in  the  nervons  system  that  all  this  effect  of 
habitual  forms  of  activity  becomes  most  pronounced.  The  nerve-cells,  like 
all  cells,  have  the  power  of  nourishing  themselves  and  of  propagating  their 
kind.  The  nutrition  brought  to  them  by  the  blood  is  used  for  tlie  enlarge- 
ment of  the  cell,  under  the  jmuciple  that  each  cell  builds  itself  in  accord- 
ance with  the  molecular  character  it  has  already  attained.  Each  cell  also 
may  be  held  to  propagate  itself  under  the  laws  of  heredity.  But  at  the 
same  time  its  internal  molecular  alteration  and  the  activity  of  the  connected 
cells  are  mutually  interdependent.  Thus  what  is  called  the  "  organic  mem- 
ory"— or  tendency  to  reaction  and  further  development  according  to  cer- 
tain lines  dependent  upon  past  action  and  past  development— is  gained  for 

iNiep?e  de  Saint-Victor:  Compt.  rend,  de  I'Academie  des  Sciences,  xlv.,  p.  Sll ;  and  xhi.,  p. 
448. 


CORTICAL   CENTERS   IN   IDEATION  243 

each  jjortion  of  the  nervous  system.  Retention  and  reproduction  on  the 
physical  side,  or  as  physiological  conditions  not  only  of  the  occurrence  and 
recurrence,  but  also  of  the  association,  of  mental  images,  are  thus  provided 
for.' 

The  foregoing  considerations  apply  to  the  spinal  cord  and  to  the  lower 
parts  of  the  brain.  Both  experiment  and  observation  show  that  these  ner- 
vous structures  possess  at  birth  certain  aptitudes  and  tendencies  connected 
with  the  habits,  physiological  and  p.sychical,  of  race,  breed,  parentage, 
etc.  But  those  organs,  whether  in  the  case  of  the  new-born  puppy  or  of  the 
new-born  infant,  cannot  at  first  do  some  things  which  they  can  learn  to  do  ;— 
using  still  the  same  convenient  figure  of  speech,  they  need  to  acquire,  and 
can  acquire,  an  organic  memory  on  the  basis  of  the  experience  of  the  in- 
dividual. As  we  have  elsewhere  observed:  "Each  element  of  the  nervous 
system,  especially  in  the  more  significant  of  its  central  organs,  may  be  con- 
sidered as  a  minute  area  intersected  by  an  indefinite  number  of  cui-ves  of 
diflerent  directions  and  orders  ;  thus  a  molecular  commotion  in  any  such 
area  may,  according  to  its  character  and  point  of  greatest  intensity,  run  out 
into  the  system  "along  any  one  of  these  many  curves."  In  every  such  small 
fragment  "the  whole  curve  slumbers."  But  pre-eminently  true  is  all  this 
of  the  nervous  elements  of  the  cerebral  centers,  where  the  so-called  psychic 
nerve-cells  are.  Of  the  efiect  of  stimulation  uiDon  them  one  writer"  affirms 
that  these  cells  never  return  after  their  excitation  to  their  original  condition. 
Such  a  cell  "  has  been  modified  in  a  permanent  manner  by  the  act  of  stimu- 
lation ;  and  this  modification  can  be  effiiced  only  by  the  death  of  the  cell. 
Each  excitation  has,  so  to  speak,  created  a  new  cell  different  from  flie  first." 

The  recurrence  of  any  memory-image  is,  therefore,  significant  of  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  effects  of  previous  reactions  to  stimulation,  in  the  shajie  of  a 
tendency  of  the  same  nervous  substance  to  react  in  ways  similar  to  those  in 
which  it  has  formerly  acted.  But  no  nervous  element,  and  especially  no 
so-called  psychic  nervous  element,  acts  apart  from  the  action  of  others. 
Hence  the  mechnnism  of  representative  images,  as  they  occur  and  recur  in  con- 
neclion  icith  each  other,  has  its  physiological  conditions  in  certain  ^^  dynamical 
associations"  amongst  tlie  ^^ psychic''''  nervous  elements.  And  the  spontaneous 
recurrence  of  some  of  these  images  ratlier  than  others,  as  started  by  this  or 
that  external  or  internal  stimulation,  dej^ends  upon  the  character,  number, 
and  strength,  of  the  ' '  dynamical  associations  "  which  make  up  the  "  organic 
memory,"  so  called,  of  the  nervous  organism  concerned  in  the  whole  process 
of  ideation. 

\  6.  It  is  assumed  that  the  cortical  centers  concerned  in  sensation  and  in  idea- 
tion are  the  same,  for  the  same  objects  at  least;  and  this  assumption  is  con- 
firmed by  all  which  we  know  of  the  i)hysiology  of  the  brain.  It  must  be 
remembered,  however,  that  since  neither  sensations  nor  ideas  occur  in  isola- 
tion, in  both  processes — however  simple  we  may  try  to  make  our  exi)eri- 
mental  tests — considerable  areas  of  the  nervous  substance  are  always 
involved.  It  has  been  claimed  by  some  writers  of  late  that  "sensation  and 
idea  depend  upon  different  cortical  elements ;"  and  the  term  "  memory-cell  " 

'  See  the  Vortrag  of  E.  IleriBg,  Ueber  das  Gcdachtniss  als  eine  allgemeine  Function  d.  orga- 
nisirten  Materie.    Wicn,  1S76.    Compare  Ribot,  Diseases  of  Memory. 

■^  Richet :  Les  Origines  et  les  Modalites  de  la  MSmoire,  Rev.  Philosoph.,  June,  1S86. 


244  THE   REPRESENTATIVE   IMAGE   OR    "  IDEA  " 

has  been  invented  as  a  title  for  sncli  elements  as  are  concerned  in  reproduc- 
tion solely.  But  even  the  experiments  with  animals  upon  which  these  claims 
rely,  jirove,  rather,  in  so  far  as  they  can  be  relied  upon  at  all,  the  very  opposite 
of  the  claims.  For  the  dog  which  is  affected  with  "psychical  blindness,"  or 
"  psychical  deafness,"  as  a  result  of  the  removal  of  certain  parts  of  the  cerebral 
substance,  has  lost  p.s_yc7«'caZ  character  alike  from  both  forms  of  conscious 
moditication.  Its  sensation-complexes,  or  rather  j^erceptions,  are  as  much 
modified,  or  lost,  as  are  its  corresijonding  ideas.  "We  conclude,  then,  that 
every  orgaii,  and  eveiy  element  of  every  organ,  falls  under  the  same  biologi- 
cal laws.  Every  organ,  and  every  element  of  every  organ — so  far  as  we  can 
appropriately  use  such  a  term  for  a  physical  mechanism — has  its  own  or- 
ganic memoiy.  And  the  sum-total  of  these  modifications  and  dynamical 
associations,  which  have  resulted  from  the  past  experience  of  the  system 
of  central  organs,  constitutes  the  system  of  physiological  conditions  in 
which  our  psychical  processes  of  ideation  have  their  i:)hysical  basis. 

We  now  resume  discussion  of  the  Nature  of  the  Representative 
Image  as  related  to  its  "  original,"  with  new  light  derived  from 
our  conclusions  respecting  the  physiological  conditions  of  both 
these  forms  of  psychical  life.  The  cerebral  processes  which  un- 
derlie sensation  are  like  those  which  underlie  image-making,  in 
that  similar  changes  in  the  same  connected  groups  of  nervous  ele- 
ments form  the  iDhysical  basis  for  both  kinds  of  psychosis.  But 
they  ase  unlike,  in  that  the  peripherally  initiated  processes 
predominate  in  sensation ;  and  in  image-making,  the  centralh' 
initiated  processes  i^redominate.  This  difference,  or  unlikeuess, 
however,  is  not  absolute.  Between  the  "  purest "  sensation  and 
the  "  purest  "  idea  of  that  sensation  an  unbroken  chain  of  psj'cho- 
physical  jDrocesses  may  intervene  to  bridge  over  this  difference. 
By  increasing  the  intensity  of  revived  central  processes,  more  or 
less  of  hallucination  may  take  i:»lace  ;  and,  finalW,  the  mental 
image  may  become  so  like  the  sensations  which  it  represents  as 
to  be  with  difficulty,  or  not  at  all,  distinguished  from  them. 

A  thorough  re-examination  of  the  data  of  consciousness  now 
contirms  the  suggestions  derived  from  the  most  probable  results 
of  physiological  psychology.  In  consciousness  the  mental 
image  is  known  to  be  more  or  less  like  and  unlike  its  sensation- 
original,  as  resiDccts :  (1)  intensity ;  (2)  life-likeness,  or  fuluess 
of  sensuous  content ;  and  so  (3)  objective  characteristics.  In 
saying  this  it  is  assumed  that  mental  images  have  different  de- 
grees of  intensity,  corresponding  more  or  less  nearly  to  the  inten- 
sity, as  sensational,  of  the  originals  Avliieh  they  represent.  It  is 
also  assumed  tliat  ideas  are  not  merely  fainter  copies  of  sensa- 
tions, but  that  qualitative  as  well  as  quantitative  differences  may 
be  recognized  when  we  compare  the  two.  On  the  whole  matter, 
then,  we  tind  consciousness  agreeing  in  some  sort  with,  and  yet. 


SENSUOUS   VIVACITY    OF  THE   IMAGE  245 

iu  some  sort,  differing  from  both  tlie  extreme  views  taught  by- 
opposing  schools  of  psychologists.  Some  writers  assert  that  the 
only  difference  between  sensations  and  their  representative  im- 
ages is  a  difference  iu  intensity  or  vivacity.  With  Hume  aud 
the  earlier  English  psychologists,  generally,  an  "  idea "  is  a 
"  fainter  cop}^ "  of  its  sensation.  Bain'  also  seems  to  deny  all 
qualitative  difference  between  the  sensation  and  its  memory- 
image.  But  other  writers  affirm  that  the  difference  between  the 
sensation  and  the  idea  is  "  above  all  a  qualitative  difference  ; " 
and  even  derry  all  intensity,  and  so  all  possibility  of  difference 
in  intensity,  as  characteristic  of  different  ideas.  As  says  Ziehen  :  ^ 
"  The  sensual  vivacity  characteristic  of  every  sensation  does  not 
belong  at  all  to  the  idea,  not  even  in  a  diminished  intensity." 
Both  these  extreme  views  are  equally  correct  in  what  they 
affirm,  and  wrong  in  what  they  deny.  For  the  differences  and 
likenesses  of  sensations  and  ideas,  as  factors  of  conscious  life, 
concern  both  the  intensity  and  the  com^ilex  quality  of  the  two. 

Our  consciousness  proves  that  we  immediately  recognize  a 
vast  amount  of  difference  in  the  intensity  of  our  different  ideas. 
Let  any  good  visualizer,  for  example,  undertake  to  revive  some 
particularly  vivid  and  recent  visual  sensation-complexes,  such 
as  a  new  color,  a  bright  scene,  an  impressive  face.  By  persist- 
ent attention  the  complex  memory  of  the  percept  may  be  made 
to  grow  not  only  in  fulness  of  content,  but  also  in  intensity; 
the  particular  visual  elements  vnay  be  made  to  improve  until 
the  bright  color,  or  the  lineaments  of  the  face,  are  see7i — in  "  the 
mind's  eye  " — anew.  Thus,  too,  one  who  is  successful  in  audi- 
tory image-making  may  find  no  great  difficulty  in  causing  to 
sound  clearly  in  "the  mind's  ear  "the  cheerful  chirrup  of  the 
wooden  clogs  on  the  concrete  pavement  of  the  station,  or  the  sil- 
ver-toned booming  of  the  temple  bells,  in  Japan ;  the  weird  minor 
strains  of  the  venders  of  goods  uijon  the  streets  in  Mexico;  the 
sounds  of  the  ship  in  a  storm,  during  a  recent  passage  of  the  At- 
lantic, etc.  Few  are  so  fortunate  as  not  frequently  to  recall  with 
a  cruel  sensuous  vividness  their  skin-sensations  in  the  last  fit 
of  ague,  or  the  feeling  of  the  dentist's  instruments  when  the 
teeth  were  recently  plugged?  A  striking  but  common  fact 
affords  indubitable  evidence  in  the  same  line.  On  trying  to  re- 
call any  particular  sensuous  experience  one  often  finds  one's 
self  baffled,  J(^.s^  hecause  the  ideas  lack  for  a  time  this  character- 
istic of  intensity  which  is  fairly  representative  of  the  intensit}^ 
of  their  sensation-originals.    Then  one  knows  perfectly  well  what 

'  The  Senses  and  the  Intellect,  pp.  338  f.  and  462  f. 
2  Introduction  to  Physiological  Psychology,  p,  152, 


246  THE   KEPRESENTATIVE  IMAGE   OR    "  IDEA  " 

it  is  oue  wishes  vividly  to  recall ;  it  is,  for  example,  tlie  face  of  a 
frieud,  A.  B,,  or  an  air  in  the  opera,  M.,  or  the  "  feel "  of  a  par- 
ticular texture  of  cloth  or  metal ;  but  one  cannot  image  what  one 
wishes.  But  all  at  once  there  starts  out  in  consciousness  a  vivid 
picture  of  the  sight,  the  sound,  the  "  feel,"  one  seeks.  Our  con- 
ception, as  a  thought,  is  no  richer  in  content  than  it  was  a  moment 
before ;  but  we  see,  hear,  or  feel  the  concrete  thing  we  sought,  be- 
cause our  mental  imaging  has  gained  the  requisite  intensity. 

In  comparing  sensations  and  ideas  as  respects  "  life-likeness" 
it  is  necessary  to  remember  that  neither  sensations  aior  ideas  are 
ever  exiDerienced  in  so-called  "  purity  "  or  isolation.  The  sensa- 
tions we  have,  and  therefore,  of  course,  the  sensations  we  recall 
in  the  form  of  rei3resentative  images,  always  have  a  varied  rich- 
ness of  sensuous  content.  It  is  in  the  possession  of  this  that 
their  "  life  "  consists.  The  "  life-likeness  "  of  the  idea  is  therefore 
dependent  itpon  its  2^ossessing  a  corresponding  richness  of  content  / 
and  that  idea  is  the  most  "  life-like"  representative  of  any  sensation- 
experience  which  most  nearly  reproduces  the  compound  character- 
istics of  its  original.  If,  for  example,  I  wish  to  have  a  life-like 
mental  picture  of  any  particular  smell  or  taste,  I  can  attain  this 
only  by  reproducing,  as  far  as  possible,  all  the  elements  which 
entered  into  the  original  sensation-complex.  For  this  purpose 
I  imagine  myself  tasting  or  sniffing  at  the  object  anew ;  I  roll 
the  imaginary  morsel  again  upon  my  tongue,  or  take  imaginary 
whiffs  of  it  into  my  nostrils.  If  I  wish  a  life-like  visual  image,  I 
imagine  myself  looking  at  the  object  again,  tracing  its  outline 
with  a  moving  eye,  or  actively  comparing  its  color  with  its  back- 
ground, or  with  other  similar  or  contrasted  colors.  The  new  life- 
growth,  in  order  to  be  like  the  old  life-growth,  must  possess  the 
same  concrete  fulness  of  life. 

Closely  connected  with  the  requirement  just  mentioned  is 
another.  All  our  sensation-complexes  have  an  "  attachment  "  of 
feeling  which  is  likely,  if  not  certain,  to  be  of  a  pleasurable  or 
painful  tone.  Now  it  is  our  interesting  sensations  which  are 
most  likely  to  recur,  in  the.  form  of  mental  images,  within  the 
stream  of  conscious  life.  But  unless  the  mental  images  have 
some  attachment  of  feeling  corresponding  to  that  of  their  origi- 
nals, they  are  lacking  in  one  of  the  most  essential  features 
of  life-likeness.  Ideas  are,  indeed — other  things  being  equal 
— like  sensations  according  t(>  the  amount  of  similar  feeling  vhieJi 
accomimnics  them.  But,  further,  we  have  seen  that  in  all  psychi- 
cal development  sensory  processes  are  linked  in  with  motor 
processes.  "  Sensory-motor  "  is  the  compound  term  which  de- 
scribes the  entire  experience  resulting  from  the  stimulation  of  the 


LIFE-LIKENESS   OF   THE   IMAGE  247 

orgrans  of  sensG.  Now,  therefore,  the  complete  life-likeuess — the 
total  sensuous  life  of  like  character— of  every  idea  is  dependent 
upon  its  being-  connected  with  motor  activities  similar  to  those 
with  Avhich  the  original  sensation-experience  was  connected. 
Only  as  the  idea  secures  the  appropriate  motor  reaction  can  it  at- 
tain the  fulness  of  life  which  belonged  to  the  original  experience 
which  it  represents.  The  character  of  their  dependence  on  will 
is,  therefore,  an  important  ditforence  between  sensations  and 
ideas.  And  it  is  chietly  the  difference  between  the  sensuous 
richness  of  content,  with  its  accompaniment  of  feeling  and  volun- 
tary or  involuntary  motor  reaction,  which  our  sensations  have, 
and  the  relative  meagreness  in  these  respects  of  most  of  our 
ideas,  which  makes  the  "  objectivity  "  of  the  former  so  much  su- 
perior to  that  of  the  latter.  In  all  ordinary  experience,  mental 
images  are  far  less  intense  in  quantity,  less  varied  and  rich  in 
qualitative  distinctions,  of  less  pronounced  tone  of  feeling,  and 
inferior  in  motor  result,  as  compared  with  the  sensations  which 
they  represent.  Therefore,  though  our  ideas  are  like  our  sensa- 
tions, they  are  also  rather  unlike  them  ;  w^e  have  no  difficulty  in 
distinguishing-  the  two.  Thus  the  world  of  sensuous  reality  is 
not  confused  with  the  occurrence  and  recurrence  of  ideas.  But 
in  all  these  respects  ideas  may  so  approach  sensations  as  that  the 
distinctions  fade  away,  and  finally  cease  altogether  to  be  iDossible. 

I  7.  It  is  customary  for  those  who  deny  tliafc  ideas  have  intensity  to  use 
language  like  that  of  Lotze  :  "  The  idea  of  the  brightest  radiance  does  not 
shine,  that  of  the  intensest  noise  does  not  sound,  that  of  the  greatest  torture 
produces  no  pain,"  etc.^  Thus  a  recent  author  (Ziehen)  declares:  "The 
ideas  of  the  slightest  rustling  and  of  the  loudest  thunder  exhibit  no  differ- 
ence in  intensity  whatever.  .  .  .  The  idea  of  the  sun  has  nothing  of  the 
brightness  or  splendor  of  colors  which  characterize  the  real  sun,"  etc.  Now 
we  might  go  on  to  say,  in  our  eagerness  to  distinguish  sensations  and  ideas 
—the  "idea"  of  green  is  not  green,  the  "idea"  of  blue  is  not  blue,  etc.; 
but  from  the  psychological  point  of  view  nothing  could  well  be  more  mis- 
leading than  all  this.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  I  can  think  of  the  sun  or 
of  the  thunder  or  can  say  over  these  words  ("  sun"  or  "thunder")  with 
the  most  perfect  attention  to  what  I  am  saying,  and  then  can  think  of  a  can- 
dle or  a  whisper,  and  can  say  over  the  words  "  candle  "  or  "whisper,"  with- 
out noticing  any  diminution  in  the  intensity  of  my  visual  or  auditory  ideas. 
But  this  simply  proves  that  I  can  think  about  thunder  and  whispers,  or  the 
sun  and  a  candle,  without  having  any  mental  images  at  all  which  concretely 
represent  the  sensations  I  have  when  I  actually  hear  thunder  or  whispering, 
or  when  I  actually  see  the  sun  or  a  candle.  Probably,  also,  I  never  have 
any  auditory  image  which  rivals  in  intensity  the  sensations  of  the  thunder  ; 
nor  can  I,  without  the  meditation  and  abnormal  nervous  condition  of  a  Eenve- 
nuto  Cellini,  ideate  so  intensely  as  to  have  the  vision  in  midnight  darkness 
1  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  2S.    Compare  Microcosmus,  I.,  p.  203  f. 


248  THE   REPRESENTATIVE  IMAGE   OU    "IDEa" 

of  a  mid-day  sun.  But  all  tbis  has  no  bearing. wbatever  on  the  question 
whether  concrete  representative  images  (and  not  "thoughts  about "  sensa- 
tions) differ  in  intensity  or  not. 

Let  anyone  who  doubts  ask  himself  in  what  respect  his  enforced  audi- 
tory reproduction  of  the  shrieks  and  groans  he  heard  in  the  railroad  acci- 
dent of  yesterday  differs  from  his  memory  of  the  sounds  of  an  hour  ago  ;  or, 
why  it  is  that,  after  a  long  sea-voyage,  he  is  compelled  to  antagonize  the 
lingering  motor  images  of  the  sea  by  sights  which  he  knows  to  be  really  of 
the  land.  The  trifiiug  involved  in  some  of  the  objections,  like  those  of 
Lotzo  and  Ziehen,  may  be  set  aside  by  reminding  ourselves  that,  strictly 
speaking,  the  sensation  of  bright  green  is  no  more  a  bright  green  sensation, 
than  the  faint  idea  of  bright  green  is  a  faint  green  idea. 

\  8.  There  is  truth  in  the  view  of  Volkmanu '  and  the  other  Herbartians 
who  maintain  that  "sensation  and  reproduction  are  only  changing  jiredi-. 
cates  of  the  same  psychical  events,  designations  of  different  periods  in  the 
history  of  the  same  mental  process  {Vorsiellung)."  Thus  it  is  argued  that 
by  sensation  we  mean  the  "  presentation  "  from  its  first  development  to  its 
first  obscuration;  hj  reproduction,  the  "presentation"  from  its  return  into 
consciousness  till  its  subsequent  obscuration.  But — so  these  writers  go  on 
to  say — reproduction  leaves  the  quality  of  the  "presentation"  unchanged. 
Its  weakened  quantity  is,  however,  so  characteristic  that,  if  we  compare  the 
reproduced  idea  with  present  sensations,  we  have  no  difficulty,  as  a  rule,  in 
distinguishing  the  former  from  the  latter.  On  the  contrary,  we  hold,  while 
admitting  the  characteristic  difference  in  intensity,  that  reproduced  ideas 
differ  from  their  originals,  and  from  each  other,  in  respect  also  of  the 
fulness  with  which  all  the  allied  elements  are  reproduced.  It  is  largely  this 
diff"erence  which  gives  them  more  or  less  of  "  life-likeness,"  of  vraisemhkince, 
of  correspondence  to  the  concrete  and  rich  sensuousness  of  their  originals. 
Ideas  are  ordinarily  more  schematic,  more  in  bare  outline,  as  it  were,  more 
meagre  of  content,  than  are  the  sensation-complexes  which  they  represent. 

But  the  diff"erence  between  sensation  and  idea  is  also  largely  one  of  rela- 
tion to  feeling  and  volition,  with  the  accompaniment  of  motor  activity.  It 
is  the  "tone"  of  the  sensation,  consisting  in  the  excitement  of  feeling  as 
dependent  upon  the  excitement  of  the  bodily  organism,  which  gives  life-like- 
ness to  the  sensation  ;  its  representative  image  must  have  likeness  of  tone 
in  order  to  be  a  life-like  idea.  And  here  the  ineptness  of  Lotze's  saying,  that 
"  the  idea  of  the  greatest  torture  produces  no  pain  "  becomes  ajiparent.  If 
by  the  idea  of  a  painful  sensation  we  mean  simply  the  idea  of  a  sensation, 
thought  of  as  having  been  painful,  or  if  we  mean  the  thought  about  certain 
circumstances  in  which  painful  sensations  are  alleged  to  have  occurred,  etc. — 
then  Lotze's  statement  is  true.  But  the  representative  image  of  a  painfiil 
sensation,  imaged  as  painful,  is  nothing  but  the  image  of  a  particular  sensa- 
tion reproduced  with  a  much  weakened  but  genuine  accompaniment  of  char- 
acteristic painful  feeling.  And  the  world  is  full  of  men  and  women  who 
cannot  see  sights,  or  hoar  sounds,  or  read  words,  or  think  thoughts,  that 
remind  them  of  their  past  painful  sensations,  without  having  the  old  pains 
reproduced  as  a  fitting  accompaniment  of  the  revival  of  the  ideas. 

§  9.  Connected  with  the  life-likeness  of  the  idea  and  with  its  relation  to 
'  Lehrbuch  d.  Psychologic,  I.,  p.  459  f. 


LIFE-LIKENESS   OF   THE   IMAGE  249 

the  sensory-motor  characteristic  of  its  original,  is  its  usually  unstable  and 
irregular  existence.  The  excitement  which  external  stimuli  furnish  to  the 
end-organs  of  sense  is  comiiaratively  steady ;  it  can  be  relied  upon  not  to 
change,  or  to  change,  if  at  all,  in  calculable  ways.  The  muscular  sensations 
excited  in  connection  with  ideational  attention  differ  from  those  accompany- 
ing sensational  attention.  In  ideation  generally  our  localization  is  vague, 
as  the  mental  field  of  vision,  or  of  touch,  or  of  sound,  is  itself  vague,  indef- 
inite, and  litfully  changeful  in  outline.  All  these  differences  correspond 
to  the  diminished  objectivity  of  ideas  ;  they  secure  the  possibility  that  we 
shall  not  always  be  imaging  things  and  occurrences  in  such  way  as  to  mis- 
take them  for  real  things  and  occurrences  of  sense.  Thus  the  memory- 
images  which  arise  when  the  after-sensations  have  faded  away,  although 
localized  in  some  definite  region  of  external  space,  do  not  ordinarily  move, 
with  movement  of  the  eyes,  as  these  after-sensations  themselves  do.  But 
true  percepts,  being  dependent  for  their  fixed  position  on  the  external  ori- 
gin of  the  stimulus  which  acts  upon  the  end-organs  of  sense,  remain  motion- 
less when  our  eyes  move.  Moreover,  visual  jjercepts  are  doubled  by  press- 
ing on  the  eyeball,  and  they  have  covering  power ;  but  after-images  and 
ideas  differ  ordinarily  from  percepts  in  both  these  respects. 

^  10.  Strictly  speaking,  however,  the  conscious  difference  between  sen- 
sations and  ideas  consists  more  in  a  distinction  of  total  state  (state  of  iiercejj- 
tion  as  compared  with  state  of  memory  or  state  of  imagination)  than  of  mere 
sensation-process  and  ideation-i^rocess.  And  so  Dr.  Ward  '  is  right  in  main- 
taining that  we  cannot  have  a  reproduced  image  of  a  simjile  visual  or  tactual 
sensation  {e.g.,  red)  ;  but  can  only  have  an  image  of  something  seen  or  felt, 
(some  red  thing  or  red  form).  In  other  words,  we  ideate  iiercepts  and  not 
unlocalized  sensations  or  abstract  and  disconnected  movements.  We  represent 
the  Avhole  sensation-process,  in  which  peripherally  excited  elements  chiefly 
preponderated,  by  a  process  in  which  similar,  centrally  excited  elements 
chiefly  preponderate.  Hence  a  complex  relation  of  both  likeness  and  uu- 
likeness  is  possible  between  our  sensation-experiences  and  our  ideas ;  and 
in  this  relation  ideo-motor  elements  bear  an  important  part.  For  the  con- 
nection between  reproduced  image  and  movement  is  similar  to  that  between 
sensation  and  movement.  In  the  case  of  ideation,  however,  the  movement 
is  usually  relatively  inchoate  and  feeble,  and  therefore  only  imperfectly 
representative  of  the  movement  involved  in  all  percejjtion.^ 

§11.  The  life-likeness  of  the  ideas  of  different  sensations,  as  dej^endent 
upon  the  character  of  the  sensations  reproduced,  and  upon  lapse  of  time, 
differs  very  greatly.  In  general,  mental  images  of  muscular  sensations  dis- 
a})pear  abruptly  from   consciousness  —  like  the   loss  of  the   memory  of  a 

'  Article  in  the  Encyc.  Brit,  on  Psychology,  p.  57. 

"  Fechner  holds  (Elemente  der  Psychophysik,  ii.,  p.  469  f.)  that  memory-images  arise  (1)  in 
company  with  the  feeling  of  a  less  or  greater  dccrree  of  spontaneity  ;  (2)  at  a  still  longer  time  after 
the  sensuous  impressions  h:ive  passed  away;  and  i3i  can,  in  part  involuntarily  by  association  of 
ideas,  and  in  part  voluntarily,  be  called  forth  or  dismissed  and  altered.  But  "after-sensations" 
occur  II)  in  company  with  a  feeling  of  receptivity  ;  (2)  immediately  after  the  sensuous  impressions  ; 
and  (3)  independently  of  will  and  association  of  ideas.  These  distinctions,  however,  are  all  matters 
of  degree  and  serve  to  put  an  indefinite  number  of  experiences — "after-sensations,"  primary  mem- 
ory-images, more  or  less  intense  and  life-like  ideas— in  between  the  sensation  and  its  most  Idealized 
representative.  Another  writer  considers  it  a  matter  of  universal  consent  that  it  is  the  feeling 
"des  lebendigen  oder  organischen  Ergriffenseins,"  through  which  the  weakest  sensation  is  dis- 
tinguished from  the  strongest  recollection.— Horwicz.  Tsycholog.  Analysen,  i..  p.  298  ;  comp.  p.  311. 


250  THE   REPKESENTATIVE   IMAGE   OR    "  IDEA  " 

name.  And  yet  by  their  jireseuce  iu  all  our  ideas  of  the  spatial  qualities, 
relations,  and  changes  in  space,  of  material  bodies,  they  are  of  the  utmost 
imijortance  to  the  acquirement  of  experience  and  to  the  conduct  of  life. 
Sometimes,  unbidden — like  the  forgotten  name— they  present  themselves  in 
a  very  lively  way  to  our  observation ;  in  which  case  they  are  less  serviceable 
than  when  less  life-like.  Sensations  of  smell  and  taste,  on  the  contrary, 
naturally  pass  more  slowly  through  the  fading  processes — after-sensations, 
primary  memory-images,  etc. — but  are  equally  difficult  of  revival ;  Avhen, 
however,  they  actually  reappear,  they  are  apt  to  be  exceedingly  life-like. 
The  representative  images  of  sound  and  sight,  in  all  ordinary  cases,  admit 
regularly  and  uniformly  of  more  nicely  graded  degrees  of  intensity,  life-like- 
ness, etc.,  and  so  of  more  definite  resemblance  to  the  originals  from  which 
they  spring.  Finally,  in  the  case  of  all  forms  of  the  reproduction  of  sensa- 
tion-experience, the  constitution,  habits,  and  psycho -physical  condition  of 
the  individual  are  of  the  greatest  account. 

Thus  far  only  tliose  forms  of  the  representative  image  which 
are  referred  to  sensations  as  their  so-called  originals  have  been 
considered.  This  restriction  was  justifiable,  because  it  is  only 
the  ideas  of  sensations  which  lend  themselves  readil}^  to  the 
most  elementary  discussion  of  the  subject.  If,  however,  we 
consider  how  our  psychologically  truthful  popular  language  ex- 
presses experience,  we  learn  that  memory  is  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  sensations,  or  even  to  the  perception  of  things.  One  can 
remember  to-day  what  it  was  that  one  remembered,  imagined, 
thought,  and  did  yesterday,  or  the  day,  or  year,  before.  One  0 
can  imagine  another  person  (real  or  imaginary)  remembering,  ^ 
imagining,  thinking,  and  doing,  in  an  indefinite  variety  of  ways. 
Moreover,  it  is  not  merely  intellectual  states  and  activities  which 
may  become  objects  of  memorj'  or  of  imagination,  but  also  states 
of  feeling  and  will.  Indeed,  a  very  large  part  of  the  interests, 
the  benefits,  and  the  dangers,  of  both  memory  and  imagination 
consists  in  reproducing  or  artistically  constructing  pictures  of  how 
we  ourselves  and  others  \\i\,\e  felt  and  cJiosen,  under  all  manner  of 
actual  or  imaginary  circumstances.  The  question,  therefore,  at 
once  i:)resents  itself  as  to  how  far  we  may  extend  our  views  of 
the  nature,  and  relations  to  its  original,  of  the  representative 
image,  so  as  to  cover  other  than  sensuous  forms  of  mental  life. 

That  memories,  imaginations,  thoughts,  and  all  other  similar 
psychical  processes,  should  be  capable  of  reproduction  in  the 
form  of  mental  images,  can  occasion  no  surprise.  For  these 
processes  themselves  are,  in  their  native  and  original  character, 
chiefly  ideation-processes.  How  the  "  idea  of  an  idea  "  can  arise 
in  consciousness  it  is  not  difficult  to  see,  the  moment  we  admit 
the  continuity  of  the  stream  of  consciousness,  under  the  general 
laws  of  reproduction.     As  respects  intensity,  life-likeness,  con- 


MENTAL   IMAGE   OF   A   FEELING  251 

nection  with  motor  activities,  aucl  so  "  objective  reference,"  one 
idea  is  more  like  another  idea  than  it  is  like  its  own  sensuous 
original.  One  idea  may  then  fitly  represent  another  idea,  on 
account  of  this  essential  similarity  of  nature.  In  fact,  it  is 
upon  the  basis  of  this  possibility  that  any  present  process  of 
ideation  may  represent  so  faithfully  a  similar  past  process  of 
ideation  iu  ourselves,  or  a  similar  imaginary  process  of  ideation 
in  another  consciousness — more  faithfully ,  indeed,  than  any  idea 
can  represent  a  sensation. 

When,  however,  we  consider  the  question,  Can  there  be  a  true 
representative  image  of  a  feeling ;  and,  if  so,  in  what  respect 
can  such  idea  be  like  a  feeling?  we  find  ourselves  upon  ver3^ 
dilterent  ground.  For  if  feeling  is  fundamentally  different  in 
kind  from  sensation  and  ideation,  how  can  an  idea  re]3resent 
a  feeling  ?  What  sort  of  a  psychosis  could  possibly  be  meant 
by  "  the  idea  of  a  feeling  ?  "  since — as  we  have  already  seen — the 
essential  nature  of  feeling  is  not  representable ;  since  feeling,  as 
such,  has  its  nature  in  heing  felt.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  when 
men  speak  of  remembering  their  feelings,  or  of  imagining  how 
others  feel,  they  are  using  language  in  that  figurative  fashion 
which  requires  further  analysis  before  it  can  be  adopted  by 
psychological  science.  It  is  not  difficult,  however,  to  discover 
the  real  meaning  of  these  figures  of  speech.  For  as  the  psy- 
chology of  feeling  has  plainly  showed,  feeling  is  to  be  regarded 
as  a  universal  attachment  of  sensation,  and,  indeed,  of  all  the 
most  primary  intellectual  processes.  If  it  is  an  "  attachment" 
of  the  sensation  or  the  idea,  then  we  may  conclude  (and  this 
is  certainly  no  unmeaning  play  upon  words),  it  may  be 
"detached"  from  the  reproduction,  as  idea,  of  its  original  sen- 
sation or  idea.  Thus,  as  one's  ideas  of  the  painful  sensations 
one  experienced  in  the  hands  of  the  dentist  yesterday  are  much 
fainter  and  less  life-like  than  were  the  sensations  themselves,  so 
the  attachment  of  painful  feeling  may  largely,  or  wholly,  have 
disappeared.  Thus  ideas  of  exceedingly  painful  sensations  or 
ideas,  may  themselves  be  notably  pleasant  ideas.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  if  one's  ideas  of  past  painful  sensations  become  very 
vivid,  and  so  tend  to  assume  the  characteristics  of  hallucinations, 
the  old  accompaniments  of  painful  feeling  are  revived  together 
with  the  sensations.  And,  indeed,  the  general  rule  is  that 
percepts  and  ideas  which  were  originally  painful  are  reproduced 
as  painful  ideas.  Thus  we  constantly  hear  it  said, — in  truth, 
life  is  largely  made  up  of  such  experiences — "  I  can  never  see, 
or  hear,  or  remember,  or  think  of  this  or  that,  without  great 
sadness,  feeling  of  regret,  or  shame,"  etc.     The  psychological 


252  THE   REPRESENTATIVE   IMAGE   OR    "  IDEA  " 

truth  here  ackuowleclg'ed  is,  that,  although  feelings,  as  such,  can- 
not be  ideated  (and  to  speak  of  an  idea  of  pain  or  pleasure, 
the  memory  of  a  sorrow  or  joy,  is  a  figure  of  speech),  whenever 
past  experiences  of  sensatio7i  or  ideation  which  Itad  a  strong  tone  of 
feeling  are  reprrodaced,  some,  accompaniment  of  similar  feeling  ma]f 
he  expected.  This  new  feeling,  as  feeling,  may  be  more  or  less 
like,  or  quite  unlike,  the  old  feeling.  Only  new  similar  feelings 
can  represent  past  feelings,  and,  strictly  speaking,  an  "idea  o/"a 
feeling  "  is  an  impossible  psychosis. 

In  somewhat  the  same  Avay  do  we  find  ourselves  obliged  to 
hold  that,  strictly  speaking,  an  idea  of  a  volition,  or  conative 
psychosis,  is  impossible.  Here,  however,  there  is  this  difference 
to  be  observed.  There  really  exist,  in  the  wealth  of  actual  men- 
tal life,  various  kinds  of  feeling,  as  such  ;  and  these  various  kinds 
of  feeling  may  become  variously  attached  to  sensations  and  ideas 
and  to  the  changes  of  sensation-  and  ideation-processes.  But 
there  is  only  one  kind  of  conation.  Our  purposes  and  choices 
must  then  be  remembered,  and  those  of  others  imagined,  by  re- 
producing the  various  sensuous  and  ideational  factors  of  the 
complex  i^urposes,  the  occasions,  antecedents,  results,  etc.,  of  the 
choices.  In  doing  this  the  present  conative  life  is  occupied  in 
the  direction  of  attention,  in  the  control  of  the  train  of  ideas,  in 
the  expressive  and  supporting  motor  accompaniments.  We  do 
not  will  that  very  same  thing  ourselves,  in  order  to  remember 
or  imagine  another's  past,  or  hypothetical  act  of  will.  Nor, 
in  strict  truth,  can  one  conation  or  volition  represent  another. 
But  choices  and  purposes  and  habits  of  will  resemble  each  other, 
or  difier  from  each  other,  according  as  the  ideas,  feelings,  and 
motor  results  belonging  to  the  complex  psychosis  are  like  or 
unlike  in  the  different  cases. 

\  12.  Only  a  modicum  of  careful  attention  to  experience  is  necessary  to 
ascertain  what  is  meant  by  an  idea,  or  mental  picture  of  a  feeling.  The  dif- 
ficulty usually  experienced  has  been  greatly  increased  by  loose  and  indefiuite 
uses  of  the  word  "  idea,"  and  by  attempts  to  account  for  all  the  laws  which 
control  the  succession  of  states  in  the  stream  of  consciousness,  under  terms 
of  the  so-called  "association  oiideas."  But  we  shall  find  that  the  succes- 
sion of  states  in  the  development  of  mental  life  is  far  more  than  a  recur- 
rence of  ideas  under  the  much  debated  laws  of  association.  In  actual  mental 
development  emotions  stir  up  emotions  and  occasion  choices  ;  and  choices 
react  on  emotions — both,  in  ways  that  are  only  imperfectly,  or  not  at  all, 
accounted  for  by  theories  of  the  association  of  ideas. 

[References  to  books  treating  of  the  topics  of  this  chapter  will  be  found  at  the  close 
of  the  next  chapter.] 


CHAPTER  XIII. 
THE  PROCESSES  OF  IDEATION 

It  has  just  been  said  that  the  composite  structure  of  the  dif- 
ferent liekls  of  consciousness,  and  the  order  of  tiieir  succes- 
sion, can  be  only  very  imperfectly  explained  by  the  laws  of  the 
so-called  "  association  of  ideas,"  For  no  field  of  consciousness 
is  a  mere  composite  of  ideas ;  and  other  influences  than  those 
which  belong-  to  processes  of  ideation  determine  the  order  of  our 
mental  states.  Nevertheless  the  general  conditions  under  which 
ideas  recur  undoubtedly  have  a  most  important  bearing-  on  the 
entire  study  of  mental  life.  Although,  then,  the  development  of 
mind  is  not  wholly  a  matter  of  the  mechanism  of  ideas,  and 
even  involuntary  memory  and  imagination  are  not  explained 
satisfactorily  without  admitting  far  more  than  is  thus  provided 
for ;  yet  without  an  understanding  of  this  mechanism  neither 
memory  nor  imagination  nor  thought  can  be  explained.  It  is 
proper,  therefore,  to  treat  of  the  recurrence  of  ideas  as  among 
the  elementary  processes  of  mental  life. 

In  the  discussion  of  this  subject  it  is  more  than  ordinarily 
necessary  to  make  intelligent  use  of  figurative  language.  The 
very  word  association  (as  well  as  the  word  idea)  belongs  to 
this  kind  of  language.  This  word  implies  that  different  ideas, 
existing  apart  like  real  things  or  persons,  do  join  themselves,  or 
do  get  joined,  in  societies  or  bonds — thus  "  as.sociati/ig"  each 
with  the  other  in  mutual  relations  of  influence,  and  of  possible 
concord  or  discord.  In  speaking  of  the  "  spontaneity  "  of  ideas, 
of  their  "  fusion  "  and  "  attraction  "  or  "  exclusion  "  of  each  other, 
of  "  composite  "  mental  images,  and  of  the  process  of  "  freeing  " 
the  ideas,  etc.,  the  legitimate  services  of  our  figures  of  speech 
seem  to  be  pressed  beyond  all  scientific,  not  to  say  reasonable, 
bounds.  Yet  these  terms,  or  others  likewise  figurative,  must  be 
employed,  unless  we  are  prepared  to  resort  to  almost  unending 
periphrases  in  the  description  and  explanation  of  the  real  facts 
of  mental  life. 

The  entire  treatment  of  this  subject  requires  that  two  truths, 
already  amply  illustrated,  should  be  kept  constantly  in  mind. 


254  THE   PROCESSES   OF   IDEATION" 

First :  the  circuit  of  every  field  of  consciousness  is,  hy  the  very 
nature  of  mental  life,  a  limited  affair.  Whether  we  consider  the 
number  of  discernible  objects  within  the  grasp  of  clear  discrimi- 
nating- consciousness,  or  the  number  of  iDsychical  factors  which 
analysis  shows  to  have  had  an  influence  in  determining  any  par- 
ticular field,  our  sum-total  is  always  far  from  being  infinite. 
Only  a  few  objects  fall,  as  constituting  any  one  field  of  con- 
sciousness, within  our  most  expansive  mental  grasp,  even  in  our 
best  estate  of  psychical  energy.  A  large  number  of  influential 
factors  may,  indeed,  be  suspected  as  co-operating  to  determine 
the  complex  character  of  some  one  state  of  consciousness ;  and 
experimental  analysis  may  enable  us  to  verify  our  suspicion  as 
undoubted  fact.  For  example,  how  many  reciprocally  modifying 
sensations,  feelings,  and  ideas  conspire  to  produce,  in  these 
modern  times,  that  ennui  which  afflicts  so  many  minds!  And 
yet  if  by  "  factors "  of  psychoses  any  thing  is  meant  of  which 
psychology  can  take  account  (if  we  do  not  enter  the  region  of 
conjectural  ideas,  struggling  with,  or  furthering  the  interests 
of  each  other,  below  "the  threshold  of  consciousness" — the 
Hades  or  Limbo  of  dead  psychoses),  the  number  of  such  factors 
in  any  state  of  consciousness  is  necessarily  limited. 

But,  second,  the  principle  of  relativity,  in  an  active  and  effec- 
tive fashion,  applies  to  all  the  ohjects  i/i  any  one  field  of  conscious- 
ness, to  all  the  factors  in  any  one  mental  state.  We  have  seen 
this  to  be  true,  even  with  respect  to  sensations,  whose  quan- 
tity, quality,  and  laws  of  combination  into  complex  psychoses, 
with  their  accompaniments  of  feeling  and  conation,  are  deter- 
mined so  largely  by  external  stimuli.  How  much  more  is  the 
same  thing  certain  to  be  true  of  processes  of  ideation,  with  their 
relatively  low  degree  of  stability,  and  relatively  high  degree  of 
independence  of  orderly  and  calculable  influences  from  the  world 
of  things.  It  is  "  the  lunatic,  the  lover,  and  the  poet,"  of  whom 
one  of  the  greatest  of  psychological  artists  tells  us,  the\"  "  are 
of  imagination  all  compact."  The  principle  of  relativity  is, 
therefore,  illustrated  in  a  peculiar  way  by  the  modifying  in- 
fluence which  i3artial  ideation-processes  have  upon  each  other 
in  the  formation  of  any  complex  idea. 

It  follows  from  the  foregoing  two  principles  that  every  state 
of  consciousness  may  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  "  resultant  "  in- 
cluding a  certain  number  of  partial  processes  of  ideation  or 
image-making,  whose  total  character  is  determined  by  the  recip- 
rocal influence  of  these  same  partial  processes.  But  since 
ideas  are,  in  general,  more  meagre  and  schematic  (less  "  life- 
like "  and  full  of  content)  than  their  originals,  the  construction 


ALLEGED  INTERACTION  OF  IDEAS  255 

of  any  complex  mcutul  picture  occurs  in  consciousness,  part  after 
part  as  it  were.  For  example,  to  ideate — that  is,  either  to  recall 
in  memory  or  to  construct  by  imagination — any  very  complex 
sensation-experience,  like  a  perception  of  the  front  of  St.  Peter's 
at  Home,  or  of  St.  Paul's  in  London,  one  has  to  call  up  fragment 
by  fragment,  as  it  were,  a  whole  which  was  originally  given  with 
a  wonderful  comparative  instantaneousness.  Thus  one  may 
spend  an  hour  by  one's  tireside  piecing  together  (or  letting 
suggest  each  other),  the  ideas  that  represent  the  whole  of  an 
almost  momentary  experience  of  a  year  ago.  It  is  such  ex- 
periences as  these,  falling  under  the  two  princijiles  just  an- 
nounced, that  have  led  certain  psychologists  unduly  to  emi3hasize 
the  general  facts  concerned  in  the  "  fusion  "  and  "  sequence  "  of 
ideas,  and  their  reciprocal  influence  in  "  attracting,"  "  suggest- 
ing," and  "  excluding  "  each  other. 

I  1.  The  Herbartiau  psycliologv,  after  iDrofoumlly  influencing  the  entire 
modern  science  of  mind,  and  making  important  contributions  to  that  science, 
has  lately  fallen  into  disrei:)ute.  It  has  even  become  fashionable  with  those 
whose  own  views  and  methods  owe  a  great  debt  to  this  same  realistic  move- 
ment, to  si:)eak  of  it  as  "  exploded  psychology,"  "  glib  Herbartiau  jargon," 
"hideously  fabulous  performances,"  and  the  like.  And  indeed  its  preten- 
tious mathematics  of  ideas,  regarded  as  entities  existing  and  influencing 
each  other  both  out  of  consciousness  and  in  consciousness,  its  effort  to  ac- 
count for  the  whole  of  mental  life  in  terms  of  a  theory  of  ideation,  and  its  in- 
ordinate use  of  metaphysics  in  empirical  science,  are  to  be  condemned.  At 
the  same  time  many  of  its  suggestions  and  alleged  laws  throw  a  flood  of  light 
upon  experience  ;  and  this  is  particularly  true  of  the  subject  we  arc  now 
about  to  discuss. 

Interpreting  figures  of  speech  in  accordance  with  real  psychological 
facts,  we  can  approve  of  the  greater  part  of  what  the  most  learned  of  the 
modern  disciples  of  Herbart '  teaches  respecting  the  "  action  and  reaction  of 
ideas."  By  this  phrase,  however,  we  must  understand  partial  psychical 
processes  of  ideation  (representative  imaging),  and  tendencies  to  such  processes , 
conibining  to  form  a  complex  "feld  of  consciousness,"  in  accordance  xcith  the 
laws  of  conscious  mental  life.  With  this  understanding  the  jirincipal  truths 
to  be  considered  are  as  follows  :  The  i^oint  of  starting  is  the  question — Given 
a  mnltiplicity  of  simidtaneoHS  ideas,  what  will  happen  in  the  mental  life? 
That  siich  a  multijilicity  should  exist  is  not  incompatible  with  the  simplicity 
of  the  soul ;  for  the  latter  does  not  require  that  a  midtipliciti/  of  ideas  should 
not  exist,  but  that  how  many  soever  the  ideas  which  do  exist,  they  should  not 
exist  as  disparate  and  without  influencing  each  other.  Now  observation  shows 
that  the  circle  on  which  we  can  concentrate  attention  is  a  limited  one,  and 
that  the  very  concentration  of  attention  on  one,  or  on  a  few  of  these  ideas, 
involves  the  admitted  existence  of  their  multiplicity.  This  limited  nature  of 
consciousness  involves  the  fusion  of  contemporaneous  ideas  into  one  state  of 

1  Volkmanu  von  Volkmar  :  Lehrbuch  d.  Psychologic,  I.  p.  338  f. 


256  THE   PROCESSES   OF   IDEATION 

consciousness.  Three  cases  of  sucli  fusion  are  possible  ;  and,  indeed,  act- 
ually arise  :  (1)  Simultaneous  like  ideas  fuse  in  one,  in  the  sense  that  con- 
current i)artial  processes  of  ideating  flow  together  into  one  act  which  is 
directed  toward  the  realization  of  like  quality  in  a  unit-state  of  conscious- 
ness ;  (2)  simultaneous  heterogeneous  ideas  fuse  into  one  collective  idea,  in 
which  the  disparate  qualities  are  actualized  through  a  compound  activity  of 
ideating  ;  (3)  simultaneous  opposed  ideas  inhibit  each  other,  and  then  fuse  ; 
that  is,  they  exclude  from  realization  so  much  of  the  jirocess  of  ideating 
them  as  prevents  a  unifying  act,  and  then  unite  the  rest  into  a  collective 
mental  state. 

Another  recent  writer  >  exi?resses  his  view  of  the  fundamental  facts  which 
enter  into  the  difTerent  complex  processes  of  ideating,  in  the  following  way : 
Every  psychosis  falls  under  two  great  jsrincii^les.  These  are  :  (1)  the  law  of 
systematic  association,  namely,  the  existing  psychosis  tends  to  excite  and 
associate  with  itself  the  elements  which  can  unite  with  it  for  a  common  end ; 
(2)  the  law  of  inhibition,  namely,  every  psychosis  tends  to  hinder  the  pro- 
duction and  development,  or  to  cause  the  disapi^earauce  of,  the  elements 
which  cannot  be  united  with  it  for  a  common  end.  The  "  tendency  to  sys- 
tematic association  "  is  the  property  of  all  the  psychic  elements.  This  is 
equivalent  to  saying  that  what  is  already  systematized  in  the  mind  tends  to 
acquire  a  more  complete  organization. 

§  2.  It  is  plain  that  the  general  tendency  to  reproduction  of  mental 
states,  which  rests  on  a  basis  of  fundamental  psycho-physical  facts,  and  the 
universally  limited  nature  of  the  field  of  consciousness,  together  make  neces- 
sary a  selection  of  objects  in  every  complex  field,  and  of  factors  in  every  com- 
2)lex  state.  But  the  very  word  "  selection  "  imi^lies  the  partial  or  total  ex- 
clusion (or  "inhibition,"  as  the  Herbartian  terminology  runs)  of  .some,  and 
the  adoption  of  others.  Those  reproductive  tendencies  which  actually  de- 
termine every  complex  state,  and  thus  get  recognition  in  consciousness, 
necessarily  "fuse;"  that  is,  the  total  character  of  every  psychosis  is  the  result 
of  a  spontaneous  selective  p)')'Ocess,  under  the  laws  of  that  tniity  of  consciousness 
which  the  very  terms  '■'■state  "  or  '■'■  fiekV^  of  consciousness  signify.  lu  the  case  of 
sensations  we  have  already  seen  that  those  of  smell  and  taste,  or  of  tactual 
and  muscular  sort,  for  example,  so  fuse  as  to  bring  about  one  compound  sen- 
sation-experience. In  yet  far  more  complicated  and  subtle  ways  do  like 
ideas  fuse  in  a  compound  ideation-exioerience.  Here  the  analogy  of  a 
composite  photograph,  which  is  the  resultant  of  the  images  of  a  number 
of  individuals  but  does  not  fully  represent  any  one,  has  been  emjiloyed.- 
The  mental  equivalent  of  this  is  the  so-called  "collective  mental  image" 
(Gesammthild).  Of  perception  as  a  preparation  for  such  mental  seeing,  a  Ger- 
man writer  ^  declares,  in  a  perhaps  somewhat  exaggerated  way  :  ' '  However 
much  it  may  appear  simple,  it  is,  in  fact,  a  thousand-fold,  and  more  than 
a  thousand-fold  composite  act — which  exhibits  itself  as  simple  only  because 
its  factors  are  absolutely  homogeneous,  and  by  a  thousand-fold  repeated 
compensatory  processes  are  most  intimately /((.se^/." 

§  3.  But  seemingly  very  heterogeneous  mental  images  may  become  con- 

>  M.  Paulhan  :  L' Activity  mentale  et  les  ISlfiments  de  I'fisprit,  p.  17  f. 

9  Delbanif  :Le  Soinmcil,  p.  19S. 

s  Beueke :  Pragmatische  Psychologle,  p.  162. 


FUSION   OF   MENTAL   IMAGES  257 

nected  together  so  as  simultaneously  to  be  reproduced  in  the  unity  of  one 
field  of  consciousness.  As  experience  grows,  moi'e  and  more  complex  ten- 
dencies to  reijroductive  reaction  become  formed  ;  and  a  system  of  such  ten- 
dencies— a  "  system  of  dove-tailing  dispositions,"  it  has  figuratively  been 
called — is  formed  in  this  way.  But  the  possible  oddities  and  whimsicalities 
of  the  mechanical  fusion  of  ideas  are  almost  limitless.  Thus  we  read  of  one 
learned  man  who,  when  a  boy,  in  order  to  lose  no  time,  had  practised  com- 
mitting books  to  memory  while  on  the  full  run.  Years  afterward  the  sight 
of  a  book  mastered  in  that  way  brought  up  the  recollection  of  its  contents 
fused  with  the  flitting  images  of  the  palisades  and  hedges  by  which  ho  had 
run  while  reading  it  for  the  first  time.  Another,  who  in  his  youth  had 
worked  as  an  ajiprentice  for  a  hatter,  could  never  look  on  black  wainscoting 
(like  that  of  the  room  in  which  he  had  worked)  without  the  collective  hetero- 
geneous mental  picture  of  all  former  sensations  and  feelings — smell  of  var- 
nish, etc. — being  reproduced.  Conversely,  at  the  smell  of  varnish,  all  the 
composite  picture  of  his  old  disagreeable  life  regularly  arose  into  conscious- 
ness. The  learned  Jew  Maimon  is  said  always  to  have  accompanied  any  very 
strenuous  mental  effort — for  example,  in  studying  Euler's  mathematical 
works — with  "  Talmudic  intoning  and  movement  of  the  body,"  because  he 
originally  mastered  the  writings  of  the  synagogue  in  that  way. 

In  the  case  of  us  all,  every  comjjlex  idea  is  the  resultant  of  an  indefinite 
number  of  "traces,"  or  stronger  tendencies  to  rej^roduce  in  the  unity  of  one 
act,  those  experiences  which  have  involved  originally  separate  activities,  but 
have  by  the  very  conditions  of  experience  been  compelled  to  combine. 
Life  is  full  of  such  compulsions.  Thus  some  are  unable  to  image  the  smell 
of  the  heliotrope  without  seeing  an  imaginary  heliotroj^e  at  the  same  time ; 
or  to  image  the  sound  of  a  file  or  the  look  of  a  surgeon's  probe,  except  as 
these  images  are  fused  with  those  of  certain  cutaneous  and  muscular  sensa- 
tions. To  speak  of  such  a  close  and  inseparable  connection  of  partial  rep- 
resentative images  as  due  to  "  recall,"  or  "  suggestion,"  of  one  by  the  other, 
is  in  many  cases  scarcely  less  inai3propria.te  than  to  say  that  the  sensations 
of  temperature  "suggest"  those  of  jn-essure,  as  I  lay  my  hand  on  a  cool 
marble  slab.  When,  for  example,  a  child  begins  to  whine  on  being  threat- 
ened with  the  summons  of  the  doctor,  the  case  is  not  so  much  to  be  ex- 
plained under  the  principle  of  suggestion,  properly  so  called,  as  under 
that  of  fusion  of  originally  heterogeneous  elements  into  a  composite  idea. 
To  say  that  the  word  doctor  "calls  up"  the  idea  of  a  man  with  saddle- 
bags, and  this  "suggests"  the  occasion  of  some  jDrevious  sight  of  such  an 
apparition,  and  this  "suggests"  the  medicine  he  gave,  and  this  "recalls" 
a  nasty  taste,  etc.,  seems  an  altogether  lumbering  way  of  describing  such  a 
reaction  of  infantile  mental  life  to  certain  stimuli  of  sound.  The  rather  is 
it  true  that  the  child's  very  idea  of  a  doctor  is  that  of  a  particular  nasty- 
tasting-medicine-man,  with  the  saddle-bags,  etc.  And  this  idea,  being  re- 
produced in  consciousness,  may  then  well  suggest  the  previous  experiences 
which  have  given  birth  to  it ;  or  it  may  lead  on  to  the  thought  of  the  coming 
deprivation  of  privileges  which  are  conjectured  as  a  result. 

In  fact,  every  complex  idea,  whether  it  originate  as  a  dominating  state 
of  consciousness  by  its  own  spontaneity  or  by  suggestion  of  other  ideas  or 
percepts,  is — whenever  it  originates  and  every  time  it  occurs — a  new  mental 
17 


258  THE    PROCESSES    OF    IDEATIOX 

grotcth.  That  wliicli  lias  become  a  unity,  by  a  process  of  so-called  fusiou, 
unfolds  itself  as  a  unity  after  the  fashion  of  those  flowers  which  Oriental 
magicians  are  said  to  make  grow,  almost  instantaneously,  to  full  perfection 
from  an  infolded  bud. 

§  4.  That  the  limitations  of  every  field  of  consciousness,  taken  in  con- 
nection with  its  unity,  result  in  jihenomena  which  may  figuratively  be  de- 
scribed as  a  "  conflict  "  and  "  inhibition  "  of  ideas,  there  is  abundant  expe- 
rience to  prove.  We  may  even,  not  improperly,  speak  of  a  "  struggle  for 
existence "  among  the  different  conscious  tendencies  to  ideation ;  and  thus 
employ  a  by  no  means  unintelligible  figure  of  speech.  It  is  only  when  the 
attempt  is  made  to  extend  speculation  into  the  realm  of  the  unconscious  (to 
the  ideas  below  the  threshold)  and  to  insist  upon  a  formulated  system  of 
psychical  mathematics  and  mechanics  respecting  the  relations  of  the  ideas, 
that  psychological  science  interposes  its  veto.  To  solve  sums  in  the  in- 
hibitory value  and  eflSciency  of  ideas,  there  are  no  means  at  hand.  And, 
indeed,  as  to  the  final  explanation  why  some  ideas  triumph  in  the  so-called 
struggle  and  survive,  we  are  even  more  in  the  dark  than  is  modern  biology 
about  some  of  its  analogous  problems. 

Various  phenomena  indicate  that  impressions  of  one  sense  may  have  a 
certain  advantage  over  those  of  the  other  senses,  and  so  recur  more  prompt- 
ly and  surely  as  ideas  in  the  field  of  consciousness.'  With  men  generally 
sight  is  thus  a.  x>referred  sense.  In  the  case,  then,  of  any  complex  sensation- 
experiences  the  visual  factors,  and  those  other  factors  which,  for  one  reason 
or  another,  fuse  most  perfectly  with  the  visual,  may  be  said  to  have  the  best 
chances  for  reproduction  in  the  contest  for  the  field  of  consciousness.  But 
we  have  seen  that  different  persons  differ  greatly  with  respect  to  the  terms 
(visualizing,  auditory  or  tactual  imaging,  etc.)  in  which  they  preferably  re- 
produce past  impressions.  The  complex  idea  of  a  certain  opus  of  Haydn, 
for  example,  differs  greatly  for  the  musician  thoroughly  familiar  with  tliat 
particular  opus  (having  i)erformed  it  over  and  over  again),  for  the  musician 
partially  familiar  with  it,  and  for  the  non-musical  person  who  has  heard  it 
once  or  twice.  In  the  first  case,  clear  and  life-like  auditory  images,  fused 
with  fainter  tactual  and  muscular  images  (the  violinist  or  singer),  will  in- 
hibit all  others ;  in  the  second  case,  fainter  and  more  doubtful  auditoiy 
images,  fused  with  visual  images  of  the  notes,  etc.,  may  inhibit  the  others; 
while  in  the  third  case  visual  images  of  the  concert  room,  attendant  friend, 
when  the  piece  was  heard  played,  will  probably  wholly  possess  the  field 
of  consciousness.  To  such  differences  all  men  confess  when  they  remark 
how  much  easier  for  them  it  is  to  frame  an  idea,  or  to  recall  an  idea,  of 
somethings  rather  than  others;  how  hard  or  impossible,  on  the  contrary, 
it  is  to  make  some  of  their  ideas  correspond  fully  to  those  of  other  people, 
or  even  to  the  facts  as  they  know  them  to  be.  Such  language  implies  that 
each  complex  idea  is  a  living  creation  into  which  different  possible  elements 
enter,  with  more  or  less  of  readiness  and  reciiu'ocal  influence,  every  time 
the  process  of  ideation  is  performed. 

What  the  struggle  and  inhibition  of  partial  ideas  means  in  relation  to 
the  completed  complex  jirocess  of  ideation,  we  may  understand  in  a  very 
lively  way  by  dwelling  upon  certain  common  experiences.     Suppose,  for  ex- 
'  Compare  Lapps,  Grundtatsachen  dea  Seelenlebene,  i.,  p,  160  £. 


S1'0^•TANE0L■S   liKrUODUCTlOX  259 

ample,  one  is  trying  to  recall  the  face  of  a  person  whom  one  knows  well. 
Fragmentary  images,  as  it  were  (what  his  nose  is  like,  his  eyes  are  like,  his 
month,  the  color  of  his  hair,  etc.),  kcej:)  "  bobbing  up"  in  the  mental  field  of 
vision,  only  to  get  rejected  as  false  to  his  likeness  ;  or  to  be  accejited  as  pro- 
visional and  capable  of  fusion  with  the  other  elements  when  the  comi^leted 
jDicture  arrives.  All  at  once,  it  may  be,  out  starts  in  good  and  vivid  form  the 
entire  idea  for  which  we  have  sought.  Or,  again,  some  one  feature  may  be 
from  the  beginning  distinctly  enough  ideated  to  hold  its  place  as  a  sort  of 
nucleus,  to  which  the  others  may  rally  ;  or,  as  a  sentinel  to  admit  or  to  ban 
all  claimants  to  the  field.  In  a  still  more  lively  way  may  we  learn  to  know 
what  the  "  reciprocal  limitation  "  of  ideas  is,  by  making  the  attempt  to  ideate 
red  while  pronouncing  the  word  blue  ;  or,  to  form  an  auditory  image  of 
the  note  a-=,  while  reading  on  the  score  bb  ;  or  to  put  the  idea  of  the  disa- 
greeable Mr.  X.  into  the  pleasant  memory -i^icture  of  the  time  we  met  the 
agreeable  Mrs.  Y. 

5^  5.  In  every  comi^lex  mental  state  that  is  chiefly  characterized  by  idea- 
tion the  principles  both  of  fusion  and  of  inhibition  combine  to  j^i'oduce 
the  result.  That  is  to  say,  each  idea  expresses  a  number  of  tendencies  to  repro- 
ductive enei-gy  "solidified" — if  we  may  so  saj—for  the  time  being  under  the 
limited  and  yet  unifying  activity  of  that  particular  moment  of  psychical  life.  In 
this  result  some  tendencies  take  a  leading  and  jiredominating  part  ;  others 
get  relatively  suppressed.  That  is,  the  processes  of  fusion  and  inhibition  go 
on  simultaneously,  and  determine  the  complex  result.  The  decision  of 
the  question  as  to  what  reproductive  tendencies  will  prevail,  what  not,  may 
be  said  to  involve  the  entire  past  history  of  this  same  psychical  life.  Here 
(1)  attention,  and  the  considerations  (intensity,  interest,  etc.)  already  dis- 
cussed, which  have  to  do  with  the  distribution  of  attention,  play  an  impor- 
tant part.  (2)  Eepetition,  resulting  in  establishing  habit  and  disposition 
to  renewed  similar  ideation  must  also  be  taken  largely  into  the  account.  But 
the  full  discussion  of  even  this  more  i^rimary  form  of  the  organization  of 
mental  life  implies  a  knowledge  of  other  elementary  processes  of  that  life, 
which  are  to  be  considered  later  on. 

The  very  nature  of  ideas,  both  as  respects  the  physiological 
conditions  of  their  occurrence  and  the  character  of  their  appear- 
ance in  consciousness  sugg-ests  that  they  have  the  Quality 
of  "  Spontaneity."  That  impressions,  especially  those  which 
were  originally  intense  and  interesting,  and  which  have  had  im- 
portant connections  with  our  entire  mental  life,  should  qxmtxtne- 
oiisly  recur  as  ideas  is  precisely  what  we  should  antecedently 
expect.  Yet  many  p.sychologists  deny  spontaneous  reproductive 
mental  activity.  AYe  agree  with  others,  however,  in  recognizing 
two  kinds  of  reproduction  :  (1)  immediate  and  direct,  and  (2)  me- 
diate and  indirect.  In  immediate  reproduction  the  process  of 
ideation  is  accounted  for  by  the  simi^le  fact  that  it  resembles  a 
previous  process  of  ideation  or  a  previous  sensuous  impression ; 
and  so  needs  no  accounting  for  except  the  "  tendency  "  or  "  dis- 
position "  left  by  the  previous  activity.    Negatively  stated,  the 


260  THE  PROCESSES   OF   IDEATION 

idea  does  not  owe  its  appearance  to  association  with  another 
idea,  whenever  spontaneous  or  immediate  reproduction  takes 
phice.  But  in  mediate  reproduction  the  cause  of  the  partic- 
uhxr  process  of  ideation  is  assigned  to  some  just  previous  as- 
sociated process  of  ideation.  The  idea  is  then  said  to  be  repro- 
duced "  mediatelj' "  or  "  indirectly  " — that  is,  through  some  other 
idea.  Negatively  stated,  it  does  not  owe  its  appearance  simply 
to  the  tendency  left  by  the  original  activity,  but  also  to  some 
connected  or  associated  reproductive  activity. 

A  qualified  affirmative  is  the  correct  answer  to  the  question : 
Is  immediate  or  Spontaneous  Reproduction  possible  ?  None  of 
our  ideas  occur  out  of  the  stream  of  consciousness,  and  so  out 
of  association  with  that  stream ;  they  contribute  character  to 
it :  they  are  also  determined  largely  in  their  own  character  by 
the  fact  that  they  are  parts  of  one  mental  life.  Physiologically 
speaking",  each  particular  centrally  initiated  reproductive  i^ro- 
cess  in  the  brain  is  connected  both  with  coincident  peripherally 
excited  processes,  and  Mdth  other  centrally  initiated  processes 
recently  develojDed  in  associated  centers.  Speaking-  from  the 
point  of  view  of  consciousness,  all  our  ideas  repose  upon,  and  are 
pervaded  by,  a  certain  sensuous  basis,  with  which,  and  with  im- 
mediately antecedent  ideas,  they  may  be  said  to  be  associated.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  mere  reproductive  spontaneity  of  the  cerebral 
process — ^the  explosion  of  cerebral  energy  under  the  incitement 
of  local  internal  stimulus,  in  accustomed  forms  of  kinesis — may 
be  the  most  important  part  of  the  entire  brain  state.  And  not  a 
few  of  our  ideas  simply  arise  in  consciousness,  without  its  be- 
ing at  all  in  our  power  to  detect  any  idea  by  which  thej'  were 
suggested  or  mediatel}^  reproduced. 

It  is  customary  with  those  who  deny  spontaneity  of  ideation 
to  call  attention  to  our  forgetfulness  of  what  goes  on  in  conscious- 
ness, and  to  the  multiplicity  and  subtlety  of  the  associations 
which  exist  among  the  ideas.  But  this  does  not  constitute  a  suf- 
ficient reply  to  the  facts  brought  forward  by  those  who  advocate 
immediate,  direct,  and  spontaneous  reproduction.  Moreover,  it 
is  quite  jjossible  to  reverse  the  whole  manner  of  ap^Droach  to  the 
subject,  and  to  make  immediate  reproduction  the  basis  of  all 
reproduction,  to  explain,  that  is,  all  association  of  ideas  as 
resulting  from  spontaneity  of  ideas.  When  the  plain  facts  of 
consciousness  are  considered  without  professional  prejudice, 
they  certainly  confirm  the  view  which  regards  many  of  our  ideas 
as  springing-  up  into  consciousness  out  of  the  unconscious  (the 
psychologically  inexplicable),  rather  than  as  being  induced  to 
appear  by  suggestion,  or  influence,  from  contiguous  ideas.     In 


SPONTANEOUS   KEPRODUCTION  261 

conditions  of  low  psychic  euergry  (as,  for  example,  when  wo  are 
day-dreaming-,  in  the  mutterings  of  low  delirium,  or  on  just 
waking-  from  sleep)  and  in  conditions  when  the  stream  of  con- 
scious ideation  is  unusually  rapid  (in  rapid  composition  or  artis- 
tic production,  in  the  whirl  of  high  delirium  or  excited  hours  of 
insomnia),  the  spontaneous  g-eneration  of  ideas  seems  especially 
favored.  Of  course,  by  this  it  is  not  meant  to  uphold  the  cause- 
lessness  of  the  origin  of  any  of  our  ideas.  But  to  deny  that  ran- 
dom forthputtings  of  ideation,  not  to  be  explained  as  follo^ving- 
any  order  of  association  or  suggestion  whatever,  are  possible,  in 
any  conditions  of  consciousness,  is  to  render  the  mechanism  of 
ideas  more  rigid  and  narrow  than  that  of  any  other  form  of  life. 
It  is  also  to  contradict  not  only  the  exxjerience  of  those  who  have 
sometimes,  like  Philo  Jud<T9us,  had  "  thoughts  fall  from  heaven 
like  a  shower  of  snow,  or  like  seed  from  the  hand  of  the  sower, 
into  the  mind,"  but  also  the  significant  popular  estimate  jDut 
upon  the  maudlin  and  incoherent  utterances  of  the  dreamer  or 
the  drunken  man. 

I  6.  It  is  fi-eqiiently  assumed  that  the  presumption  is  heavily  against  the 
sj)outaneous  and  direct  reproduction  of  ideas.  Thus  even  Sully,'  after  ad- 
mitting- the  possibility  of  this  form  of  reproduction,  goes  on  to  say:  "The 
more  we  look  into  the  process  of  reproduction,  the  more  plainly  do  we  dis- 
cern that  the  revival  of  images  is  conditioned  by  the  antecedence  of  other 
psychical  contents  which  stand  in  a  certain  relation  to  the  same."  In  so 
vague  and  general  a  form  the  statement  may  jserhaps  be  admitted.  But  eveiv- 
thing  in  both  the  psycho-physical  and  the  psychological  doctrine  of  the  nat- 
ure and  conditions  of  i-eproduction  favors,  rather  than  opposes,  the  sponta- 
neous reproduction  of  ideas.  The  tendency  of  every  vivid,  life-like,  and  fre- 
quently repeated  impression  is  just  this,  namely,  to  reproduce  itself  again 
and  again.  Xo  special  reason  is  then  needed  to  account  for  actual  reproduc- 
tion taking  placo ;  but  rather  a  reason  why  it  should  not  take  i^lace.  This 
latter  reason,  in  general,  is  to  be  found  in  the  limitations  of  the  field  of  con- 
sciousness and  in  the  necessity  of  unity  to  the  mental  life.  But  if  we  seek 
reasons — as,  indeed,  we  must — why  so^yie  ideas  rather  than  others  are  repro- 
duced, these  reasons,  too,  may  fitly  be  found  quite  as  much  in  the  original 
or  acquired  nature  of  the  impression  as  in  the  secondary  and  dependent  con- 
nections it  has  established  with  other  impressions. 

§  7.  Particular  facts  whicli  confirm  the  theory  of  the  spontaneous  repro- 
duction of  ideas  are  such  as  follow  :  For  some  time  after  any  strong  impres- 
sion has  been  received,  the  complex  ideation-i^rocesses  corresponding  usually 
keep  persistently  recurring  in  consciousness.  The  impressive  tnith  is  not  so 
much  this — that  evei-ything  now  suggests  just  these  ideas  and  no  others — 
but  rather  that  we  cannot  find  percepts  or  ideas  impressive  enough  to  sug- 

>  The  Human  Mind,  I.,  p.  295.  For  the  opposite  view  pee  Volkmann  :  Lehrbnch  d.  Psychologie. 
I.,  p.  410  f.,  and  a  very  interesting  monograph,  Ueber  Phantasie-Vorstellungen,  by  Anton  Oelzelt- 
Newin.    Graz,  1889. 


262  THE   PROCESSES   OF   IDEATION 

gest  any  other  than  the  now  dominant  ideas.  The  lover  needs  no  sugges- 
tion to  think  of  his  mistress ;  although,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  everything  does 
suggest  her.  But  the  patent  truth  is  rather  that  her  image  tends  to  exclude 
all  other  disconnected  ideas.  So  the  central  image  of  the  dead  child,  and 
its  escort  of  other  allied  images,  with  the  tones  of  feeling  indissolubly  at- 
tached, for  the  time  being  "take  possession"  of  the  mother's  mind.  In 
all  such  cases  our  general  feeling,  even  when  we  are  not  actively  engaged 
with  the  dominant  idea,  is  that  of  keeping  it  constantly  repressed,  only  with 
the  greatest  difficulty.  There  it  is — just  in  the  background,  scarcely  below 
the  threshold  of  consciousness,  and  ready  to  stej)  out,  or  rise  up,  the  instant 
we  relax  our  restraining  hand.  It  "will  not  down,"  for  any  long  time.  And 
thus  men,  as  is  so  suggestively  said,  strive  so  to  occupy  attention  as  to 
"  keep  out  "  certain  thoughts;  or  "drive  them  away;"  or  else  they  try  to 
"drown  them"  in  some  form  of  oblivion  artificially  secured.  It  is  this  ex- 
perience which  induces  us  to  speak  of  a  sort  of  "  tension,"  or  "  strain,"  caus- 
ing a  disposition  to  ideate  in  a  certain  way. 

Again  it  sometimes  hai^pens  (usually  in  conditions  of  abnormal  cerebral 
excitement)  that  our  ideas  "go  wild" — as  we  are  wont  to  say.  In  the  most 
provoking  or  amusing  manner  the  psycho-physical  mechanism  then  proceeds 
to  throw  up  into  consciousness  all  manner  of  rubbish  from  the  cellars  and 
garrets  of  our  past  mental  life.  Order  or  relation  between  the  different  ideas 
there  is  apparently  none.  Nor  does  a  true  theory  of  ideation  require  that 
there  really  should  be  -  connection  or  association  established  between  the 
contiguous  members  of  our  ideating  under  such  circumstances.  Such  a 
general  condition  is  probably  better  explained  by  referring  it  to  the  removal 
of  the  ordinary  inhibiting  influences.'  Hence  arises  a  random,  "fancy-free," 
play  or  turmoil — sometimes  a  genuine  hurly-burly,  or  rout — of  ideas.  When 
this  takes  place,  surely  enough  no  one  can  tell  "which  way  "  the  ideas  "will 
jump."  And  yet  snatches  of  the  ordinary  laws  of  fusion  and  association  ap- 
pear, according  as  connection  is  established  between  several  of  the  successive 
members  of  this  mad  frolic  of  reproductive  energy.  [All  of  which  the  ' '  Her- 
bartian  jargon  "  would,  with  a  measurable  truthfulness,  represent  as  follows  : 
"  When  an  idea  rising  into  consciousness  finds  another  idea  qualitatively  like 
itself  also  appearing  there,  it  fuses  with  the  latter  in  the  degree  of  its  con- 
stant similarity  as  well  as  of  its  variable  height,  and  thus  gains  additional 
strength  against  every  inhibiting  influence  that  threatens  it."] 

In  the  case  of  "  fixed  ideas,"  such  as  those  to  which  persons  of  abnormal 
or  insane  mental  condition  are  liable,  the  persistent  recurrence  of  similar 
ideation-processes  is  surely  not  to  be  accounted  for  as  the  result  of  sugges- 
tion or  association  of  ideas.  The  principle  hero  applicable  more  nearly  re- 
sembles that  implied  in  the  spontaneity  of  ideas.  We  are  not,  indeed,  to  re- 
gard this  principle  after  the  analogy  of  a  sort  of  physical  inertia,  or  bare  per- 
sistence, of  the  ideas  ;  it  is  rather  to  be  regarded  as  the  result  of  a  continued 
disposition  or  tendency,  a  statical  mode  of  the  exhibition  of  the  soul's  life. 

Many  of  the  ])henomena  of  dream-life  may  also  best  be  explained  by  the 
principle  of  the  sj^ontaneity  of  ideas.  It  is  the  stern  limitation  and  regular 
control  of  the  ideas  by  percepts  furnished  from  without,  and  by  the  necessi- 

'  In  which  Striimpell  suggeBts  (Psychologic,  p.  49  f.)  are  to  be  found  the  reasons  for  the  freistei- 
gende  Voretellungen. 


ASSOCIATION   OF   IDEAS  2G3 

ties  of  adapting  the  mental  train  and  bodily  movements,  as  an  organized 
whole,  to  the  securing  of  certain  ends,  which  i)revails  in  our  waking  life. 
These  things  inhibit  the  great  multitude  of  the  otherwise  si)ontaneously  re- 
curring ideas.  But  in  dream-life  the  pressure  both  from  without  and  from 
within  is  withdrawn.  Then  innumerable  forgotten  and  concealed  tendencies 
to  ideate,  at  random  as  it  were,  become  substituted  in  part  for  the  so-called 
laws  of  association.  Impressions  that  are  very  powerful  for  our  waking  life 
may  theu  have  no  preference  over  those  that  are  weakest  or  most  deeply  hid- 
den in  the  lowest  strata  of  mental  life.  Thus  quick  and  varietl  metamorphosis 
belongs  to  dreams.  Neither  the  dreams  as  finished  wholes,  nor  the  parts  that 
enter  into  any  one  dream — it  not  infreciuently  hajipens — can  be  said  to  sug- 
gest each  other.  Anything  may  happen  in  a  dream — rather  than  that  which 
would  most  naturally  be  suggested  by  what  has  happened  just  previously. 
To  affirm  that  we  are  here  dealing  with  laws  of  association  instead  of  looking 
upon  biological  processes,  which  lie  below  those  very  laws,  is  to  reverse  the 
true  scientific  account  of  the  facts.  It  is  just  by  association,  as  directed  to 
recognized  ends,  that  this  medley  of  psycho-physical  vitality  is  reduced,  and 
kept  reduced  to  order.  But  in  much  of  our  dream-life  we  are  looking  on 
the  naked,  disassociated,  biological  simplicity  of  the  soul. 

Some  theory  of  tlie  "  Association,"  or  "  Sufj-gestiou,"  of  Ideas 
is,  however,  made  necessary  by  the  way  in  which  different  pro- 
cesses of  ideation,  and  states  or  fiekls  of  consciousness  as  de- 
termined by  these  processes,  stand  rehited  to  each  other  in  time. 
The  phrase  "  association  of "  is  fitted  to  mark  the  bare  fact 
that  complex  ideas,  which  had  a  more  or  less  independent 
origin,  are  in  the  habit  of  recurring  in  reg-ular  sequences  (in 
pairs,  or  threes,  or  series  of  larger  number).  Hence  a  sort  of 
Bund,  or  affiliated  union,  is  fig-uratively  declared  to  have  been 
established  between  the  ideas  ;  and  the  individual  ideas  form 
members  of  this  Bund.  The  word  "  suggestion,"  however,  is 
customarily  followed  with  the  preposition  "  by ; "  one  idea  is 
said  to  be  "  suggested  hy  "  another.  Thus  we  represent  our  ex- 
perience in  terms  indicative  of  our  conviction  that  in  the  on- 
flowing  but  closely  connected  stream  of  consciousness  a  causal 
influence  is  exerted  between  the  processes  of  ideation 

Upon  this  way  of  looking  at  the  relations  existing  between 
different  processes  of  ideation  several  remarks  are  in  place  just 
here.  Whether,  in  general,  one  mental  state  can  projierly  be 
said  to  cause  another ;  and,  in  special,  Avhether  the  production 
of  one  idea  is  really  to  be  attributed  to  the  occurrence  of  a  pre- 
ceding idea — these  are  questions  of  metaphysics  with  w^hich 
empirical  psychology  need  not  deal.  In  a  statement,  however, 
which  aims  to  cover  the  facts  of  so-called  association  of  ideas, 
and  to  explain  them  by  pointing  out  the  regular  forms  of  their 
recurrence,  the  folloAving  truths  must  be  borne  in  mind.     Move- 


264  THE    PROCESSES    OF   IDEATION 

ment,  or  succession  of  states,  in  time  is  of  the  very  essence  of 
mental  life.  Movement  of  the  ideas,  involving  their  constant 
rising-  and  sinking  in  consciousness,  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the 
process  of  ideation.  For  no  more  than  a  limited  number  of 
ideas,  however  relatively  simple  and  partial,  can  exist  in  any 
one  field  of  consciousness;  and — "Time  is  on  the  wing,"  The 
relations  between  the  complex  states  of  ideation  (memory  or 
imagination)  become,  as  a  matter  of  course,  more  complicated 
and  difficult  to  trace  when  we  consider  them  in  the  succession  of 
time.  Far  more  complex  conditions  enter  into  the  determina- 
tion of  the  question,  what  ideas  shall  follow  each  other  (be  sug- 
gested by  each  other,  associated  with  each  other)  than  into  the 
determination  of  the  question,  what  partial  ideas  shall  fuse  with 
each  other. 

Another  truth  concerns  the  very  limited  nature  of  the  appli- 
cation of  the  so-called  laws  of  the  association  of  ideas  to  the 
entire  mental  life.  It  is  our  total  states  or  fields  of  conscious- 
ness which  follow  each  other  in  the  succession  of  time.  "When  we 
describe  and  explain  them — what  they  are,  their  genesis  and 
development,  and  the  order  and  laws  of  their  arising — we  have 
done  all  that  descriptive  science  can  do  to  set  forth  tlie  nature 
of  the  mind.  But  mental  states  are  always  something  far  more 
than  ideas ;  and  the  conditions  of  their  genesis  and  succes- 
sion are  by  no  means  wholly  to  be  ascribed  to  so-called  as- 
sociation of  ideas.  Mental  states  are  states  of  knowledge,  feel- 
ing, will — all  three  in  each  state  ;  and  their  succession  in  time 
involves — or  rather,  it  is — the  entire  knowable  being  and  history 
of  mind. 

Nevertheless,  just  as  the  idea  is  a  most  important  factor 
in  every  form  of  mental  life,  and  the  process  of  ideation  an  in- 
dispensable condition  of  all  mental  development,  so  the  laws  of 
the  association  of  ideas  are  indispensable  to  a  scientific  account 
of  the  successive  phenomena  of  mental  life.  Two  general  facts 
give  great  importance  to  the  study  of  this  subject :  (1)  The  suc- 
cession of  ideas  is  relatively  "free.''  We  cannot  predict  on 
grounds  of  our  own  mental  habit,  or  determine  largely  by 
choice,  what  we  shall  see,  hear,  feel,  etc.,  when  the  organs  of 
sense-perception  are  in  their  customary  normal  relations  to  the 
object.  Perception  is  hound  to  things  and  to  the  order  of  their 
occurrence.  And  with  bodily  pleasure  -  pains  it  is  much  the 
same  way.  But  the  succession  of  our  ideas  is  obviously  much 
more  a  matter  of  our  own  mental' nature  and  of  our  choice.  This 
is  true  even  of  memory  ;  it  appears  pre-eminently  true  of  imagi- 
nation.    In  fancy,  above  all,  are  we  "  free."     But  (2)  the  succes- 


THE   SUCCESSION   OF   IMPRESSIONS  205 

sion  of  ideas  is  uot  ordinarily  free  in  the  sense  that  our  jn-esent 
ideas  are  not  dependent  for  the  determination  of  their  character 
upon  ideas  immediately  or  more  remotely  i^receding.  Ideas 
ordinarily  arise  in  consciousness,  in  tlie  succession  of  time,  in 
pairs,  g-roups  of  three  or  more,  or  longer  series.  Moreover,  we 
are  aware  of  a  sort  of  transition,  that  partakes  of  the  nature  of 
compulsion,  between  them.  If  I  have  the  idea  A,  then  I  may 
expect  to  have  the  idea  JJ ;  but  if  I  have  the  idea  J/,  then  I  may 
expect  to  have  the  idea  ^.V,  etc.  Now  this  formula — if  yi,tlien 
B;  if  31,  then  N,  etc.,  is  precisely  the  formula  which  necessarily 
suggests  a  connection  between  A  and  I>,  and  between  3/ and  JV, 
etc.  Indeed,  since  there  is  no  absolute  gap,  or  break  in  the 
continviity  of  the  stream  of  consciousness,  we  may  thus  be  said 
(especially  in  certain  instances  Avhere  the  succession  of  the  com- 
plex fields  of  consciousness  is  rather  slow  in  time-rate)  to  wit- 
ness the  merging  of  one  idea  into  another,  associated  ivith  it,  or 
suggested  hi/  it.  While  the  second  of  the  above-mentioned  two 
classes  of  facts  is  emphasized  by  the  term  association  of  ideas, 
the  freeing  of  ideas  is  quite  as  important  in  the  development  of 
the  life  of  ideation,  and  in  the  influence  of  ideation  upon  the 
develoiiment  of  all  mental  life. 

Any  theory  of  the  association  of  ideas  raises  the  general 
question  :  "What  conditions  belonging  to  antecedent  processes 
of  ideation  determine  the  succession  in  time  of  the  subsequent 
processes  of  ideation?  More  popularly:  Why  do  our  ideas 
follow  one  order  rather  than  another  in  the  stream  of  our  con- 
scious life  ?  To  this  question  one  equally  general  answer  may 
confidently  be  given  :  When  conditions  similar  to  those  belonging 
to  the  antecedent  processes  recur,  then  the  succession  of  the  sub- 
sequent ideation-processes  will  be  similar  to  that  of  the  antecedent 
processes.  In  other  words,  those  ideas  follow  any  given  idea 
which,  rather  than  other  ideas,  come  under  previously  established 
connections  between  the  psychical  states  which  they  represent. 
JVbt  only  single  im2')ressions,  hut  successions  of  iinpressions,  tend  to 
he  reproduced  in  a  manner  similar  to  the  original  ivip?'essions  ;  and 
the  reproduction  of  the  time-order  is  apart  of  the  general  disposition 
to  reproduce. 

But  experience  develops  an  increasing  variety  of  connections 
in  time  for  similar  ideas  ;  and  in  the  actual  order  of  any  particular 
case  of  reproduction,  only  one  of  these  many  possible  connections 
can  be  actualized.  Figuratively  speaking,  a  conflict  of  tenden- 
cies to  reproduce  in  different  pairs,  groups,  series,  may  be  said 
now  to  arise.  The  acknowledged  reproductive  process,  the  idea 
which  really  "  succeeds  "  in  the  succession  of  ideas,  will  be  the 


t 


266  THE   PROCESSES   OF  IDEATION 

oue  which  has  had  the  strongest  connections  established  with 
the  producing-  process.  What  are  the  "  strongest  "  connections 
will  depend  in  every  case  upon  a  variety  of  considerations,  of 
which  the  more  important  will  subsequently  be  pointed  out.  It 
is  scarcely  an  exaggferation  to  say  that  every  particular  case  of 
succession,  or  association,  of  ideas  involves  the  whole  of  the  pre- 
viously existing  mental  life — and  this  often  in  a  very  baffling  way. 
If,  however,  we  express  in  one  jDrinciple  the  general  facts  empha- 
sized by  reproduction  of  ideas  in  the  succession  of  time,  we  may 
say  that  it  is  "  contiguity  "  in  consciousness  which  forms  the 
fundamental  explanation  for  all  association  of  ideas.  But  such 
contiguity — whether  temporal  or  spatial — must  be  conceived  of 
as  purely  josychical ;  the  associated  ideas  reap^^ear  as  contiguous 
states  of  consciousness  (are  associated),  because  they  represent 
processes  that  icere,  with  varying  degrees  of  intensity,  contiguous 
states  of  consciousness. 

Developing  mental  life  is  far  more  than  a  mere  mechanism  of 
ideas  ;  and  even  what  is  ordinarily  embraced  under  the  laws  of 
the  association  of  ideas  will  finally  be  seen  to  be  inadequate  to 
explain  the  jihenomena  without  the  conception  of  a  yet  more 
fundamental  teleological  principle. 


§  8.  The  attempt  to  account  for  all  mental  phenomena  and  for  mental 
development  in  terms  of  the  mechanism  of  ideation  has  repeatedly  been 
made  by  the  reigning  schools  of  psychology.  The  elaborate  theory  of  re- 
ciprocal "furtherance"  and  "hindering"  of  ideas,  not  only  in  consciousness, 
but  also  "below  the  threshold"  of  consciousness,  which  the  Herbartiau 
theory  proj^osed,  would  seem  to  have  done  all  that  was  possible  in  this 
direction.  The  attempt  failed  in  Germany  ;  its  failure  has  thrown  discredit 
upon  much  that  is  exceedingly  valuable  and  suggestive  for  the  understand- 
ing of  mental  phenomena.  Something  similar  may  be  said  of  the  English 
"  associational  school,"  even  when  its  theory  is  combined  with  innumer- 
able data  and  figurative  terms  (used,  for  the  most  pai't,  with  misleading 
literalness)  drawn  from  biological  evolution — as,  for  example,  by  Mr. 
Spencer.  Failure  will  undoubtedly  come  also  to  the  present  revival  of  the 
attempt  in  Germany  (by  Ziehen  and  others),  upon  an  experimental  basis. 
For  mental  life  is  far  more  than,  and  far  different  from,  a  succession,  chiefly, 
of  associated  ideas.  On  this  point  ordinary  experience,  and  the  language 
in  which  all  men  express  experience,  may  be — at  least  in  a  preliminary  way 
— considei'ed  as  decisive.  For  example,  one's  working  life  for  any  single 
day  consists  of  successions  of  states  which  depend  largely  upon  one's  dispo- 
sition (well  or  ill,  bright  or  dull,  pensive,  gloomy,  or  joyful),  environment 
(at  home,  in  the  study,  on  the  street,  etc.),  and  especially  one's  plan  for  the 
day  (writing,  lecturing,  holiday,  etc.).  To  reduce  the  total  explanation  of 
all  this  to  association  of  ideas,  and  to  deny  the  power  of  choice  to  interrupt 
the  mechanism,  as  well  as  to  overlook  the  inexplicable  sijoutaneous  "tele- 


DISCERNMENT   THROUGH   SUGGESTION  2G7 

ology  "  of  much  of  our  ideation,  is  to  constnact  and  spread  a  bed  quite  too 
narrow  for  the  mental  manhood  to  stretch  itself  upon. 

g  9.  Little  need  be  added  to  what  has  already  been  said  resi)ectiug  the 
physiological  conditions  of  the  succession  of  associated  ideas.  That  associ- 
ation requires  time,  and  that  this  time  is  psycho-physical,  and  indicates  the 
spreading  of  the  initial  cerebral  processes  over  more  and  more  of  the  con- 
nected areas,  is  abundantly  shown  by  experiments  in  reaction-time.  Ex- 
periment also  shows  that  the  more  weak  ami  the  more  complex  the  associa- 
tions are,  the  more  the  psycho-physical  time  necessary  to  make  them  is 
prolonged.  Among  the  most  favorable  cases  are  those  in  which  some  defi- 
nite memory-image  is  called  ui>  by  a  presentation  of  sense,  such  as  a  picture 
seen  or  a  word  spoken.  Here  the  time  required  for  ' '  simple-discernment " 
— of  the  meaning  of  a  word,  for  example,  through  suggestion — was  found 
to  vary  from  57  a-  to  177  a- ;  but  if  further  association  was  required  an  average 
of  some  727  a-  elapsed  before  the  associated  idea  arose,  under  the  most  favor- 
able circumstances,  to  consciousness.  Such  association-time  is  still  further 
greatly  prolonged  in  certain  cases  where  the  result,  when  it  comes,  may  be 
looked  upon  as  odd  or  unexpected  ;  or  where  a  pause  seems  to  have  taken 
place  through  hesitation  between  several  ideas  simultaneously  suggested. 
Thus  the  total  time  required  in  reacting  on  associating  from  "gold"  to 
"silver"  required  only  402  or ;  from  "clear"  to  "  dark, "  507(t  ;  and  from 
"  north  "  to  "  south,"  502  a.  But  to  associate  "  art  "  with  "  aesthetic  activity  " 
required  1,899  o- ;  and  to  judge  that  "fame"  is  a  "form  of  the  ascrip- 
tion of  praise,"  2,023  a-.'  [It  should  be  noted  that  we  are  in  these  latter 
cases  dealing  with  the  associations  of  words  and  phrases  as  dependent 
upon  the  development  of  conceptual  knowledge.]  Other  experiments  ^  re- 
sulted in  giving  the  time  necessary  to  translate  images  into  one's  vernacular 
as  about  477  (t-545  a  ;  but  into  a  foreign  language,  as  about  649  <7-694  a. 
Translating  cmd  naming  short  familiar  words  was  found  to  require  199  a- 
258  a-  more  time  than  merely  naming ;  and  associating  the  land  in  which  a 
city  is  situated  with  the  name  of  the  city,  or  the  time  of  the  year  in  which  a 
month  occurs  with  the  name  of  the  month,  requires  from  f-  to  ^  sec.  of  psy- 
cho-physical time,  when  all  factors  are  well  known. 

The  changes  in  reaction-time  due  to  association,  taken  in  connection 
with  what  has  previously  been  said  respecting  the  physiological  conditions 
of  all  reproduction  would  seem  to  warrant  some  such  statement  as  the  fol- 
lowing, quoted  from  Professor  James  :^  "The  amount  of  activity  at  any 
given  point  in  the  brain  cortex  is  the  sum  of  the  tendency  of  all  other  points 
to  discharge  into  it — such  tendencies  being  proportionate  (1)  to  the  number 
of  times  the  excitement  of  each  other  j^oint  may  have  coexisted  with  that 
of  the  point  in  question  ;  (2)  to  the  intensity  of  such  excitement ;  and  (3)  to 
the  absence  of  any  rival  locality  or  process  functionally  disconnected  with 
the  first  point,  into  which  the  discharges  might  be  diverted."  It  must  be 
confessed,  however,  that  all  this  is  highly  conjectural,  and,  at  best,  only 
expresses  a  possible  formula  for  the  merely  physiological  conditions  of  the 
associational  elements  of  mental  life. 

>  See  the  experiments  of  Trautscholdt,  in  Philosoph.  Studien,  i.,  Heft  2,  p.  213-250. 
2  Compare  Philosoph.  Stndien,  iv..  Heft  2,  p.  241  f. 
=  Popular  Science  Monthly,  March,  1880. 


268  THE   PROCESSES    OF    IDEATION 

Fui'ther  evidence  '  as  to  the  physiological  conditions  of  association  may 
be  derived  from  cases  where  the  range,  speed,  and  accuracy  of  association 
are  affected  by  cerebral  lesions,  or  by  changes  in  the  arterial  circulation  of 
the  brain.  Association-time  in  melancholia  and  dementia  is  regularly  greatly 
lengthened  ;  in  mania,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  often  much  reduced.  In  such 
cases  the  more  purely  automatic  functions  of  association  (the  "  mechanism 
of  ideas  ")  suffer  less  than  the  intellectual  and  voluntary  processes.  In  cases 
of  aphasia  also  (or  loss  of  power  to  use  and  understand  sjDoken  or  written 
words,  due  to  lesions  in  the  brain),  the  association-tracts  connecting  the 
different  brain-areas  being  imi^aired,  the  mechanism  of  association  is  dis- 
turbed. 

§  10.  That  contiguity  in  consciousness,  as  just  explained,  is  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  the  reproduction  of  associated  ideas  in  time  seems  to 
follow  from  the  very  nature  of  reproduction  in  general.  That  is  to  say,  all 
merely  mechanical  reproduction  falls  under  the  principle  of  contiguity.  It 
belongs  to  the  development  of  this  principle  to  show  how  the  so-called  laws 
of  association  by  similarity  or  contrast,  coincidence  in  sjjace  or  time,  etc., 
are  all  of  them  only  special  cases  under  it.  So  far  as  our  physiological 
knowledge  bears  upon  the  psychology  of  association,  it  is  entirely  in  favor 
of  the  supreme  and  exclusive  value  of  this  principle.  If  we  limit  the 
statement  to  the  physical  basis  of  the  mechanical  association  of  ideas,  we 
may  then  safely  agree  with  Fouillee  when  he  affirms:  "Contiguity  in  time 
links  things  only  by  means  of  a  contiguity  of  extension  in  the  brain."  To 
this  may  be  added  the  obvious  truth  that  it  is  intelligence  which  takes  note 
of  "similarity;"  and  thus,  in  the  j)sychological  realm,  i.e.,  in  conscious- 
ness, association  by  similarity  is  a  consequence  of  association  by  contiguity.^ 

Under  the  figure  of  speech  involved  in  the  word  contiguity,  however, 
we  understand  a  psychological  principle,  a  general  form  of  the  occurrence, 
in  relation  to  each  other,  of  mental  processes,  oi  psychical  facts  as  such.  And 
here  we  come  upon  a  yet  more  general  fact  or  law,  behind  and  beneath 
which  psychological  science  is  quite  powerless  to  go.  All  psychical  proc- 
esses which  originally  occur  in  close  (or  contiguous)  relations  of  time 
become  so  vitally  bound  or  associated  together  that  they  tend  to  recur  in 
relations  of  time  like  the  original  relations.  Strictly  speaking,  this  princi- 
ple is  not  due  to  the  ideas  themselves  or  to  the  compelling  force  of  time ; 
nor  is  it  to  be  ascribed  to  influences  extraneous  to  the  mental  life.  On  the 
contrary :  Association  by  contiguity  is  the  one  principle  which  underlies  and 
makes  possible  any  continuous  development  of  mental  life  whatever  ; — but  only 
so  far  as  the  so-called  viechanism  of  association  is  concerned.  ' 

A  most  fruitful  means  of  studying-  the  application  of  the  \_ 
principle  of  "  coutig-uity  "  to  the  Reproduction  of  Associated  j 
Ideas  is  afforded  by  the  recurrence  of  the  ideas  in  x^airs,  groups,  i 
or  series.  The  range  of  the  application  of  the  principle  in  this; 
form  is  very  g-reat.     Even  in  the  reproduction  of  complex  ideas; 

'  See  the  careful  and  interesting  experiments  of  Marie  Walitzky  on  patients  in  an  asj-hiin  for  thcj 
insane,  Revnc  Philofoph.,  Bee,  1889. 

'  See  also  Rabii-r  (PFyclioloKle,  p.  190  f.)  who  maintains  that  contiguity  is  the  one  law  of  thei 
association  of  ideas ;  and  compare  M.  Brochard,  La  Loi  dtJ  Siinilarite,  liev.  Philosoph.,  ix.,  p.  257  i,  I 


ASSOCIATION   BY    CONTIGUITY  269 

whose  elements  are  onl}'  partially  "  fused,"  numerous  cases 
occur  that  come  under  this  rule.  Thus  the  entire  group  of 
related  pai"tial  imag-es  may  not  appear  within  the  easy,  or  even 
within  the  utmost  possible  sfrasp  of  one  Held  of  consciousness. 
As  therefore  the  ditierent  members  of  the  group  succeed  each 
other,  and  so  constitute  different  states  of  ideation,  the}'  fall 
under  this  principle  of  association  by  contiguity.  And,  indeed, 
»io  tixed  line  can  be  drawn  between  the  principle  of  "  fusion  " 
and  that  of  "  association  "  by  contiguity.  The  complex  image 
representative  of  an  absent  face  or  of  a  scene  of  years  ago,  for 
example,  may  under  one  condition  of  body,  or  in  the  case  of  one 
person,  spring  forth  complete  into  the  unity  of  conscious  life  ; 
at  another  time,  or  in  the  case  of  another  i)erson,  it  may  be  re- 
produced bit  by  bit,  as  it  were — one  bit  suggesting  another  with 
which  it  had  become  associated  by  contiguity  in  consciousness. 
Subsequent  study  of  the  development  of  perception  will  show 
how  both  fusion  of  ideas  and  association  of  ideas  b}'  contiguity 
are  necessary  to  all  knowledge  of  sensible  objects.  All  earhf 
training  and  decelopnient  of  inental  faculty  requires  the  repeated 
production  (as  respects  both  the  original  impressions  and  also 
the  representative  images  of  those  impressions)  of  similar  psy- 
chical j^rocesses  in  similar  sequence  of  time.  It  is  upon  the  basis 
of  such  associations,  acquired  under  the  principle  of  contiguity, 
that  all  freedom  of  thought,  imagination,  and  action  takes 
place.  Without  having  our  ideas  hound  into  pairs,  groups,  and 
series,  in  the  succession  of  time,  we  should  not  be  set  free  to 
think,  imagine  or  act.  The  very  basis  of  experience  and  intelli- 
gfenee  requires  that  a  psychical  automatism  should  be  perfected 
through  association  of  ideas  under  the  principle  of  contiguity. 

Observation  of  the  nature  of  all  mental  development  shoAvs 
the  important  influence  of  the  mechanical  reproduction  of  ideas 
in  the  original  order  of  succession  in  time.  It  is  through  this 
influence  and  by  means  of  what  it  achieves  for  us,  that  we  walk, 
talk,  sing,  use  the  senses  in  perception,  "  conduct  trains  "  of  im- 
agination, memory,  or  thought,  and  indeed  "  lead  "  all  our  daily 
lives.  It  is  largely  through  differences  in  the  character  of  this 
complex  mechanism  of  association  that  different  individuals 
are  unlike.  These  differences  characterize  the  essential  nature 
of  the  mind's  life.  Innumerable  long  series  of  representative 
images  thus  tend  to  run  themselves  off,  in  a  fixed  order  of  time, 
if  only  the  series  is  started,  either  at  its  beginning  or  with  some 
other  member  of  the  whole.  Snatches  of  series — ideas  bound 
together  in  pairs  and  in  small  groups,  because  they  have 
occurred  together  as  contiguous  members  of  longer  series,  are 


CAL^fO^^^^- 


270  THE   PROCESSES    OF    IDEATION 

perpetually  rising  up  into  consciousness.  Every  sound  (much 
more  every  word)  lieard,  every  sight  seen,  smell  or  taste  experi- 
enced, every  feeling  of  muscle  or  skin,  is  liable  to  suggest  sev- 
eral such  "  seried  "  ideas.  And  every  idea  in  each  of  these  sug- 
gested series  will  probably,  in  its  turn,  start  a  new  pair,  group, 
or  longer  series,  of  other  associated  ideas.  Most  of  these 
shorter  or  longer  series  prove,  on  closer  examination,  to  be  more 
or  less  familiar,  not  only  as  respects  their  content  as  individuals, 
but  also  as  respects  the  order  of  their  succession.  This  is 
because  similar  ideas  have  frequently  had  a  similar  order  of 
succession  in  our  past  experience. 

The  simpler  cases  of  associated  ideas,  as  reproduced  in  their 
original  order  of  succession,  by  no  means,  however,  include  all 
applications  of  the  general  principle.  Two  important  subordi- 
nate principles  must  also  be  considered  :  (1)  Ideas  associated  in 
series  under  the  principle  of  contiguity  come  to  have  a  recip- 
rocal influence  in  reproductive  activity.  The  tendency  to  repro- 
duction is,  of  course,  greater  in  the  original  order  of  the  series, 
and  between  the  most  nearly  contiguous  members  in  the  forward 
direction  of  the  series ;  and  this  tendency  is  also,  of  course, 
increased  by  repetition,  within  the  limits  of  fatigue,  distaste, 
overstrain,  etc.  But  the  tendency  to  reproduce  each  other  also 
exists  within  certain  not  easily  assignable  limits,  between  mem- 
bers not  immediately  contiguous  and  in  other  directions  and 
sequences  than  those  of  the  original  lines.  Hence,  any  series 
may  become  variously  broken  up  ;  and,  by  an  extension  of  the 
principle  of  contiguity,  any  member  may  come  to  recall  any 
other,  with  which  it  was  not  originally  closely  associated  and  in 
a  different  order  from  the  original  sequence.  What  particular 
member  of  the  series  recalls  what  other  will  depend,  in  each 
particular  case  of  associated  revival,  upon  a  variety  of  influ- 
ences, such  as  original  or  acquired  intensity  of  the  members 
concerned,  repetition,  disposition,  environment,  interest,  and 
planful  movement  of  the  mental  life  at  the  time  of  recall,  etc. 

(2)  Ideas  associated  in  series  under  the  principle  of  contiguity 
suffer  a  process  which  may  figuratively  be  described  as  that  of 
"  condensation."  Certain  members  of  the  total  original  sequence 
tend  to  become  obscured,  or  altogether  to  drop  out  of  the  col- 
lective train  of  associated  ideas.  In  all  cases  of  great  familiar- 
ity with  any  series  the  mind  hastens  forward,  as  it  were,  to  the 
end ;  for  it  is  to  the  end  of  the  series,  rather  than  to  its  individ- 
ual intervening  members,  that  our  chief  interest  is  regularly 
attached.  In  the  case  of  any  long  series  of  reproduced  associated  \ 
ideas,  the  emphasis  of  interest  and  reproductive  energy  rises  i 


ASSOCIATION   BY   CONTIGUITY  271 

and  fulls  iu  a  sort  of  rhythmic  way.  Thus,  sojnc  of  the  memhers 
of  any  aeries  come  to  daiid  as  rcpreHentat'ive  ideas,  not  only  for  their 
oicn  oriijinals,  hut  also  for  several  of  the  contiguous  members  of  the 
original  series  /  ajid  tJiese  contiguous  memhers  take  the  subordinate 
part  of  faint  (someichat  parasitical)  '^fringes"  of  ideation  for  the 
emphasized  ideas.  Series  of  considerable  length,  origin all}^  are 
thus  condensed  into  comparatively  few  members  ;  or  even  into 
a  rapid  ideation-process  that  seems  almost  to  fall  within  a  single 
grasp  of  consciousness,  and  so  is  entitled  to  be  considered  as 
only  one  exceedingly  complex  idea.  Here  we  are  jilainly  deal- 
ing with  phenomena,  on  a  larger  scale,  which  closely  resemble 
those  already  treated  under  the  so  -  called  fusion  of  partial 
ideas.  For  here  again  the  essential  condition  of  all  mental  de- 
velopment is  that  the  mental  life  shall  not  be  obliged  to  repeat 
itself  in  detail ;  we  must  be  allowed  to  cut  out  the  unessential 
members  of  the  reproduced  flowing  stream  of  consciousness,  and 
let  one  stand  for  many  as  their  "  representative,"  so  to  speak. 
But  these  rej^resentative  ideas  of  the  larger  order  themselves 
attain  a  modified  character  through  this  very  process ;  otherwise 
they  could  not  be  representative  of  a  number  of  ideas  in  a  series. 
For  example,  the  train  of  ideas  started  in  the  consciousness  of  a 
musician  by  the  first  chords  of  a  symphony,  or  of  a  mathemati- 
cian by  the  first  words  or  symbols  of  a  complex  formula,  may 
represent  the  entire  sequence  of  chords,  or  words  and  symbols, 
in  a  manner  at  once  more  rich  in  meaning  and  more  condensed 
in  number  of  separable  members.^ 

It  is  even  now  evident  that  this  condensation  of  series  of 
representative  images,  together  with  the  closely  connected 
process  of  freeing  all  the  images  from  the  necessity  o4  recur- 
rence in  just  such,  and  no  other,  fixed  order,  is  indispensable 
to  conception  and  to  thought.  Indeed,  we  shall  soon  see  that 
in  the  process  of  mental  elaboration,  reproductive  images  and 
conceptions  can  be  separated  from  .each  other  by  no  hard  and 
fixed  lines. 

I  11.  All  the  principal  features  of  association  by  contigiiitv,  as  applied  to 
reproduced  series,  may  be  illustrated  by  any  number  of  familiar  experiences. 
For  example,  we  tend  most  strongly  to  recall,  and  actually  do  most  easily 
and  frequently  recall,  the  alphabet  of  our  own  language,  in  the  sequence  in 
which  we  have  learned  it.  Mention  of  any  particular  letter  [K,  for  example) 
immediately  summons  the  idea  of  the  next  following  (L)  ;  groups  like  L,  M, 
X,  run  oflf  with  peculiar  smoothness.  For,  again,  these  three  letters  prob- 
ably belong  to  the  several  subordinate  series  within  the  entire  series  which 

1  For  a  very  interesting  and  suggestive,  though  somewhat  fanciful  development  of  this  subject, 
Verdichtung  der  Vorstellungen,  see  Lazarus,  Leben  d.  Seele,  it.,  pp.  229  If. 


272  THE   PROCESSES   OF   IDEATION 

are  bound  together  with  peculiar  intimacy  of  association  {A,  B,  C;  and  X, 
Y,  Z,  and  other  like  groups).  Moreover,  it  will  probably  be  found  more 
difficult  to  move  in  idea  from  L  to  K  than  from  L  to  3f;  and  yet  any  letter 
recalls  its  contiguous  neighbors  in  the  backward  order  more  readily  than 
the  very  remote  members  of  the  series  recall  each  other  in  either  direction, 
unless,  indeed,  some  other  association  has  been  established  between  a  pair 
or  group  of  siich  remote  members.  Still  further,  it  will  be  found  that,  in 
rapid  reproduction  of  the  series,  the  mind  seems  to  take  long  leaps,  as  it 
were,  and  to  come  down  upon  some  of  the  members  with  peculiar  emphasis 
(a  matter  due,  perhaps,  to  muscular  and  respiratory  rhythm  connected  with 
both  the  learning  and  the  reproduction  of  the  series).  Finally,  from  A  to  Z, 
or  from  A  to  fi,  may  come  to  stand  for  the  entire  series,  with  only  a  vague 
imaging  and  feeling  of  any  content  between  the  two  ends;  or  A-B-G,  etc., 
may  fuse  into  one  idea,  with  a  sort  of  added  flourish  of  imaging  and  feeling 
to  signify  the  addition  of  a  long  tail  to  this  head  of  our  series  ;  and  so  [A, 
B,  C)  become  representative  of  the  whole  alphabet. 

Further  illustration  may  be  taken  from  the  way  in  which  jieople  gener- 
ally recall  tunes.  The  unfortunate  amateur  who  has  "  started "  one,  and 
got  switched  off  on  to  another  by  reason  of  similarity  in  a  pair  or  gi'oup  of 
following  notes  belonging  to  the  two  tunes,  can  scarcely  ever  recover  him- 
self without  going  back  to  the  beginning  and  starting  over.  The  danger  of 
repeating  the  mistake  recurs  whenever  the  place  where  the  two  series  of 
associated  notes  coincide  is  reached.  So  closely  bound  together  in  the 
forward  direction  are  the  members  of  even  a  simple  musical  series,  that  it 
may  well  be  doubted  whether  any  musician  can  sing  "  Old  Hundred  " — for 
example— from  memory  backward  correctly  on  the  first  trial ;  although  the 
tune  produced  in  this  way  is  perhaps  better  music  than  when  produced 
in  the  original  order, 

§  12.  Exi^eriment  tends  further  to  confirm  the  principle  of  contiguity  as 
applied  to  series  of  ideas.  Ebbinghaus,  in  learning  series  of  non-sense 
syllables,  found  evidence  that  even  the  remoter  (not  immediately  contiguous) 
members  of  a  series  strengthen  each  other.  Thus,  any  series  once  learned 
and  then  forgotten  could  be  relearned  with  a  saving  of  effort  amounting  to 
33.3  per  cent,  for  the  next  contiguous  members  ;  but  on  skipijing  one  syl- 
lable, the  saving  was  still  10.8  per  cent.;  and  on  skipi^ing  two,  three,  or  four 
syllables,  it  still  remained  7.0,  5,8,  and  3.3  per  cent.,  respectively.  This 
saving  can  only  be  due,  it  would  seem,  to  association  of  members  in  the  in- 
verse proportion  of  their  original  distance  from  one  another. 

We  have  already  seen  how  the  grasp  of  consciousness  includes  a  much 
larger  number  of  objects  if  they  may  be  connected  together  into  wholes  an- 
swering to  some  idea.  Thus  Cattell  found  that  three  times  as  many  letters 
connected  into  words  as  disconnected  letters  could  be  comprehended  in 
one  field  of  consciousness.  It  falls  under  the  principle  of  association  by 
contiguity  in  consciousness  that  the  revival  of  impressions  originally  thus 
"ideally"  connected  is  so  much  easier  and  more  comj^lete.  Thus  Ebbing- 
haus found  that  it  reqiaired  only  one-tenth  as  many  rej^etitions  to  learn  the 
same  number  of  syllables  when  making  sense  as  compared  with  non-sense 
syllables.  The  nonsense  of  the  nursery  rhymes  which  so  please  and  stick  in 
the  memories  of  children,  as  well  as  that  which  "  now  and  then  "  delights 


CONDENSATION   OF   SERIES  273 

"  the  best  of  men,"  is  very  far  indeed  from  being  «on-senso.  It  is  also  per- 
tinent to  notice  that  the  number  of  objects  which  can  bo  grasped  together 
in  the  contiguity  of  one  perceptive  consciousness  is  about  the  same  as  that 
easily  roi)roduced  in  the  form  of  associated  ideas  under  the  principle  of  con- 
tiguity. Ebbinghaus  also  found  that  one  reading  would  sullico  for  an  ac- 
curate reproduction  of  a  series  of  from  six  to  eight  members  ;  while  thirty 
readings  were  necessary  for  sixteen  syllables.  From  many  such  experiments 
with  series  of  non-sense  syllables  the  law  was  formulated  :  "  Presentations 
once  aroused  in  consciousness,  simultaneously  or  in  immediate  succession, 
reproduce  each  other  ;  and  more  easily,  in  the  direction  of  the  original  suc- 
cession, and  with  greater  certainty,  the  oftener  they  have  been  together." 

§  13.  The  ofl'ect  of  the  process  described  as  "  condensation  "  upon  the 
character  of  any  series  of  associated  ideas  is  obvious  enough.  There  are 
few,  if  any,  of  our  adult  experiences,  where  one  idea  is  said  to  suggest 
another,  in  which  this  effect  is  not  prominent.  The  first  step  toward  this 
effect  consists  in  bringing  the  originally  remoter  members  of  the  series  into 
closer  contiguity,  and  thus  binding  them  together  for  future  recurrence  as 
closely  associated  ideas.  Thus  if  the  original  series  be  indicated  by  ^,  B, 
C,  D,  etc.,  and  B,  C,  be  much  condensed,  or  altogether  dropped  out,  then 
.1  and  D  are  brought  into  such  contiguity  in  consciousness  as  forever  after 
to  become  associated  ideas.  When  any  series  of  mental  images,  such  as 
that  belonging  to  a  familiar  stretch  of  natural  scenery,  or  to  a  passage  from 
an  author,  a  proverb,  a  salutation,  an  announcement,  or  a  musical  aria,  is 
started,  at  once  the  reproductive  activity  overleaps  the  members  that  orig- 
inally intervened,  and  suggests  those  that  for  some  reason  have  become 
most  representative  of  the  entire  series.  In  these  cases,  try  as  we  may  to 
proceed  in  regular  reproductive  order  over  the  entire  series,  we  cannot 
avoid  these  leaps.  Imagination  and  memory  thus  find  themselves  under  the 
influence  of  tendencies  which  enable  them  the  better  to  act  as  substitutes 
for  (to  represent)  the  fulness  of  content  and  speed  of  movement  which  the 
presentations  of  sense  and  of  self-consciousness  enjoy. 

g  14.  Here,  again,  we  come  upon  those  secret  processes  of  change  in  re- 
productive energy  that  make  thought  and  language  possible.  The  "con- 
densation" and  "freeing"  of  associated  ideas  is  necessary  in  order  that 
words  may  have  their  pregnancy  of  representative  meaning.  This  is  illus- 
trated in  a  very  instructive  way  by  the  formation  of  compound  terms  to 
stand  for  the  representative  activity  belonging  to  condensed  series.  The 
more  naive  and  unscientific  the  work  of  compounding,  the  more  instructive 
its  result.  Thus  modern  Japanese  has  one  word  composed  of  the  first  char- 
acters in  the  names  of  its  three  principal  cities  (Kyoto,  Osaka,  and  Tokyo); 
the  idea  associated  with  this  word  stands  for  the  resultant  of  repeated  con- 
tiguity in  consciousness  of  these  three  associated  individuals,  with  the 
added  importance  which  the  fact  of  their  association  brings.  For,  as  has 
already  been  said,  the  ideas  brought  into  closer  contiguity,  and  associated 
by  this  process  of  so-called  condensation,  are  not  themselves  unaltered  by 
the  association.  They  are  rich  with  the  fragments  of  the  content  of  the 
vanishing  members  of  the  series  ;  their  life  is  the  fuller,  because  into  it  has 
passed  a  part  of  the  life  of  the  defunct  connected  branches  of  the  family 
they  represent.     It  is  largely  in  this  respect  that  men  differ  as  to  their  so- 

18 


Im 


1^ 


274  THE   PROCESSES   OF   IDEATION 

called  ideas — from  those  who  can  condense  into  one  reproductive  process 
the  nutriment  derived  from  years  of  growth — to  those  who,  like  the  soldier 
already  referred  to,  cannot  think  at  one  time  of  more  than  two  of  the  three 
ingredients  of  gunpowder. 

The  association  of  series  of  re^sresentative  images  with  series  of  motor 
tendencies  is,  doubtless,  of  great  importance  in  furthering  and  modifying 
the  entire  reproductive  process.  In  such  cases  as  the  foregoing,  a  partially 
reflex  and  ijartially  voluntary  accompaniment  of  speech  is,  in  the  case  of 
adults,  usually  to  be  detected.  Association  by  contiguity  in  consciousness, 
then,  in  the  largest  meaning  of  the  term,  includes  this  accompaniment. 
The  great,  and  even  indispensable  assistance  which  "motor-consciousness" 
renders,  is  hinted  at  by  the  experience  of  Miinsterberg, '  who  found  he  could 
reproduce  in  order  a  series  of  seven  to  ten  letters,  exposed  1  sec,  with  almost 
no  errors,  in  case  he  could  concentrate  his  mind  on  holding  on  to  one  letter 
until  the  next  came  ;  but  if  he  was  occupied  so  as  to  be  deprived  of  the 
motor  accompaniment  of  speech,  mistakes  in  the  order  of  the  series  greatly 
increased. 

§  15.  It  is  by  no  means  our  ideas  alone  which  suffer  this  treatment 
called  a  process  of  fusion  and  condensation.  The  affective  accompani- 
ments of  our  ideas  share  in  the  same  process.  Thus,  by  the  image-mak- 
ing activity,  feelings  which  have  repeatedly  followed  certain  sensations,  jier- 
ceptions,  or  thoughts,  become  so  attached  to  the  itleas  of  such  sensations. 
Ijerceptions,  or  thoughts,  as  promptly  to  arise  in  connection  with  them.  A 
vivid  memory-image  of  how  a  certain  experience  of  my  own  once  felt,  or  a 
vivid  imagination  of  how  some  other  being  is  now  feeling,  is  immediately 
followed  by  that  same  feeling  in  the  present  conscious  life.  Thus  we  not 
only  liave  an  idea  of  how  our  friend  feels  in  the  dentist's  chair  under  the 
file  ;  but  we  may  actually  feel  the  filing  in  our  own  teeth.  Meyer's  story  of 
the  man  who,  on  crushing  the  finger  of  one  of  his  own  children  in  the  door, 
"  felt  a  violent  pain  in  the  corresponding  finger  of  his  own  body,"  which 
lasted  three  days,  is  only  a  somewhat  extreme  illustration  of  this.-  The 
large  province  of  "suggested"  pleasures  and  pains  is  to  be  explored  in  the 
light  of  this  principle. 

Among"  the  more  widely  recog"iiized  "  Laws  of  Association,"' 
so-called  (besides  the  subdivision  of  the  principle  of  contiguity 
into  Time  and  Space),  association  by  Similarity  and  by  Contrast 
have  stood  first ;  then  follow  such  forms  of  sng-gestion  as  Cause 
and  Effect,  Means  and  End,  Sign  and  Thing  signified.  The  three 
laws  of  the  first  rank — contiguity  in  time  and  space,  resem-' 
blance,  and  contrariety — were  enumerated  by  Aristotle  ;  and, 
coming  down  at  once  to  Hume,  we  find  him  omitting  contrariety 
and  adding  cause  and  effect.  It  is  si/nilarift/,  however,  which 
has  either  contested,  or  shared,  with  contiguity  the  honor  of 
being  the  irreducible  principle  under  which  all  suggestion  of 
ideas   l)y  one  another   must  fall.     And,   indeed,  many  modern 

>  Die  AsBoc'.af.on  successiven  Vorstellungen,  Zeitsch,  f.  Psycho'.ogie,  i..  Ileft  2  (1890). 
9  Untersuchnngen  Ober  die  Physiologic  d.  Nervenfaeer,  p.  233. 


DIFFERENT   VIEWS   OF   ASSOCIATION  275 

psychologists  still  persist  in  speaking-  as  thoug-li,  siuce  ideas  do 
(in  some  wholly  mystical  and  inexplicable  way)  influence  each 
other  causally,  this  principle — "  like  ])roduces  like  " — must  be 
acknowledg-ed  as  the  one  fundamental  law  of  ideating-  mind. 

We  have  already  seen  that,  in  general,  only  in  a  lignrative 
way  can  ideas  be  said  to  reproduce  each  other.  The  truth  which 
really  answers  to  this  figure  of  speech  is  found  in  the  ultimate 
fact  that  the  psycho-i^hysical  condition  of  reproduction,  and  the 
actual  reproductive  or  ideating  processes  themselves,  show  rea- 
sons for  assuming  certain  tendencies,  or  dispositions  growing 
out  of  past  activities.  What  takes  place  in  consciousness,  as 
associated  ideas  are  reproduced,  is  to  be  explained  by  what 
has  previously  taken  place.  Further,  what  has  previously  taken 
place  may  be  summed  up  in  the  one  principle — of  the  influence 
upon  each  other  of  contiguous  psychoses.  But  the  question 
now  arises,  whether  all  cases  of  so-called  association  of  ideas, 
that  are  explicable  at  all,  can  be  explained  in  this  Avay  ?  In  other 
words,  is  the  i^rinciple  of  association  of  ideas  under  the  influence 
of  contiguity  in  consciousness  the  sole  discoverable  psycho- 
logical principle  %  To  this  question  we  give  an  affirmative  an- 
swer— limiting  both  question  and  answer,  however,  by  our  pre- 
vious use  of  terms. 

Most  cases  of  the  alcove-mentioned  laws  are  so  readily  re- 
ducible to  association  by  i^revious  contiguity  in  consciousness, 
that  they  need  little  examination  in  detail.  Cases  of  alleged  as- 
sociation by  contrast  sometimes  occasion  more  difficulty.  Few 
modern  writers  on  psychology,  however,  maintain  with  Aris- 
totle and  Hume  that  "  contrariety  "  is  an  independent  principle 
of  the  association  of  ideas.  Moreover,  contrast  is  so  closely  con- 
nected with  resemblance  or  similarity  as  an  associating  princi- 
ple, that  the  claim  of  the  former  to  be  an  independent  prin- 
ciple cannot  stand,  if  the  claim  of  the  latter  falls.  We  may 
then  bring  the  principle  of  contiguity  in  consciousness  to  its 
final  testing,  by  the  inquiry  whether  it  will  account  for  all  cases  , 
of  alleged  association  by  similarity.  But  here  we  must  be  on 
our  guard  against  two  fruitful  sources  of  confusion  of  thought. 
(1)  The  term  "  similarity  "  is  after  all  only  a  relative  term.  If 
on  the  one  hand,  and  strictly  speaking,  it  may  be  said  that  no 
two  presentations  or  ideas  can  ever  be  precisely  the  same,  it  may 
also  be  said,  on  the  other  hand,  that  lew  presentations  come 
into  contiguity  in  consciousness  without  observed  points  of  simi- 
larit}^  and  few  ideas  of  such  presentations  follow  in  the  mental 
train  that  may  not  possibly  develop  points  of  similarit3^  Now, 
the  advocates  of  similarity  as  an  ultimate  principle  of  the  asso- 


276  THE  PROCESSES   OF   IDEATION 

ciation  of  ideas  invariably  hypostasize  the  idea:  tliey  speak 
— that  is  to  say — of  ideas  as  entities  capable  of  showing  statical 
points  of  likeness  and  unlikeness.  But  for  ideas  considered  as 
capable  of  influencing  or  suggesting  each  other,  a  psychology 
true  to  the  facts  obliges  us  to  substitute  ideating-processes. 
This  alleged  law  of  association  then  becomes  the  statement  that 
every  ideating  process,  as  an  individual  process,  tends  to  pro- 
duce next  following  it  a  similar  ideating  process — irrespective  of 
any  previous  activity  connecting  the  two,  or  of  any  conscious 
end  to  be  reached  in  making  the  connection.  But  such  a  state- 
ment is  not  borne  out  by  the  facts ;  moreover,  it  is  utterly  in- 
conceivable how  such  a  general  fact  should  be  considered  as  a 
law  of  the  mind's  reproditctive  ^wocedure  at  all. 

For  (2)  the  whole  theory  of  association  hy  similarity  rests  upon  a 
confusion  between  those  laws  which  regulate  disc7'iminaiing  con- 
sciousness in  acquiring  the  original  presentations  and  those  other 
latvs  which  regulate  the  mechanism  of  reproduced  associated  ideas. 
That  so-called  ideas  get  associated  under  the  law  of  similarity 
by  conscious  discrimination,  and  so,  having  been  bound  together 
by  contiguity  in  consciousness,  recur  as  originally  bound — this 
is  one  thing  ;  but  that  ideas,  on  recurring,  tend  to  suggest  other 
similar  ideas,  irrespective  of  their  having  ever  been  thus  actively 
associated  by  discriminating  consciousness — this  is  quite  another 
thing.  Association  by  similarity  is  indeed  one  of  the  most  ex- 
tended and  fundamental  of  all  the  laws  of  primary  intellection. 
We  have  already  seen  that  all  consciousness,  that  attention  even 
in  its  primary  forms,  and  that  the  formation  of  sensation-com- 
plexes and  the  having  of  definite  or  vaguer  states  of  feeling,  as 
well  as  the  formation  of  complex  ideas  by  so-called  fusion,  all 
involve  the  discrimination  of  like  and  unlike,  and  the  assimila- 
tion of  that  which  is  like.  Now,  it  is  in  the  contiguity  of  this 
primary  discriminating  consciousness  that  like  gets  associated 
with  like,  and  pari  passu,  in  some  sort,  becomes  separated  from 
the  unlike.  It  is  this  procedure,  as  it  grows  more  and  more  com- 
plex, purposeful,  and  truly  intellectual,  which  prepares  the  sim- 
ilar and  contrasted  ideas,  as  it  were,  to  suggest  (or  associate  with) 
each  other.  But  this,  instead  of  being  something  different  from 
the  princii)le  of  association  by  contiguity  in  consciousness,  is 
precisely  the  same  thing  as  this  principle  itself. 

If  now  we  unite  the  foregoing  two  sets  of  considerations,  we 
see  how  much  that  is  true  belongs  to  the  explanation  of  associa- 
tion by  similarity.  The  "  similar"  and  the  "contrasted,"  in  idea, 
differ  for  different  persons  almost  beyond  all  assignable  bounds. 
Men  in  general  do  not  notice,  with  any  high  degree  of  discrirai- 


CONTIGUITY   IN   TIME  AND   SPACE  277 

nation,  likenesses  and  uulikcnesses  that  have  no  teleological 
signilicance  for  their  daily  lives.  The  multitude,  for  example, 
cannot  even  tell  you  what  color  the  g-rass  is  "  like,"  or  the  bricks 
of  a  particular  building-  in  a  street  they  have  daily  passed,  etc. 
Propose  the  question  as  to  which  of  the  parental  families  any 
child  is  "  like,"  in  the  presence  of  a  half  dozen  relatives,  and 
note  how  unlike  their  ideas  of  "  likeness  "  are  !  Or  listen,  with 
the  same  intent,  to  a  half-score  of  gazers  at  the  summer  evening- 
clouds,  and  hear  them  tell  what  human  or  animal  forms  are 
suggested  as  "  similar  "  to  the  outlines  in  these  vaporous  types. 
Nothing-  which  is  snggested  as  like  to  the  suggesting  idea,  when 
one  sort  of  mood  or  plan  creates  a  disposition  to  regard  all  ideas 
in  a  certain  way,  is  really  like  that  which  is  sugg-ested  during 
another  mood' or  ruling-  plan.  But  all  suggestions,  regarded  as 
falling  under  the  mechanism  of  ideas,  are  alike  significant  of  a 
tendency  to  reproduce  in  such  pairs,  groups,  or  series,  as  have 
been,  somehow  and  at  some  time,  produced  before. 

I  IG.  The  ordinary  cases  of  association  by  contiguity  in  space  or  time, 
easily  fall  under  the  same  general  law.     Things  that  are  together  in  space,  or 
events  actually  contiguous  in  time,  never  become  associated,  unless  they  are 
mentally  united,  or  known  as  contiguous.     In  every  complex  act  of  percep- 
tion, apperceiviug  consciousness  is,  by  the  very  nature  of  its  activity,  en- 
gaged in  associating  the  different  objects  perceived.     To  the  association  of 
the  idea  of  any  of  the  parts  with  the  whole,  or  of  the  whole  with  any  one  or 
more  of  its  parts,  the  same  truth  applies.     The  very  act  of  knowing  whole 
and  parts  together  is  a  process  of  uniting,  under  the  principle  of  contiguity 
in  consciousness,  those  presentations  which,  when  they  recur  as  ideas,  sug- 
gest each  other  because  they  have  already  been  associated.     Cases  of  means 
and  ends,  causes  and  effects,  signs  and  things  signified,  as  they  suggest  each 
other  in  pairs  or  groups,  and  in  whatever  order,  come  under  the  same  princi- 
ple.   Thus  the  sight  of  a  poker  near  the  open  fire  suggests,  even  in  our  friend's 
house,  the  poking  of  the  fire  ;  or,  if  no  fire  is  lit,  the  propriety  of  having 
one  lighted.     Here  the   "original"  has  been  a  somewhat  extended  series, 
stretching  between  the  poker  seen  and  the  fire  poked  ;  but  by  a  process  of 
easy  condensation,  poker  and  fire  have  become  so  associated  that  sugges- 
tion works  immediately  in  either  way.     It  is  by  similar  repeated  series  of 
impressions— presentations  of  sense  and  ideas— that  oiled  rags  lying  in  a 
heap,  or  unignited  matches  on  the  floor,  are  associated  "  at  a  leap  "  with  the 
building  already  on  fire,  and  the  accompanying  feeling  of  alarm  and  indigna- 
tion.    All  our  interpretation  of  every  kind  of  sign— whether  visible,  tangible, 
or  that  obscure  "  feeling  in  the  bones,"  which  the  superstitious  regard— is 
suggested  under  the  same  principle.     [Here  comes  in  the  so-called  theory 
of  the  relations  between  Lautbild,  Schriftbild,  and  VorsteUimg.]     It  originally 
required  a  long  series  of  questionings  and  inferences,  or  mistaken  guesses,  to 
establish  contiguity  in  consciousness  between  that  particular  look  of  our 
friend's  eye,  or  the  set  of  his  jaw,  or  the  play  around  his  mouth,  and  his 


U 


278  THE  PROCESSES   OF   IDEATION 

mental  state  thus  signified.  But  the  intervening  links  have  long  since 
dropped  out  of  memory  ;  and  we  now  have  a  clear  idea  of  what  he  thinks 
and  feels  by  a  sure  spring  from  the  delicate  standing-ground  of  our  immedi- 
ate perception  of  the  changes  of  his  countenance. 

g  17.  It  seems  strange  to  find  even  so  acute  an  analyst  of  mental  proc- 
esses as  Lipps,'  for  exami:)le,  affirming  that  "the  idea  or  sensation  a  pro- 
duces the  idea  b  with  an  energy  whicli  is  proportioned  to  the  degree  of  their 
sm//«r//y  "  rather  than  "proportioned  to  "the  character  of  the  connection 
previously  established  between  the  ideating  processes  indicated  by  a  and  b, 
respectively.  Then  follows  the  misleading  figure  of  speech  about  the  "  sup- 
port "  which  similar  ideas  give  to  each  other,  etc.  Even  Hoffding-  vent- 
ures to  affirm  that,  "so  far  from  association  by  similarity  being  resolvable 
into  association  by  contiguity,  every  association  by  contiguity,  on  the  con- 
trary, presupposes  an  association  by  similarity,  or  at  least  an  immediate 
recognition."  But  this,  as  we  have  already  pointed  out,  is, to  confound  the 
laws  which  regulate  the  binding  together  of  the  elements  and  objects  into 
the  unity  of  one  field  of  discriminating  consciousness,  and  the  laws  which 
regulate  the  succession  of  associated  ideas  ;  moreover,  such  a  statement  uses 
the  words  "  similarity  "  and  "  contiguity  "  in  a  way  not  warranted  as  applied 
to  ideas. 

The  important  distinction  we  are  advocating  will  perhaps  best  be  made 
clear  by  an  example  or  two.  Wherever  an  alleged  association  by  similarity 
has  previously  taken  place,  especially  if  it  has  repeatedly  taken  place  and  so 
become  an  habitual  association,  the  principle  of  contiguity  in  consciousness 
plainly  applies.  But  let  us  take  the  very  case  selected  by  Hoffding  as  an 
example  of  association  by  similarity,  "  the  innermost  germ  of  all  association 
of  ideas."  I  see  an  apple  on  the  table  before  me,  and  qviiekly  find  myself 
thinking  of  Adam  and  Eve.  Undoubtedly  this  is,  as  Hofi'ding  says,  because 
I  have — perhaps  so  quickly  that  I  do  not  remember  or  am  "  hardly  conscious 
of  it  " — first  thought  of  the  apple  on  the  tree  of  knowledge.  But  this  is  not, 
as  Hoffding  assumes,  because  the  aj^ple  on  the  table,  being  in  idea  similar  to 
the  apple  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  has  siaggested  the  latter,  and  so  has  suggested 
the  unhappy  first  pair  connected  therewith.  On  the  contrary,  the  connec- 
tion between  the  perceived  aj^ple  (i.e.,  certain  sensation-complexes,  with 
ideas,  feelings,  and  motor  accomjjaniments)  has  been  by  long  ago  repeated 
mental  activities  established  with  the  idea  and  name  of  "apple."  And  this 
idea  and  name  have  frequently  been  contiguous  in  consciousness  with  the 
idea  and  name  of  the  apple-bearing  tree  of  knowledge,  with  Eden,  and  with 
Adam  and  Eve.  Indeed,  "  apple  "  and  "  Adam  and  Eve,"  in  the  case  of 
many  minds,  furnish  an  instance  of  one  of  those  many  associated  couples  of 
ideas  where  the  series  has  suffered  condensation ;  and  thus  two  originally 
remote  members  have  coalesced,  as  it  were.  In  the  same  way  is  to  be  ex- 
plained the  other  exami^lo  of  the  same  author,  where  a  vivid  memory-image 
of  a  Swiss  mountain  view  was  aroused  by  the  "  roscmblanco  "  of  "heavy 
hanks  of  clouds  in  the  horizon."  Here,  too,  the  perceived  outline  of  such 
forms  as  the  clouds  fiirnished  had  been  previously  connected  in  ajiporcoiv- 
ing  consciousness  with  the  mountain  forms.  And  indeed,  Hoffding,  after 
aflfirming  that  similarity  (that  is,  as  a  law  of  association  of  ideas)  lies  at  the 

•  Sec  his  Griindtatsaclien  d.  Scclcnlebens,  pp.  102  If.  »  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  157. 


PARTICULAR  CASES   OF   ASSOCIATION  279 

root  of  contiguity,  and  yet  claiming  independent  value  for  contiguity,  pro- 
ceeds to  maintain  that  the  "  two  laws  may  bo  brought  under  one  and  the 
same  fundamental  law."  This  law  he  awkwardly  calls  the  "law  of  total- 
ity ;  "  while  rightly  holding  that  it  is  furnished  by  the  "  synthetic  activity 
of  consciousness."  Now,  it  is  this  same  law  which  we  have  called  "the 
principle  of  association  by  previous  contiguity  in  consciousness,"  and  which 
we  affirm  to  be  the  one  psychological  principle  underlying  all  the  mechan- 
ism of  successive  associated  ideas. 

Each  particular  Case  of  Association  constitutes  a  special 
prol)lt'm  to  be  solved  under  the  g-eneral  laws  of  the  mind's  re- 
productive activity.  Since  all  the  terms  in  which  these  laws  are 
stated  are  tig-urative,  the  so-called  "  laws  "  must  themselves  be 
taken  somewhat  loosely,  in  accordance  with  the  facts  of  mental 
life.  Strictly  speaking-,  no  complex  idea  is  the  same  as,  or  ex- 
actly similar  to,  any  previous  presentation  of  sense  or  of  self- 
consciousness  ;  neither  is  any  idea  exactly  similar  to  what  we 
are  pleased  (very  inaccurately)  to  call  the  "  same  "  idea.  On 
the  contrary  every  new  reproductive  process  is  also  a  new  men- 
tal creation — the  origin  of  which,  as  a  whole,  and  of  all  the  dis- 
cernible elements  of  which,  depends  upon  many  influences.  Of 
these  influences  the  more  important  and  determinative  can  some- 
times be  observed  or  conjectured  Avith  a  high  degree  of  cer- 
tainty. But  at  other  times  the  origin  of  a  complex  idea  may  be 
quite  hidden  among  the  deepest  secrets  of  the  forgotten  i^ast  of 
the  mental  life.  Under  the  g-eneral  principle,  however,  the  causes 
which  determine  each  particular  case  of  a  reproduced  associated 
idea  are :  (1)  the  conditions  under  which  the  original  presenta- 
tion occurred ;  (2)  the  history  of  the  mental  life,  as  bearing-  on 
this  particular  idea,  from  the  time  of  the  presentation  to  the 
time  of  reproduction ;  and  (3)  the  conditions  under  which  the 
process  of  reproduction  occurs.  But  who  does  not  at  once  see 
that  we  have  here  involved  all  the  past  history  and  habit  of  the 
ideating-  subject  ?  ^  In  other  words,  the  answer  to  the  question, 
v^hy  I  have  just  noio  this  particular  idea  rather  than  some  other, 
may  have  to  he  sought  at  the  very  roots  and  all  along  the  growth  of 
my  entire  mental  life. 

Following-  are  the  principal  groups  of  influences  which  may 
be  seen  to  enter,  with  more  or  less  force,  into  the  solution  of 
each  case  of  the  reproduction  of  associated  ideas. 

?  18.  In  any  attempt  at  complete  explanation  of  a  case  of  association  we 
are  obliged,  not  only  to  go  back  of  the  present  state  of  conscious  ideation  and 
exjDlain  this  by  previous  states ;  but  even  to  go  back  of  all  states  of  cou- 

'  For  experimental  proof  of  snch  a  statement,  pee  Scripture  :  Ueber  d.  aseociativen  Verlanf  d. 
VoreteUungen.    Compare,  especially,  the  declaration,  p.  87  f. 


280  THE   PROCESSES   OF  IDEATION 

sciousuess  and  explain  (^)  by  an  assumed  "nature,"  or  "constitution,"  of 
the  mind.  In  this  way  we  take  note  of  the  common  and  apparently  well- 
grounded  impression,  that  not  all  the  diflerences  in  men  resi^ecting  their  ten- 
dencies to  associate  ideas  in  a  j^articular  way  are  acquired.  Such  tendencies 
as  may  be  called  "natural"  are,  however,  undoubtedly  connected  with  dif- 
ferences in  the  intensity  and  variety  of  the  original  presentations,  and  with 
the  distribution  of  attention  in  connection  with  discriminating  consciousness, 
etc.  But  here  we  reach  the  bounds  where  empirical  science  must  stop. 
This  general  but  vague  concei^tion  of  original  diflerences  in  men,  as  furnish- 
ing conditions  to  the  associated  j^rocesses  of  ideation,  is  capable  of  subdivi- 
sion, as  it  were.  Hence  association  of  ideas  may  be  said  to  depend  (Z>)  on 
temjierament,  race,  sex,  etc.  Indeed,  the  speed  and  character  of  the  indi- 
vidual's train  of  ideas  are  distinguishing  marks  of  the  acknowledged  differ- 
ent kinds  of  temperament.  Terms  of  temperament  (sanguine,  sentimental, 
phlegmatic,  etc.)  seem  not  inappropriate  to  diflerent  races  of  men  ;  and 
strong  reasons  exist  for  admitting  that  there  is  much  truth  in  the  popular 
impression  of  a  characteristic  difference  in  the  way  in  which  the  memory  and 
imagination  of  men  and  of  women  "work" — as  we  are  wont  to  say.  Time  of 
life  is  also  a  potent  influence  in  determining  the  mechanism  of  associated 
ideas.  The  vague  longings  and  sentiments  which  spring  ui>  at  puberty,  the 
consolidated  practical  issues  of  middle  life,  the  tendency  to  remoter  remin- 
iscences which  old  age  develops,  are  connected  with  and  express  this  influ- 
ence. For  (C)  the  transient  or  permanent  influence  of  bodily  conditions  and 
of  the  corresponding  mental  moods  is  very  marked  over  the  association  of 
ideas.  Psych o-iahysical  depression  constitutes  a  strong  tendency  to  revive 
certain  classes  of  ideas  to  the  exclusion  of  others.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
think  of  gay  things  exclusively,  or  most  readily,  when  ?re  are  gay.  All  the 
imagery  of  Milton's  L'Allegro  and  II  Penseroso,  for  examjjle,  from  the 
"tripping"  on  "light  phantastic  toe"  of  the  one  to  the  "dim  religious 
light "  of  the  other,  is  ordered  and  suggested  according  to  an  appropriate 
prevalent  mental  mood. 

The  three  foregoing  classes  of  conditions— it  will  be  noticed — do  not  con- 
tradict the  principle  of  contiguity  in  consciousness,  but  rather  afford  reasons 
for  the  preference  of  one  association  over  another,  when  both  of  two  possible 
associations  might  have  had  an  equally  strong  connection  established  in 
previous  experience.  One  follows  rather  than  the  other,  because  it  fits  in 
better  with  the  present  general  character  of  the  stream  of  mental  life.  But 
(D)  what  may  figuratively  be  described  as  the  strength  and  enduring  quality 
of  each  original  presentative  state,  has  its  influence  on  the  future  association 
of  ideas.  Here  again  the  influences  which  determine  strength  and  endurance 
are  manifold  ;  they  are  in  the  main  such,  however,  as  have  already  been  con- 
sidered in  connection  with  primary  attention  and  with  the  intensity  and  life- 
likeness  of  mental  images.  Many  strange  experiences  occur  under  this 
principle.  Trivialties  not  infrequently  get  themselves  connected  Avith  the 
original  leading  presentations  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  forever  indissolubly 
associated.  In  general,  however,  the  more  intense,  complete,  aiul  interest- 
ing is  any  complex  as.sociation  as  established  in  the  presentative  act,  the 
more  do  all  the  factors  and  objects  thus  associated  tend  to  revive  each 
other,  under  tlie  general  principle  of  contiguity  in  consciousness.     It  is  [E) 


THE    "freeing"    of   IDEAS  281 

the  next  preceding  state  of  consciousness  wbicli,  as  a  rule,  has  most  obvious 
influence  in  determining  what  the  jaarticular  associated  idea  shall  be.  In- 
deed, the  meagre,  old-fashioned  form  of  the  theory  of  association  laid  almost 
the  entire  stress  of  intlueuco  upon  this  immediate  connection.  We  have  seen 
that  this  account  is  too  meagre  to  be  satisfactory.  At  the  same  time,  the  con- 
siderations summed  up  in  the  principle  of  contiguity  chiefly  ai)ply  to  the  two 
states  thus  most  immediately  associated  in  the  succession  of  time.  (F)  Reji- 
etition  and  Habit  are  of  the  very  highest  imjjortance  in  the  explanation  of 
the  mechanism  of  ideation,  as  well  as  in  the  explanation  of  all  our  mental 
life,  with  its  voluntary  or  involuntary  and  unconscious  motor  accompani- 
ments. 

Finally,  we  are  obviously  about  to  overstep  the  boundaries  of  a  mechani- 
cal theory  of  the  ideation-processes,  when  we  notice  (G)  the  great  influence 
of  feeling,  desire,  and  volition  on  the  association  of  ideas.  Feeling,  in  the 
form  of  permanent  or  transient  "  mood,"  or  "  disposition,"  has  been  seen  to 
be  an  important  determiner  of  the  succession  of  associated  ideas.  The 
influence  of  desire  and  volition  has  also  been  recognized,  while  considering 
how  discriminating  consciousness,  as  a  selective  and  assimilative  process, 
actually  accomplishes  the  association  of  various  factors  and  objects  within 
the  unity  of  the  field  of  consciousness.  We  shall  subsequently  see  that,  in 
all  association  of  ideas  in  developed  mental  life,  there  is  a  possibility  of 
planfnl  choice,  with  ends  of  one  kind  or  another  in  view,  taking  part  in,  or 
assuming  a  large  control  over  the  succession  of  revived  images.  Thus,  what 
is  customarily  called  the  association  of  ideas  comes  to  be  something  far 
more  than  an  imalterable  activity  in  combination  on  the  part  of  a  merely  re- 
productive mechanism,  strictly  predetermined  for  each  new  case  by  what  has 
taken  place  in  the  past.  Voluntary  memoiy  and  free  artistic  imagination  are 
seen  to  be  possible ;  and  the  automatism  of  ideation,  like  the  motor  automa- 
ton which  the  bodily  members  constitute,  becomes  not  simply  the  master, 
but  also  in  some  sort  the  servant  of  chosen  and  ideal  ends. 

In  preparation  for  that  service  which  the  processes  of  idea- 
tion render  to  the  development  of  mental  life,  changes  in  the 
character  and  connections  of  the  associations  take  place  which 
may  figuratively  l)e  described  as  the  "Freeing"  of  the  Ideas. 
To  understand  this,  what  has  already  been  discovered  respect- 
ing the  nature  of  the  representative  images,  as  well  as  respect- 
ing the  character  of  our  experience  in  reproducing  series  of 
ideas,  must  be  recalled.  Diftercnt  so-called  ideas  differ,  wdien 
compared  with  their  originals  and  with  one  another,  in  rwspect 
of  intensity,  life-likeness,  etc.  This  capacity  for  difference  fits 
the  reprodiiced  ideas  for  service  in  two  opposite  directions :  (1) 
The  more  intense  and  life-like  any  representative  image  is,  the 
better  fitted  it  is  to  represent  just  that  particular  presentation 
or  previous  idea,  like  which  it  is,  in  all  the  fulness  of  the  life 
belonging  to  both  ;  and  the  less  fit  it  is  to  represent  any  other 
of  the  many  particular  exjoeriences  of  mental  life.     On  the  cou- 


282  THE   PROCESSES   OF   IDEATIOIS'- 

traiy,  (2)  the  paler,  less  full  in  content,  less  life-like  any  idea  is, 
the  more  it  is  lacking  in  fitness  to  represent  any  one  particular 
Dresentation  ;  but  the  better  fitted  it  is  to  represent  any  one  of  a 
number  of  more  remotely  and  slightly  similar  representations. 
Now,  this  more  extensively  representative,  or  sketchy  and  out- 
line character  of  some  ideas  is  essential  to  the  development  of 
mental  life ;  for  it  enables  the  "  same  "  idea  (or  rather  similar 
ideation-process)  to  represent  a  number  of  different  (and  actu- 
ally very  dissimilar)  presentations.  It  renders  the  idea  "  generi- 
cally  "  representative.  The  capacity  for  generic  representation 
may  be  said  to  be  due  to  the  more  or  less  "  schematic  "  character 
of  the  representative  image. 

Here  it  is  important  to  notice  the  eflfect  of  repetition  of  simi- 
lar psychic  activities,  whether  in  the  form  of  i^resentations  of 
sense  and  self-consciousness,  or  in  the  form  of  ideas.  Repeti- 
tion may  tend  to  modify  the  processes  of  ideation  in  either  one 
of  two  opposite  directions.  What  we  frequently  perceive — if 
this  be  done  with  interested  attention  directed  to  the  mastery  of 
details — is  likely  to  be  reproduced  with  fulness  of  content  and 
in  intimate  association  with  a  great  variety  of  presentations 
and  ideas  of  other  objects.  But  what  we  frequently  perceive — if 
this  be  done  with  no  attentive  interest  in  details — may  become 
capable  of  reproduction  only  in  scant  outline  by  an  effort,  and 
with  some  special  suggestion  to  set  the  mental  train  in  that  par- 
ticular direction.  To  illustrate  both  classes  of  effects — many 
men  who  can  with  difficulty  reproduce  the  arrangement  of  their 
own  breakfast-tables,  or  the  patterns  of  the  dresses  now  worn  by 
the  members  of  their  own  family,  recall  in  a  vivid  and  detailed 
fashion  the  aspect  of  the  table  at  some  banquet  of  a  year  ago,  or 
the  gown  of  some  lady  met  with  on  only  a  single  occasion. 

From  the  clear  and  full  perception  of  objects  to  the  most 
"abstract"  ideas,  so  called,  of  those  same  objects,  there  is  a 
gradual  diminution  in  the  number  of  discernible  elements,  and 
so  in  the  reciprocal  influence  of  the  elements  upon  the  entire 
field  of  consciousness.  The  more  elements  partially  or  wholly 
sui)[)ressed,  as  it  were,  the  "  paler  "  and  more  "  abstract  "  the 
resulting  ideas  become.  Not  only  is  it  true,  as  one  wi'iter  ^  has 
dindared,  that  the  strengthening  of  ideas  by  repeated  production 
must  be  harmonized  with  the  fact  of  the  weariness  produced  by 
all  exercise  of  mental  force,  and  that  one  may  re]ir()duce  an 
unclearly  apprehended  idea  a  thousand  times  without  making  it 
any  clearer;  but  it  is  also  true  that,  by  repetition,  the  many 
weaker  accompaninKnits  of  the  few  central  features  of  the  idea 

'  Benekc  :  Pragiuatische  Psychologic,  p.  00  f. 


FORMATION   OF   ABSTRACT  IDEAS  283 

may  be  wholly  lost,  and  that  the  idea  is  by  frequent  repetition 
rendered  more  abstract,  meagre,  and  schematic.  This  is,  how- 
ever, the  very  process  which  is  necessary  to  set  it  "free"  from 
its  tixed  association  with  only  one  original,  and  thus  render  it 
"  at  liberty  "  to  represent  equally  well  any  one  of  a  number  of 
orig-iuals.  Tlic  less  llfe-Ul'e  any  idea  is,  as  compared  with  any  one 
oi'iylnal  presentatice  object,  the  more  service  it  can  do  in  represent- 
Iny  an  entire  class  of  ohjects. 

The  recurrence  of  the  more  highly  schematized  representa- 
tive images  in  a  variety  of  different  series  operates  still  further 
to  set  them  free  from  fixed  and  definite  limitations.  That 
which,  by  its  concrete  and  rich  life-likeness  is  capable  of  repre- 
senting only  one  object,  is  comparatively  infrequently  sug- 
gested to  my  mind;  conversely,  when  it  occurs  in  conscious- 
ness, it  suggests  comparatively  few  associated  ideas.  But 
experience,  to  begin  with,  is  not  fixed.  Series  of  sensations  and 
feelings  and  presentations  of  sense  do  not  perpetually  recur  in 
the  same  order.  However  hard  we  labor  to  master  any  particu- 
lar series,  it  rarely  fails  to  get  broken  up  again  by  repeated 
blows  from  changing  experiences.  Similar  perceptions  succeed 
each  other,  now  in  one  order  and  now  in  another ;  disposition, 
bodily  condition,  transient  mood,  as  well  as  environment,  are 
constantly  changing.  To  use  Mr.  Bagehot's  expression — the 
"  cake  of  custom  "  is  perpetually  being  made  and  broken,  only 
to  be  made  over  in  a  different  way  and  then  broken  again. 
Series  of  presentations  and  series  of  ideas  representative  of 
presentations  cross  and  recross  each  other  in  bewildering  com- 
plexity. Thus  an  increasing  variety  of  more  or  less  flexible  as- 
sociations, among  more  and  more  highly  schematic  ideas,  is 
made  possible.  This  entire  complex  process,  which  we  have 
figuratively  described  as  that  of  "  freeing  the  ideas,"  may,  there- 
fore, be  said  to  have  two  connected  phases:  (1)  The  individual 
complex  ideas  (or  ideating-processes)  by  losing  more  and  more 
of  those  factors  which  were  fixed  by  particular  previous  experi- 
ences become  capable  of  representing  (are  "  set  free  "  to  repre- 
sent) a  larger  number  of  presentations  that  are  similar  only  in 
a  few  characteristics  ;  and  (2)  these  same  ideas,  by  losing  the 
fixity  of  position  which  they  had  in  only  a  small  number  of  defi- 
nite series,  become  capable  of  association  (are  "  set  free  "  to 
associate)  with  a  large  number  of  ideas  to  form  new  combina- 
tions and  series.  Thus  a  comparatively  strict  mechanical  asso- 
ciation and  a  relatively  free  and  artistic  combination  of  ideas 
are  both  made  possible.  And  both  are  necessary  for  the  devel- 
opment of  mental  life. 


234  THE   PKOCESSES   OF   IDEATION 

§  19.  No  necessity '  is  move  imperative  for  the  first  steps  in  the  develop- 
ment of  mental  faculty  than  this  progressive  schematizing  of  the  representa- 
tive image.  In  general  it  may  be  said  that  "getting  ahead  "  with  our  ideas 
at  all  requires  that  we  should  not  stop  long  over  each  one.  Most  of  them 
must  be  touched  lightly  and  let  go  ;  they  must  not  be  dwelt  upon ;  for  the 
life  of  conduct  and  thought,  with  its  end  to  be  reached,  requires  us  to  move 
on.  Few,  then,  of  the  factors  which  have  fused  into  the  most  life-like  form 
of  the  rej^resentative  image  can  ordinarily  be  made  the  subject  of  detailed 
reproduction.  Thus  is  made  possible  all  that  use  of  external  symbolism,  of 
whatever  sort,  which  suggests  and  suj^ports  the  rapidly  moving  but  thin  and 
meagre  members  of  the  train  of  associated  ideas.  The  rude  drawings  of 
primitive  peoples,  the  origins  of  the  difierent  alphabets,  the  accompani- 
ments of  grunting  and  gesturing  with  which  speech  is  often  helped  out,  the 
use  of  signs  in  mathematics,  illustrate  this  same  psychological  princii)le. 
Indeed  the  origin  and  use  of  language  cannot  be  understood  at  all  without 
bearing  this  principle  constantly  in  mind.  On  the  one  hand,  a  single  word 
dwelt  upon  may  suggest  a  group  or  series  of  connected  ideas — all,  i)erhaps, 
of  a  concrete,  intense,  and  life-like  character.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  whole 
sentences  or  paragraphs,  in  rapid  speaking  or  reading,  may  have  for  their 
mental  correlates,  as  suggested  by  the  words,  only  a  small  number  of  highly 
abstract  ideas.  Indeed,  if  we  consider,  what  that  is  truly  psychical  gener- 
ally answers  to  long  series  of  symbols — verbal  or  otherwise — we  shall  be  con- 
vinced that  in  rehearsing  many  such  long  series  only  faint  traces  of  idea- 
tion stand  here  and  there  for  a  word,  or  for  an  entire  phrase.  If  one  arrives 
ab  the  other  side  of  the  stream  in  safety,  one  does  not  notice  or  remember 
how  each  floating  block  of  ice  felt,  as  it  was  touched  lightly  with  the  toes- 
one's  eyes  and  interests  being  set  on  that  other  side. 

The  changes  from  presentations  to  ideas,  and  so  on  to  so-called  concep- 
tions, may  be  said  largely  to  consist  in  the  more  and  more  complete  "  free- 
ing" of  the  mental  states  ("presentations,"  "ideas"  or  "representative 
images,"  and  "conceptions";  from  the  limitations  of  fixed  concrete  accom- 
paniments. In  the  case  of  some  of  the  senses,  however,  this  jn-ocess  of  free- 
ing never  takes  place  to  any  considerable  extent.  One  can  easily  rejn-esent 
to  one's  self,  in  terms  of  si[/ht,  what  corresponds  to  the  idea  or  the  concept 
of  a  heliotroi^e  or  a  Japanese  lily,  but  what  real  psychical  j^rocess  can  be 
meant  by  speaking  of  the  "  concept  "  of  the  smell  of  either  of  these  flowers  ? 
What,  again,  can  be  meant  by  a  concept  corresponding  to  the  ijeculiar  timbre 
of  a  single  note  {e.g.,  a')  on  a  cornet,  or  a  flute,  etc.  ?  Some  persons  can  un- 
doubtedly ideate  somewhat  vividly  in  resjjonse  to  the  demand  made  upon 
them  to  reproduce  the  smell  of  the  heliotrope,  etc.,  or  the  timbre  of  the  note 
a'.  But  the  timbre  of  any  note — to  select  this  as  an  example  of  many  similar 
experiences — is  different  according  as  it  is  sounded  by  cornet,  flute,  violin, 
etc.  The  most  life-like  idea  of  any  note  is  then  probably  more  abstract  than 
the  most  life-like  representation  of  the  smell  of  the  heliotrope.  In  both  these 
cases,  however,  the  state  of  consciousness  actually  arising  in  answer  to  a  call 
for  some  "  idea  "  of  the  smell  of  a  ])articular  flower,  or  some  "  idea  "  of  the 
timbre  of  a  note,  etc.,  would  probably  bear  scarcely  any  traces  of  revived 
images  of  the  particular  sensations  required.  It  is  really  in  terms  of  sight 
■  On  thie  necessity  sec  George,  Psychologie,  p.  222  f. 


SERIES   OF    "FKEED"   IDEAS  285 

and  motor  experience,  faintly  and  "  abstractly  "  reproduced,  that  most  jier- 
sons  construct  their  so-called  "concept"  of  smells,  sounds,  and  tastes.  In 
general,  then,  the  more  "  abstract "  and  "  conceptual"  the  ideas  become,  the 
moi-e  do  thei/  consist  of  highly  schematized  reproductions  of  presentations  in  terms 
nf  the  more  intellectual  a)id  objective  of  the  senses — that  is,  of  sight  and  touch,  in 
the  most  comprehensive  meaning  of  the  latter  word. 

The  dilference  between  the  definite  and  life-like  but  fixed  ideas,  and  the 
l>aler,  more  abstract,  and  free  ideas,  may  be  illustrated  by  the  well-knowii 
case  of  the  somnambulistic  abbe."  We  are  told  that  this  man  composed 
sermons  during  his  long-continued  states  of  natural  hypnosis,  or  somnambu- 
lism. But  one  day,  when  a  sheet  of  white  jmiier  was  i)laced  over  the  sheet 
of  writing  he  had  just  finished,  he  obviously  reproduced  upon  the  blank 
page  all  the  mental  images  belonging  to  the  sheet  below  ;  for  he  read  the 
latter  correctly  and  made  erasures  and  corrections  (on  the  blank  page)  which 
coincided  exactly  with  the  text.  Compare  this  life-like  rejiroduction  of 
associated  ideas  with  the  few  and  meagre  abstract  ideas  which  would  be 
awakened  in  his  hearers  when  the  abbe  came  to  read  his  sermon  before 
them !  Again,  a  correspondent  of  Galton,*  the  Eev.  George  Henslow,  on 
shutting  his  eyes  could  see  a  series  of  visual  images,  vivid  and  concrete, 
unfolding  themselves  before  him,  as  a  passive  spectator,  so  to  speak  :  for 
example,  a  bow — an  arrow — hands  drawing  the  bow — a  cloud  of  arrows — fall- 
ing stars — flakes  of  snow — ground  covered  with  snow,  etc.  Comjiare  this 
form  of  ideation  with  that  which  the  reproductive  energy  of  our  minds  pro- 
duces as  we  rapidly  read  the  account  of  this  man's  exi^evience.  How  life- 
like, biit  limited,  the  one  associated  series  ;  how  abstract,  but  free  in  a.ssoci- 
ation,  the  other ! 

^  20.  The  process  of  fixing  and  then  freeing  the  ideas,  in  associated 
groups  or  longer  series,  is  well  illustrated  by  the  experience  of  the  average 
learner  of  the  art  of  playing  the  piano.  It  is  usually  very  difficult  at  first  to 
establish  a  firm  association  between  the  two  complex  series  of  jisychical  pro- 
cesses required  for  "putting  together  "  the  two  hands.  The  iJractice  of 
the  jiarticular  exercise  with  which  this  is  in  the  first  instance  accomjilished 
has  for  its  result  a  firm  welding  of  the  particular  score  in  the  treble  c/e/"  with 
the  particular  score  iu  the  accompanying  base  clef.  This  firmly  welded  com- 
plex of  two  associated  series,  once  made  with  no  little  pains,  becomes  in  turn 
difficult  to  break.  Indeed,  ia  the  case  of  those  who  learn  only  a  little  of  the 
art,  it  is  apt  to  remain  throughout  with  an  astonishing  amount  of  tenacious 
adherence  between  its  fixed  ideas.  But  the  practice  of  different  exercises — 
the  second,  after  the  first  has  been  mastered,  etc. — results  in  repeating  the 
same  notes  in  slightly  changed  combinations ;  the  series  of  the  treble  clef  is 
in  each  case  somewhat  different,  as  is  also  that  of  the  base  clef.  The  com- 
plex of  the  two  associated  series  now  accomplished  is  a  step  in  freeing  the 
ideas  (auditory,  visual,  tactual,  muscular)  concerned  in  the  entire  process  of 
learning  to  play.  And  finally,  iu  the  trained  pianist,  so  "  free  "  have  all  these 
ideas  become  that  any  possible  combination  is  instantly  brought  about  by  a 
bai'e  suggestion  ;  so  "  condensed"  is  the  series  of  psychical  acts  now  answer- 
ing to  the  musical  symbols  that  a  mere  glance  at  the  notes  carries  with  it  the 

>  See  Binet :  La  Pgycholosrie  dn  Raisonnement.  p.  150. 
"  Comp.  Paulhan  :  I'Activite  mentale,  etc.,  p.  430  f. 


^^ 


X!>" 


286  THE  PROCESSES   OF   IDEATION 

rush  of  motor  and  aflfective  accompaniments,  with  the  palest  and  most  ab- 
stract of  ideation-processes.  And  in  musical  improvisation  or  composition, 
the  free-mounting  ideas,  in  response  to  a  chosen  end  or  to  a  flood  of  not 
easily  expressible  feeling,  show  how  the  mechanism  of  association  has  been 
made  the  servant,  and  not  the  master,  of  the  feeling  and  willing  soul.  In 
all  such  experiences  we  have  the  principle  illustrated  that  tlie  power  of  any 
fixed  association  seems,  by  frequent  repetition,  to  rise  to  a  certain  degree  of  in- 
tensity ;  but  from  this  point  on,  by  repetition,  the  opposite  result  may  be  made 
the  more  possible  ;  for  the  many  concrete  points  of  association  become  weaker  and 
ireaker  and  at  last  disappear. '  In  connection  with  this  principle,  the  repe- 
tition of  similar  presentations  of  sense  or  self-consciousness,  in  a  great 
variety  of  different  connections — pairs,  gi'oups,  and  longer  series — favors  and 
accomplishes  the  progressive  freeing  of  the  ideas. 

Mecliauical  as  the  elementary  process  of  ideation  uncloubtedlj' 
seems  to  be,  clear  traces  appear  in  it  of  that  which  promises  to 
overstep  the  bounds  of  mere  mechanism.  The  whole  histor\'  of 
mental  evolution  depends  upon  the  progressive  organization  of 
the  elements  of  mental  life  under  laws  or  orderly  forms  of  be- 
havior, in  accordance  with  the  ends  of  mental  life.  Even  in  the 
earlier  processes  of  ideation  the  beginnings  of  organization  are 
laid.  But  the  very  word  "  organization  "  (as  well  as  the  word 
"  development ")  is  meaningless  without  the  idea  of  a  plan.  The 
association  of  ideas,  as  one  of  the  most  fundamental  conditions 
of  all  mental  organization,  shows  tokens  of  being  "  planful,"  even 
from  the  dawn  of  mental  life.  In  this  regard  mental  phenomena 
resemble  all  classes  of  biological  phenomena.  All  living  beings, 
from  the  very  beginning  of  their  observable  existence,  organize 
themselves  according  to  a  plan.  This  fact  cannot  be  denied,  no 
matter  how  much  our  obvious  ignorance  as  to  the  explanations 
of  the  fact  may  be  increased  or  diminished  by  the  progress  of 
biological  science.  A  study  of  the  life  of  the  human  embr\'o 
shoAvs  a  most  marvellous  series  of  changes,  the  more  immediate 
conditions  of  which  we  can  only  very  imperfectly  set  forth,  pro- 
ceeding, however,  according  to  a  recognizal)le  plan.  The  phoiful 
nature  of  this  self-organization  is  the  one  obvious,  the  indisput- 
able thing  ;  the  exact  character  and  amount  of  the  influence  from 
onvironiiiont  is  much  the  more  doubtful  and  disputable.  Thus, 
also,  the  mental  life,  from  its  very  beginnings  makes  evident  that 
its  development  is  fjomrf  to  he  according  to  a  plan.  Tracing  each 
stage  and  step  of  that  development,  and  reviewing  its  whole 
course  from  a  point  of  view  selected  where  the  entire  course  may 
be  regarded  as  complete,  we  see  that  it  has  heen  according  to  a 
plan. 

'  Conip.  Mohr :  Griiiicllage  d.  Empirischcn  Psychologic,  p.  8C  f. 


PLAN   IN   IDEATION  287 

111  attempting  a  scientific  account  of  the  mental  life  psycliol- 
og-y  is  justitied  in  laying*  emphasis,  at  first,  uijon  the  iiassive, 
and,  as  it  were,  exteruallj'  determined  side  of  the  total  develop- 
ment. This  side  is  proi)erly  emphasized  in  any  theory  of  the 
so-called  association  of  ideas.  Tims  we  may  speak  as  though 
ideas  were  somehow  forced  into  association  by  the  play  of  the 
environment  upon  consciousness,  through  the  sensations  ;  and  as 
though,  a  mechanism  of  associated  ideas  being  thus  externally 
fixed,  this  mechanism  remained  the  controlling,  or  even  the  only, 
thing  to  be  considered  in  all  subsequent  development.  But  it 
must  also  not  be  forgotten  that  from  the  beginning,  and  even  in 
the  formation  of  associations,  the  other  sides  of  the  complex  of 
consciousness  must  be  taken  into  the  account.  It  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  feeling  and  conation — the  interest  that  goes  with 
pleasure-pains,  the  varied  aftective  impulses,  the  influence  of 
selective  attention,  and  the  adaptation  of  motor  consciousness 
to  i^ractical  ends — are  taking  their  share  in  the  organization  of 
mental  life.  Nor  do  these  activities  stand  apart  from  the  form- 
ing and  develoi3ment  of  the  mechanism  of  association.  This 
mechanism,  then,  is  itself  made  planfnl,  so  as  to  exjiress  the 
entire  nature  of  the  developing  mind.  Such  a  fundamental  tele- 
ology of  mental  activity  as  a  principle  controlling  the  ver3^  ele- 
ments of  mental  life,  has  been  elaborately  discussed  by  a  recent 
writer  on  the  psychology  of  association  (M.  Paulhan,  in  L Act'i- 
viU  mentale  et  les  Eliments  de  I'Ji'sprit).  We  agree  with  this  au- 
thor in  recognizing  the  increasingly  planful  and  "  systematic "" 
character  of  the  processes  of  associated  ideation.  AVe  shall  as- 
sume and  explain  this  character  in  all  our  subsequent  discussion 
of  the  development  of  mental  life.  To  us,  as  to  him,  the  sentence 
stands  approved  :  "  The  mind  in  itself  appears  as  being  essen- 
tially a  synthetic  activity  ;"..."  the  principal  law  is  a  law 
of  finality."  But  none  the  less  shall  Ave  constantly  keep  before 
us  the  mechanism  of  association  as  explicable  by  the  principles 
discussed  in  this  and  the  jireceding  chapters. 

[The  literature  bearing;  on  the  nature  and  association  of  representative  images,  or 
"ideas."  is  well-nigh  limitless.  In  modern  psychology,  tlie  Herbartians  in  Germany  and 
the  members  of  the  Associational  School  in  Great  IJritain,  as  well  as  the  critics  of  both, 
have  been  especially  productive  of  treatises  upon  this  subject.  Indeed,  l)y  both  classes  of 
writers  this  subject  has  largely  absorbed  their  entire  interest  in  mental  phenomena. 
Referring  tlie  reader,  in  a  general  way,  to  these  treatises,  we  mention,  following,  a  few  of 
the  more  suggestive  recent  monographs  :  Hering  :  Ueber  das  Gedaelitniss,  etc.  J.  Huber  : 
Ueber  das  Gedachtniss.  Faulk:  Das  Gediichtniss.  Forcl  :  Das  Gediichtniss  u.  seine  Abnor- 
mitiiten.  Uphues  :  Ueber  die  Errinnerung.  Ebbinghaus  :  Ueber  das  Gedachtniss.  Nichols: 
Memory.  Strieker  :  Studien  iiber  d.  Association  d.  Vorstellungen.  Gratacap  :  Theorie  de 
la  Memoire.  Ribot :  Diseases  of  Memory.  Ferri :  La  Psychologic  de  TAssociation.  Script- 
ure :  Ueber  d.  associativen  Verlauf  d.  Vorstellungen  :  and  Vorstellnng  u.  Gefiihl.  Oclzelt- 
Newin :  Ueber  Phantasie-Vorstellungen.  Blawsky  :  Die  Vorstellungen,  etc.  Bastian  : 
Die  Vorstellungen  von  d.  Seele.  Binet :  La  Psychologic  du  Raisonnement.  Also  an  ar- 
ticle of  Bain,  Mind,  xii.,  p.  354  f  ] 


CHAPTEE   XIV. 
PEIMARY  INTELLECTION 

Frequent  use  lias  already  been  made,  in  a  great  variety  of 
connections,  of  the  term  "  discriminating-  consciousness."  In- 
deed, it  has  seemed  necessary  to  assume  the  presence  and  in- 
fluence of  such  mental  activity  in  treating-  of  all  the  different 
elements  of  mental  life  ;  so  far  as  both  these  elements  and  the 
laws  of  their  combination  can  become  data  for  psychological 
science  at  all.  For  no  science  can,  of  course,  be  acquired  without 
conscious  discrimination  ;  and,  in  the  confessedly  loose  way  in 
which  we  have  been  using-  the  word,  discrimination  is  the  es- 
sential thing  in  all  those  processes  of  observation,  inference,  and 
experimental  proof,  upon  which  science  reposes.  But  it  is  the 
science  of  this  very  psychical  activity,  as  such  activity  underlies 
all  science,  which  psycholog-y  aims  to  investigate.  Indeed,  from 
one  point  of  view,  the  subject  of  this  chapter  would  more  prop- 
erly be  classed  under  the  most  general  forms  of  mental  life  rather 
than  among"  the  elements  of  mental  life. 

Two  important  considerations  follow  from  this  view  of  the 
mental  activity  to  which  the  title  of  the  chapter  is  appropriate. 
First :  Primary  Intellection  is  not  so  much  a  faculty— in  the 
sense  of  being  a  form  of  mental  life  separable,  at  least  by  a  pro- 
cess of  abstraction,  from  other  most  closely  allied  forms ;  it  is 
rather  that  very  activity  which  furnishes  conditions  to  the  for- 
mation of  every  psychosis  as  related  to  others  in  the  stream  of 
consciousness  ;  it  is  the  process  of  elaboration  indisiDcnsable  for 
the  formation  of  all  faculty.  Perception,  memory,  imagination, 
and  all  the  complex  forms  of  feeling,  desire,  and  will,  as  truly 
as  Avhat  we  call  thought  (proper)  and  reasoning,  involve,  and  as 
faculties  are  developed  in  dependence  Tipon,  "intellection"  as  a 
primary  mental  activity.  For  discriminating  consciousness  is 
the  necessary  accompaniment  of  all  psychoses,  so  far  as  they 
can  become  objects  of  knowledge  ;  and  primary  intellection 
works  at  the  very  roots  of  psychical  life  and  i)sychical  devel- 
opment. Eegarded  as  activity  (and  so,  pre-eminently  it  must 
be  regarded),  it  is  that  form  of  psychic  energizing  which  ac- 


ACTIVITY    IX    ALL   CONSCIOUSNESS  289 

complislics  the  elaboration  of  all  materials,  the  organization  of 
all  processes  and  forces,  the  development  of  the  total  life  of 
mind.  Second :  From  this  same  point  of  view  no  state  of  con- 
sciousness, reg-arded  as  an  object  of  kuowleds"e  (or  datniii  for 
science),  can  be  completely  described  by  enumerating-  its  "  con- 
tents "  simply,  and  as  thoug-li  they  were  mere  forms  of  pas- 
sivity. For  every  psychosis,  however  elementary  and  simple 
such  psychosis  may  seem  to  be,  v'.y  something-  more  than  the 
sum  of  the  so-called  elements  comprising  it — for  example,  such 
a  complex  of  sensations,  such  feelings,  so  much  conation,  as 
content,  etc.  Every  s^tatc  of  consciousness  is  not  only  ccqmhle  of  he- 
ing  regarded  on  the  side  of  passive  content  of  consciousness  ;  it  must 
also  he  regarded  on  the  side  of  active  "  discrimijiatiyig  conscious- 
nessy 

^  1.  To  illustrate  the  relation  of  primary  intellectual  activity  to  the  en- 
tire development  of  mental  life,  it  is  in  point  briefly  to  review  what  has  al- 
ready been  seen  to  be  true  of  all  the  forms  and  elements  of  such  life.  In 
treating  of  consciousness  it  appeared  (p.  34)  that  what  we  mean  by  this 
term  can  serve  the  purposes  of  knowledge  only  so  far  as  every  state  of  con- 
sciousness is  regarded  as  capable  of  being  difia-iminaled  with  resj^ect  to 
content,  and  so  of  being  related  to  the  stream  of  mental  life.  To  speak  of 
"state  of  consciousness,"  "circuit  of  consciousness,"  etc.,  is  aljsnrd,  if 
this  discriminating  activity  be  excluded.  So,  too,  it  was  found  {y>.  51)  that 
the  very  term  "faculties  of  the  mind"  implies  different  forms  of  function- 
ing which  consciousness  discriminates  while  assigning  them  all  to  the  one 
subject  of  psychical  states.  In  treating  of  attention  and  discrimination  we 
often  seemed  to  be  regarding  one  and  the  same  psychical  process  from  dif- 
ferent points  of  view.  Although  this  conclusion  would  not  be  quite  waiTant- 
ed,  the  effect  of  attention  on  discrimination,  and  the  reverse  influence  of 
discrimination  in  directing  selective  attention,  were  made  obvious  enoiigh 
(see  p.  75  f).  So,  too,  did  all  the  treatment  of  the  quantity  and  quality  of  the 
sensations  of  the  different  senses  imply  the  activity  of  discriminating  con- 
sciousness. For  quantities  and  qualities  of  sensations  can  be  called  like  or 
unlike,  and  can  be  said  to  vary  in  accordance  with  Weber's,  or  some  other 
law,  only  as  they  are  made  objects  of  intellection  by  the  subject  of  the 
sensations.  Moreover,  it  w'as  shown  that  discernible  difierences  for  each 
person,  whether  as  respects  quantity  or  quality,  are  determined  not  so  mark-- 
ediy  by  variations  in  the  external  stimulus,  as  by  the  attitude  of  the  dis- 
criminating subject  toward  the  induced  tendency  to  changes  in  the  resulting 
states  of  consciousness.  In  treating  of  the  phenomena  of  feeling,  also,, 
some  authors  were  found  who  hold  that  all  qualitative  difforencos  are  only 
differences  in  the  discriminati^d  content  of  the  sensations  or  ideas  which  the 
feelings  accompany.  In  maintaining  the  reality  of  affective  qualitative  dif- 
ferences we  did  not  for  a  moment  deny  that  discernment  of  these  differences, 
as  an  act  of  primary  intellection,  is  implied  in  all  consciousness  of  such 
differences.  And,  finally,  it  would  plainly  bo  quite  imjiossible,  and  even 
absurd,  to  speak  of  known  relations  of  resemblance  and  difference  between 
19 


290  PRIMARY   INTELLECTION 

representative  images  and  their  originals  (i.e.,  more  or  less  of  intensity,  life- 
likeness,  objective  reference,  etc.)  without  implying  primary  intellection  as 
the  necessary  accompaniment  of  all  the  reprodnctive  pi'ocesses. 

We  may  refer,  then,  to  discriminating  consciousness  as  pi'esent  in,  and 
necessary  to,  all  the  elementary  processes  of  mental  life.  It  is  most  closely 
related,  however,  to  the  concentration  and  distribution  of  attention — in  the 
manner  already  partially  explained.  In  gathering  together,  and  more  clear- 
ly stating  and  expanding,  what  has  already  been  implied  concerning  the 
function  of  primary  intellection  in  the  most  elementary  mental  processes, 
we  are  also  preparing  the  way  for  a  descrii^tive  science  of  the  development 
of  mind. 

§  2.  The  attempt  is  again  being  made  (as  it  was  formerly  made,  especially 
by  the  avowed  followers  of  Locke  in  France),  to  reduce  all  conscious  life  to 
varying  content  of  consciousness  ;  and  then  to  reduce  all  content  of  con- 
sciousness to  sensations  and  ideas  or  revived  images  of  sensations.  This 
modern  effort  at  a  j^sychology  which  shall  discharge  all  its  obligations  when 
it  has  investigated  the  "  what-sort "  and  the  "  how-much,"  of  present  sen- 
suous impressions  and  fainter  images  of  past  impressions,  claims  to  speak 
in  the  name  of  experiment  and  induction  from  facts.  But  in  its  more  mod- 
ern form  it  is  as  certainly  doomed  to  failure  as  was  the  earlier  effort ;  and 
this  rather  the  more,  because  the  modern  science  reveals  such  a  vast  wealth 
of  psychic  facts  on  which  valid  inductions  must  be  based.  For  neither  the 
single  state  of  consciousness,  so  far  as  we  can  catch  and  separate  it  from  the 
stream  of  conscious  life,  nor  the  stream  of  consciousness  in  which  every  such 
state  occurs,  can  be  fully  described  if  it  be  regarded  merely  as  respects  its 
"content"  in  the  narrow  meaning  of  this  word.  There  is  indeed  a  mean- 
ing of  the  words  in  which  it  may  be  said  that  all  which  is  knowable  of 
the  nature  and  development  of  mental  life  is  to  be  found  in  "  the  con- 
tent of  consciousness."  But  this  meaning  must  be  large  enough  to  admit 
the  undoubted  fact  that  self-activity  and  awareness  of  such  activity  are  of 
the  very  essence  of  every  content  of  consciousness.  For  the  whole  of  con- 
sciousness is  never  mere  passive  object ;  but  conscioiasuess  as  active  and  dis- 
criminating, consciousness  as  intellection  directed  in  connection  with  cona- 
tive  and  selective  attention,  is  just  as  truly  consciousness.  The  observing 
activity  itself  (with  all  that  is  implied  in  it)  is  just  as  necessary  to  the  sum 
total  of  all  that  the  conscious  mental  life  really  is,  as  is  the  object  observed 
and  then  regarded  as  content  of  any  jiarticular  determinable  part  of  that 
life. 

Doubtless  we  are  in  some  sort  using  terms  which  may  prove  misleading, 
when  we  speak  of  intellectual  activity  by  way  of  comparison,  analysis,  assim- 
ilation, and,  finally  judgment,  as  though  all  this  implied  a  power  separable 
from  the  definite  and  concrete  contents  of  consciousness  and  "  presiding 
over"  them.  But  the  most  ordinary  experience  fairly  compels  us  to  think 
of  ourselves  as  reacting  upon  the  mechanism  of  our  own  sensations,  feelings, 
and  ideas  in  the  form  of  a  relating  and  determining  activity.  In  tlie 
higher  stages  of  mental  development  all  language  is  constructed  and  all 
action  shaped  as  Uiomjli  this  were  so.  In  those  higher  stages,  so  far  as  the 
nafve  and  unprejudiced  deliverances  of  consciousness  itself  are  trusted, 
everybody  knows  that  this  is  so.     That  is  to   say,  every  developed  mind 


niYSIOLOGICAL   CONDITIONS   OF   INTELLECTION  291 

knows  that  the  whole  of  its  consciousness  is  not  faithfully  described  in  terms 
that  leave  out  the  reactive  and  relating  spontaneity  of  intellect,  which  is  of 
the  very  essence  of  mind  in  any  proper  meaning  of  the  word. 

In  criticism  of  the  i^oimlar  figures  of  speech  it  scarcely  need  be  said  that 
consciousness  regarded  <is  objectiveli/  discriminated  and  possessed  of  a  certain 
concrete  content,  and  consciousness  regarded  as  discriminating  activity,  are  only 
two  sides,  as  it  icere,  of  one  and  the  same  consciousness.  This  is  tme  of  every 
psychosis,  or  state  of  consciousness.  It  is  also  true  of  every  connected 
stream  of  consciousness ;  and  of  that  continuous  life-histoiy  which  we 
ascribe  to  each  individual  person  or  mind.  But  different  states  may  appear 
to  lay  emphasis  on  either  one  of  these  two  sides,  to  the  relative  and  tempo- 
rary exclusion  of  the  other.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  moods,  dispositions, 
temperaments,  persons.  All  these  may  be  spoken  of  as  more  or  less  "dis- 
criminating," and  also  more  or  less  "rich  in  content"  of  consciousness  re- 
garded as  ijassively  induced  state  of  imiiression.  So  do  the  different  devel- 
oped forms  of  higher  intellection  differ  among  themselves  with  respect  to 
the  relation  of  the  active  and  passive  sides.  This  is  peculiarly  apparent 
when  we  consider  the  difference  between  trains  of  imagination  and  trains  of 
thought— popularly  so  called.  In  the  former  we  often  seem  to  ourselves 
to  be  i^assive  and  almost  undiscriminating  spectators  of  the  shaj^es  that 
come  and  go  ;  in  the  latter,  we  more  frequently  appear  as  discerning  man- 
agers of  the  shifting  forms,  as  recognizing  the  ideas  clearly  and  setting  them 
into  relations  with  one  another  for  the  solution  of  some  problem  which  ice 
keep  held  before  the  mind. 

Kespectiug  the  special  Pliysiological  Conditions  of  the  activ- 
ity called  Primary  Intellection,  we  have  little  or  no  scientific  in- 
formation. That  its  completion  as  a  psychical  act  requires  a 
somewhat  relatively  jn'olouged  and  complex  excitement  of  asso- 
ciated cerebral  centers,  there  can  be  little  doubt.  As  a  psychi- 
cal act  it  implies  the  bringing  into  the  unity  of  consciousness  of 
two  or  more  sensations,  feelings,  or  ideas  ;  and  the  dealing  with 
Uhem  there,  as  it  were,  according  to  relations  of  similarity  or 
difference  consciously  discerned.  Such  a  complex  and  yet  unit- 
ing nature  for  this  activity  is  implied  when  Ave  speak  of  it  as  the 
work  of  the  "  elaborativo  faculty,"  as  "  organization  "  of  experi- 
ence, as  "  relating  activity,"  etc.  To  this  elaborateness  of  the 
process  on  the  psychical  side,  something  of  a  corresponding 
elaborateness  may  well  correspond  on  the  side  of  the  physio- 
logical conditions.  That  is  to  say,  the  physiological  conditions 
are  fulfilled  only  when  two  or  more  cerebral  processes,  belong- 
ing to  different  areas  of  the  brain,  are  united  by  spreading  over 
the  connecting  association-tracts,  and  so  forming  a  larger 
unity  (?)  of  combined  cerebral  excitements.  But  all  this,  besides 
being  confessedly  to  a  large  extent  conjectural,  throws  little  or 
no  light  upon  the  nature  of  the  distinctively  psychical  activity. 


292  PRIMARY   INTELLECTIOISr 

Indeed,  it  is  just  its  intellectual  character — its  real  beiug-,  as  an 
activity  of  discriminating*  and  relating  consciousness  —  wliicli 
does  not  g"et  taken  account  of  at  all  in  our  most  enlightened 
conjectures  as  to  the  underlying-  cerebral  processes. 

\  3.  The  proof  for  such  statements  as  the  foregoing  has  been,  in  part, 
adduced  in  other  connections.  It  is  one  of  the  most  important  conclusions 
from  the  study  of  the  effect  of  lesions  in  the  nervous  matter  of  the  cere- 
bral hemispheres  that  the  intellectual  quality  of  the  psychical  j^rocesses  may 
be  chiefly  affected  in  this  way.  Thus  the  animal,  whose  so-called  visual 
centers  and  association-tracts  are  largely  impaired,  may  still  be  capable  of 
having  all  the  visual  sensations  ;  but  their  intellectual  quality,  as  dejjendent 
upon  discernment  and  recognitive  memory,  is  relatively  lost.  Such  an 
animal  often  becomes,  at  least  temporarily,  "soul-blind,"  while  still  retain- 
ing the  power  to  "  see,"  in  a  lower  meaning  of  this  word.  In  certain  forms 
of  ajihasia  the  patient  may  be  able  to  hear  all  forms  of  language  as  mere 
sounds,  while  discernment  and  recognitive  memory  being  impaired,  the 
sounds  may  lack  sense  and  no  longer  be  heard  as  words,  in  the  fuller 
meaning  of  this  term.  We  have  already  seen  (p.  68  f.)  that  attention  with 
discernment  requires  prolonged  time  in  reaction  ;  and  this  imjjlies  increased 
expenditure  of  cerebral  energy ;  moreover  a  smaller  number  of  objects 
exhausts  the  grasp  of  consciousness,  if  the  amount  of  discriminating  con- 
sciousness allotted  to  each  be  increased.  Complex  associations  accompanied 
by  disceriament — as  in  translating  and  naming  words — requires  lengthening 
of  reaction -time.  (See  p.  267  f.)  The  same  truth  is  apparent,  if  the  following 
results  obtained  by  requiring  various  forms  of  increased  intellectual  activity 
be  compared  with  the  simpler  and  less  intellectual  reactions.  For  example, 
while  the  time  required  for  simple  reaction  varies  from  100  o-  to  200  o-, 
counting  single  letters  requires  317  (r-530  o- ;  counting  letters  by  threes,  209  a 
-440  o- ;  adding  pairs  of  numbers,  754  (7-1,533  o-,  etc'  As  we  should  sup- 
pose, also,  experiment  shows  that  the  time  increases  as  the  number  of  objects 
is  increased  among  which  discernment  is  required.  Certain  experiments 
showed  that  the  average  time  required  for  this  simple  act  of  intellection  rose 
from  290-344  o-  to  817-1,197  o-,  as  the  number  of  colors  or  letters,  one  c^ 
which  was  exposed  for  recognition,  increased  from  one  to  six.  [Experiment 
also  shows  that  practice  may  so  im]n-ove  the  speed  of  discernment  as  to 
reduce  the  time  required  for  it  almost  or  quite  to  zero.  In  such  cases,  per- 
cei^tion  and  apperception  may  be  said  to  fuse  into  one  process.  Or,  jiopu- 
larly  speaking,  we  know  the  thing  at  once,  and  do  not  have  to  tliiidc  or 
remember  m  order  to  know  what  it  is. J 

"Psychical  reflexes,"  or  "reflexes  with  cognition  of  the  excitant  "(so 
Richet),  in  general,  therefore,  require  increased  i)sycho-iihysical  time  ;  and 
this  is  indicative  of  the  requisite  elaboration  going  on  in  the  cerebral  centers. 
In  the  same  direction  points  the  fact  that  Ebbiiighaus  found  a  greatly  in- 
creased number  of  repetitions  necessary  in  learning  his  series  of  non-sense 
syllables,  if  recognition  of  the  series  was  to  be  secured  which  would  last  even 
to  the  following  day.     Even  8-16  repetitions  would  not  secure  this  ;  from  53 

>  See  Asel  Oehrn'B  Inaugural  Dissertation,  Experimentelle  Studien  zur  Indlvidualpeychologie. 
Dorpat,  1889. 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OF   RESEMBLANCE  293 

to  64  repetitions  were  sometimes  required.  Yet,  as  has  been  said  already, 
discrimination  or  i)rimary  intellection  itself  is  a  unique  form  of  psychical 
actifity ;  it  is  implied  in  the  develoiJment  of  all  the  faculties,  and,  as  such, 
is  something  over  and  above  the  varying  qualities  and  intensities  of  sensa- 
tions and  feeling,  with  their  kinds  and  amounts  of  correlated  physiologi- 
cal conditions  in  the  form  of  conjectural  brain-processes. 

On  attempting  further  Analysis  of  the  activity  called  dis- 
criminating- consciousness,  or  Primary  Intellection,  several  "  mo- 
ments," or  possible  aspects,  of  it  are  discovered  which  must  be 
taken  into  the  account.  In  its  rudimentary  and  primitive  form 
all  intellection  is,  indeed,  essentially  one  active  process ;  and 
this,  its  essential  nature,  we  have  attempted  somewhat  loosely  to 
indicate  by  the  word  "  discrimination."  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
several  processes  are  involved  in  the  simplest  act  of  discrimina- 
tion ;  or,  rather,  we  may  look  on  this  activity  as  comprising- 
within  itself  several  partial  processes.  Of  these  the  most  sig- 
nificant and  clearly  fundamental,  perhaps,  is  the  consciousness  of 
HesemUance.  By  these  words  ("  consciousness  of  resemblance," 
or  of  likeness)  a  transaction  in  the  mental  life  is  indicated  that 
is  itself  totally  incapable  of  further  analj'sis,  or  even  of  descrip- 
tion. It  is  itself,  indeed,  the  very  precondition  and  the  constant 
accompaniment  of  all  analysis  ;  and  the  term  description  has  no 
meaning  without  both  implying  and  appealing  to  this  conscious 
activity.  If,  however,  we  choose  to  change  our  terms,  we  may 
say — the  hnmediaie  aicareness  of  resernhlance  is  the  frst,  and  it  is 
the  constant,  form  of  intellection  necessary  for  all  elaboration  of 
experience,  for  the  most  inchoate  organization  of  mental  life.  Nor 
need  we  be  disturbed  because  we  have  reached  here  a  limit  to 
all  our  work  of  analysis. 

It  should  never  be  forgotten  that  the  "resemblance,"  or  "  like- 
ness," of  which  psychology  speaks,  is  to  be  considered  from  the 
psycho! ogical  point  of  view  ;  this  point  of  view  regards  only  the 
phenomena  of  consciousness,  as  such.  Besemblances  of  things, 
regarded  as  objectively  determined  by  processes  of  experiment 
and  inference,  are  all — psychologically  considered — reducible 
to  resembling  psychoses  or  states  of  consciousness.  Psycho- 
logicalh^  considered,  that  is  like  which  seems  to  be  like ;  in 
other  words,  it  is  the  immediate  awareness  of  resemblance  which 
constitutes  the  very  nature  of  this  unique  form  of  psychical 
activity.  Even  where  the  objects  which  appear  to  be  like  are 
exceedingly  complex,  and  therefore  have  many  more  or  less 
prominent  points  of  unlikeness,  and  where  the  awareness  of  their 
resemblance  is  reached  only  after  complicated  processes  of  com- 
parison and  reasoning,  the  essential  nature   of  this   psychical 


294  PRIMARY   INTELLECTION 

activity  is  unchanged.  It  follows  from  this  that  I  may  be  con- 
scious of  resemblance  where  another  is  conscious  of  difterence ; 
and  that  presentations,  which  at  one  time  awaken  in  me  the 
consciousness  of  resemblance,  may  at  another  time  awaken  in 
me  the  consciousness  of  difference.  So  far  as  the  psychological 
point  of  view  is  strictly  maintained,  things  are  xohat  they  seem — 
to  each  and  every  subject  of  conscious  states,  and  in  every  state 
of  consciousness  which  presents,  remembers,  imagines,  or  thinks 
them. 

In  this  same  connection  it  should  also  be  noted  that  the 
having  of  like  states,  or  factors  of  states,  whether  within  the 
circuit  of  one  consciousness,  or  in  close  succession,  does  not 
in  itself  at  all  explain  the  immediate  awareness  of  their  likeness. 
Consciousnesses  that  resemble  each  other  cannot — simply  hy  heing 
compounded  or  brought  into  juxtaposition,  as  it  were — account  for 
the  consciousness  of  resemblance.  On  the  contrary,  the  declaration 
that  the  consciousnesses  do  resemble  each  other  has  no  mean- 
ing or  validity,  unless  we  introduce  some  consciousness  of 
resemblance  belonging  to  some  subject  who  is  actually  active  in 
regarding  the  resembling  consciousnesses  in  an  objective  way. 
For  the  consciousness  of  resemblance  is  always  something  over 
and  above  the  resembling  factors  or  states  of  consciousness  : 
not  "  over  and  above,"  however,  as  separable  from  the  factors  or 
states ;  but  as  an  active  process  necessary  to  be  recognized  in 
order  that  we  may  understand  how  such  factors  or  states  come 
to  be  regarded  as  resembling,  by  the  very  consciousness  whose 
they  are.  It  is  the  more  necessary  to  insist  upon  this,  because 
not  a  little  psychological  theory  has  gone  upon  the  absurd 
assumption  that  the  consciousness  of  resemblance  has  been 
accounted  for,  whenever  an  account  has  been  taken  of  the  pres- 
ence of  resembling  factors  or  states  of  consciousness. 

To  adult  consciousness  resemblance  seems  to  imply  Differ- 
ence as  equally  primary  ;  and  the  discernment  of  unlikeness 
would  therefore  seem  to  be  implicated  in  the  discernment  of  like- 
ness. The  very  words  "  likeness  "  and  "  ?^?dikeness  "  appear  as 
correlative  terms.  And  if  he  could  have  no  discernment  to 
whom  nothing  were  like  anything  else  ;  he  would  be  equally 
hicking  in  the  fundamental  requisites  of  discernment,  to  whom 
nothing  were  unlike  something  else.  Do  not  the  physical  sci- 
ences continually  point  out  that  every  object  is,  in  some  res])ects, 
like  every  other,  while  no  two  objects  are  precisely  alike  ?  There 
is  important  truth  for  psychology  in  this  somewhat  finical  way 
of  stating  the  conclusions  of  the  physical  sciences.  The  con- 
scionsness  0/  difference  is  indeed  i7idispensable  to  the  development  of 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OF  DIFFERENCE  296 

intellectual  facility,  io  the  organization  oftnental  life.  And  in  fact, 
consciousuess  of  resemblance  and  consciousness  of  difference 
go  band  in  band,  and  usually  pari  passu.  Tlie  latter,  too,  is  a 
necessary  process  at  tlie  very  beginning's  of  intellection,  an  im- 
portant "moment"  in  all,  even  tlie  simplest,  completed  discrim- 
ination. Nor  can  anj-  possible  manipulation  of  unlike  psycboses, 
or  factors  of  psycboses,  by  placing-  tbem  side  by  side  or  causing 
tliem  rapidly  to  follow  eacli  otber,  account  for  tbe  consciousness 
of  ditference,^tbe  immediate  awareness  tliat  tbe  factors,  or  states, 
are  unlike. 

At  tbe  same  time,  tbe  consciousness  of  resemblance  and  tbe 
consciousness  of  difference  do  not  stand  in  precisely  tbe  same 
relati<m  to  tbe  total  ^jrocess  of  primary  intellection.  Of  tbese 
two,  tbe  most  vague  and  incboate  consciousness  of  resemblance 
maj^  be  said  to  be  tbe  more  fundamental,  all  joervasive,  and  es- 
sential for  even  tbe  beginnings  of  intellectual  life.  Neitber 
experiment,  nor  sucb  anal3'sis  of  our  intellectual  activities  as 
introspection  can  make,  warrants  tbe  conclusion  tbat  in  order 
to  recognize  likeness  we  must  always  also  concomitantly  recog- 
nize unlikeuess.  Tbe  grasp  wliicb  tbe  mind  lays  upon  tbe  sim- 
ilar, and  tbe  accompanying  feeling  of  pleasurable,  recognitive 
interest,  togetber  witb  tbe  instinctive  and  rapid  assimilation  of 
wbat  is  tbus  recognized  into  tbe  life-blood  of  tbe  system  of  ex- 
perience, seems  to  be  tbe  logically,  if  not  also  cbronologically, 
prior — as  it  certainly  is  usually  tbe  most  distinctive — form  of 
intellectual  activity.  Speaking  somewbat  loo.sely,  tlieu,  we  may 
say  tbat  tbe  most  j^rimitive  consciousness  of  resemblance  does 
not  necessarily  take  account  of  difference  ;  tbe  awareness  of  like- 
ness is  tbe  most  fundamental  tbing,  and  tbe  awareness  of  un- 
likeuess ratber  follows  as  tbe  result  of  a  sbock,  or  cbeck,  to 
tbe  process  of  assimilation  by  consciousness  of  resemblance. 
Tliis  "  sbock,"  or  "  cbeck,"  usually,  if  not  uniformly,  comes  as 
tbe  result  of  some  form  of  inbibitory  feeling.  It  is  regularly  of 
a  more  or  less  painful  cbaracter  ;  it  sounds  a  call  of  warning,  or 
a  summons  to  "  look  again  ; "  it  involves  tbus  an  arousement 
of  attention,  and  tbe  direction  of  attention  differently,  on  account 
of  a  different  kind  of  interest.  In  developed  consciousness  tbe 
fact  is  perfectly  familiar  tbat  noticing  differences  is  largely  tbe 
result  of  our  being  somebow  made  aware  tbat  we  liave  been  mis- 
taken in  a  too  basty  assimilation  of  wbat  was  formerly  expe- 
rienced under  tbe  conscioiisness  of  resemblance.  In  primary 
intellection  tbere  is  evidence  tbat  tbe  case  is  somewbat  tbe 
same. 


296  PRIMARY    INTELLECTION 

^  4.  The  attempt  to  resolve  the  cousciousness  of  resembhmce  and  the 
resulting  idea  of  "the  similar,"  into  anything  more  simple  of  elementary, 
must,  of  necessity,  always  fail.  Our  notion  of  "the  same"  or  "  the  identi- 
cal "  (and,  indeed,  all  the  ideation  and  feeling  which  we  connect  with  what- 
ever affirmations  we  make  of  the  identity  of  things,  or  even  of  our  own  per- 
sonal identity)  is  of  course,  derivative  and  comjslex.  The  cognition  of  the 
similar  is  the  ground  of  the  cognition  of  the  same  ;  and  not  the  reverse.  Since 
those  external  objects,  or  states  of  our  own  self,  which  we  regard  as  similar 
in  our  developed  ex^^erience,  are  always  complex,  their  complexity  includes 
discernible  points  of  difference  as  well  as  of  resemblance.  To  speak  of 
them  as  similar,  then,  implies  a  limitation  of  the  activity  of  discriminating- 
consciousness  to  certain  elements  of  this  complex.  Thus,  if  we  are  consid- 
ering the  total  object,  or  state,  with  a  view  to  select  also  the  points  of  differ- 
ence, we  feel  obliged  to  sum  up  the  results  of  the  entire  jDrocess  of  compari- 
son in  the  conclusion — "  similar  only  in  some  respects."  But  if  the  inquiry 
be  pressed  to  its  furthest  possible  limits  and  the  question  raised,  "What  is  it 
that  is  meant  by  the  word  similar  as  applied  only  to  those  jDoints  which  ai-e 
similar?  no  reply  can  be  given,  except  to  describe  over  in  another  way  this 
fundamental,  unanalyzable  activity  of  intellect — the  consciousness  of  resem- 
blance, of  the  similar  as  such. 

In  all  the  more  elementary  forms  of  its  exercise,  this  primary  intellec- 
tion is  undoubtedly  very  vague,  uncertain,  and  fitful.  The  similarities 
noted  are  taken  "in  the  lump,"  and  more  than  half  blindly  as  it  were. 
They  resemble  that  likeness  of  the  color  which  all  "cats"  and  all  other 
objects  have  "  in  the  night."  Indeed,  in  its  most  primitive  form  such  intel- 
lection may  be  spoken  of  as  consciousness  of  similarity,  without  added  con- 
sciousness as  to  similar  in  what  respect.  Nor  is  this  half-blind  form  of  con- 
scious intellection  so  very  foreign  to  the  experience  of  waking  adult  life. 
Thus  there  are  many  acts  of  discrimination  which  all  perform  that  are 
almost  as  vague,  uncertain,  and  fitful  as  are  those  which  may  be  supposed  to 
occur  in  the  earliest  mental  life  of  the  infant.  A  faint  and  wavering  grasp 
of  conscious  mentality,  striving,  somewhat  doubtfully,  to  assimilate  a  certain 
sensation-complex  or  idea,  is  not  infrequently  all  that  marks  the  intellectual 
side  of  certain  of  our  psychoses.  Thus  w"e  sometimes  awake  from  a  half- 
dozing  contlition,  or  from  a  day-dream,  or  from  absorption  in  tliought  over 
some  problem,  and  say  :  "  Did  I  not  hear  something  like — a  sigh,  the 
rustle  of  a  dress,  the  dropping  of  the  eaves?"  or,  "  Did  I  not  see  something 
like — a  bird,  a  hand,  etc.,  pass  before  the  window  ?  "  It  is  not  without  sig- 
nificance that  men  are  inclined  to  use  terms  oi  feeling  rather  than  of  intellect 
to  describe  such  consciousnesses  of  the  similar.  Tliis  is  true  of  the  terms 
which  serve  us  for  the  various  degrees  of  conviction  attaching  itself  to  the 
discernment  of  likeness — all  the  way  from  "feeling  a  little  as  though" 
to  "feeling  sure."  On  the  other  hand,  where  discriminating  consciousness 
has  been  so  highly  trained  in  immediate  awareness  of  likenesses  and  ditfer- 
ences  as  to  amount  to  an  admirable  tact,  we  incline  again  to  resort  to  terms 
of  feeling  to  describe  what  is  really  of  the  very  essence  of  intellectual  life. 
Thus  the  locksmith  feels  his  way  to  the  picking  of  the  lock  ;  and  afterward 
experiences  an  insuperable  difficulty  in  ijutting  the  results  even  (not.  to  say 
the  grounds)  of  his  rapidly  forming  acts  of  discernment  into  terms  of  judg- 


fp:eling  and  discrimination  297 

ment.     Extremes  meet  hero  ;  aiul  the  artist  sometimes  finds  the  strictly  in- 
tellectual conteut  of  his  consciousness  almost  as  meagre  as  that  of  the  child. 

It  should  also  be  observed  at  this  point  that  all  consciousness  of  similar- 
ity implies  at  least  two  similar  factors,  or  states,  of  consciousness,  of  whose 
similarity  the  immediate  awareness  may  be.  Such  primary  intellection  does 
not,  of  course,  imply  the  act  of  counting,  or  the  ability  to  count — not  even 
up  to  the  low  limit  of  two.  On  the  contrary,  it  must  itself  exist  in  a  some- 
what developed  form,  as  the  necessary  prerequisite  of  all  counting.  Both 
the  consciousness  of  resemblance  and  tlie  consciousness  of  difference  may 
be  rather  highly  developed,  whether  in  animals  or  in  men,  with  little  or  no 
ability  to  count,  in  the  strict  meaning  of  this  word.  We  have  already  seen 
(p  147  f.),  that  the  most  primary  consciousness  of  motion  develops  in  connec- 
tion with  a  change  from  one  complex  of  sensations  to  another.  Thus,  also, 
it  is  only  on  condition  that  one  state  of  consciousness  is  actually  brought 
into  relation  with  another,  or  one  element  of  the  same  state  with  another 
element  by  a  change  in  the  focusing  of  attention,  that  the  activity  of  pri- 
mary intellection  can  take  place.  These  points  have  led  Mr.  Spencer  '  and 
others  to  speak  of  the  activity  which  we  have  called  primary  intellection  as 
though  it  were  a  "  feeling  "  interpolated  "  between  "  two  sensations — a  sort 
of  feeling-conscious  of  a  transition  from  one  (either  like  or  unlike)  ijsychosis 
to  another.  Now  that  certain  peculiar  feelings  do  accompany  all  kinds  of 
changes  in  the  stream  of  consciousness,  w'hether  its  content  be  mainly  one  of 
sensation  or  one  of  ideation,  is  undoubtedly  true.  But  instead  of  the  con- 
sciousness either  of  resemblance  or  of  difference  being  a  "feeling,"  in  any 
proper  sense  of  that  word,  no  particular  feeling  can  itself  exist  for  con- 
scioiasness  without  implying  at  least  a  trace  of  this  discriminating  activity. 
And,  moreover,  there  is  really  no  such  "between"  into  which  this  falsely 
so-called  "feeling"  may  be  interpolated.  The  stream  of  consciousness 
flows  on,  as  we  frequently  say ;  and  as  it  flows,  regarded  as  discriminating 
consciousness,  it  is  an  immediate  awareness  of  its  own  like  or  unlike  states. 

I  5.  The  activity  of  primary  intellection,  like  all  developed  intellectual 
activity,  is  obviously  dependent  upon  the  affective  side  of  consciousness. 
Discrimination,  even  in  its  most  primary  forms,  ?.•?  not  feeling ;  but  it  is 
roused,  guided,  and  accompanied  by  feeling.  The  discernment  of  resem- 
blances is  stimulated  by  the  pleasure-i)ains  connected  with  our  sensations 
and  presentations  of  sense,  our  mental  images  and  thoughts.  The  familiar 
tone  of  feeling  which  cleaves,  as  it  were,  to  the  content  of  consciousness, 
both  excites  and  guides  the  activity  of  consciousness  as  discriminating.  Wit- 
ness the  signs  of  pleased  recognition  with  which  the  infant  greets  the  sight 
of  its  nursing  mother  or  nursing-bottle,  or  its  "  self-same  "  familiar  toy  ;  or, 
again,  the  signs  of  fear  and  displeasure  produced  by  the  preparations  for  its 
bath  or  dose  of  medicine,  or  by  some  object  like  that  which  has  formerly 
given  it  discomfort.  Here  full  intelligent  recognition  by  no  means  precedes 
the  affective  development  of  consciousness ;  the  rather  does  feeling  begin 
by  co-operating  with,  and  urging  forward,  the  more  vague  and  uncertain  be- 
ginnings of  discriminating  consciousness.  TJie  unrecognized  similarit>/  of 
feeling  stimulates  the  intellectual  cotisciottsness  of  resemblance.  In  awakening 
the  beginnings  of  such  primary  intellection,  nothing  is  more  effective,  for 
'  Principles  of  Psychology,  I.,  Part  ii.,  chap.  2. 


298  PKIMAEY   INTELLECTION 

example,  than  to  direct  the  attention  upon  a  rhythmically  recurring  series 
of  pleasant  sensations.  The  croouings  of  the  nurse,  the  rocking  in  arms,  the 
repeated  strokings  of  the  skin,  the  movements  to  and  fro  of  any  bright 
object,  the  successive  efforts  at  swallowing  food  or  grasping  with  the  hand, 
etc.,  are  all  means  of  starting  and  developing  the  consciousness  of  resem- 
blance. These  operate,  of  course,  prior  to  any  consciousness  of  time,  or  of 
self  ;  and  prior  to  any  knowledge  of  things.  They  are  rather  the  rudimen- 
tary experiences,  out  of  which,  in  part,  all  such  higher  forms  of  conscious- 
ness must  develop.  Over  and  over  again  the  similar  recurs  in  conscious- 
ness, at  a  time  when  clear  cognition  of  complex  similars  is  impossible ;  and 
accompanying  jjleasure-pains  allure  or  compel  the  child  to  pay  attention 
and  to  learn  to  discriminate. 

On  the  other  hand,  any  considerable  abrupt  change  in  the  content  of  the 
stream  of  consciousness,  especially  when  accompanied  by  a  shock  of  surprised  or 
painful  feeling,  stimulates  and  directs  the  consciousness  of  difference.  Indeed, 
it  may  be  said  that  the  entire  environment  of  the  infant,  however  carefully 
guarded  he  may  be,  is  calculated  to  make  him  mind  the  differences  really 
belonging  to  what,  without  this  special  process  of  "minding,"  would  be 
considered  the  same.  His  mother's  breast,  or  his  cup  of  milk,  may  any  day 
excite,  only  afterward  to  disappoint,  his  pleased  recognition  of  the  familiar 
object.  The  bitter  taste  designed  to  wean  him  from  the  one,  or  the  lack  of 
the  customary  amount  of  sugar  in  the  other,  emphasizes  the  dawning  con- 
sciousness of  difference.  Herein  are  laid  the  very  foundations  of  many  of 
the  most  bitter  as  well  as  some  of  the  sweetest  of  life's  experiences — 
summed  up  in  the  pertinent  warning  that  "  things  are  not  what  they  seem." 
The  smoothly  running  current  of  consciousness,  which  keeps  repeating  a 
largely  similar  content,  is  not  adapted  to  train  man  in  the  discernment  of 
differences.  But  nature  and  our  fellows  provide  an  abundance  of  obstacles 
to  perturb  and  check  the  running  of  that  stream.  The  small  boy  who  is 
not  greeted  with  quite  the  familiar  complex  of  sensations,  when  he  reviews 
his  hoard  of  candy  or  of  coins,  is  at  once  strongly  inclined  to  regard  this 
present  content  of  consciousness  with  a  "critic's  eye."  It  is  his  interest  in 
the  size  of  the  hoard,  and  in  the  meaning  for  his  affective  consciousness 
which  its  size  has,  that  sets  discriminating  consciousness  more  thoroughly 
at  work  to  determine  a  problem  in  differences. 

That  complex  activity  which  we  call  "comparison,"  and  which  ends  in 
judgment,  is  frequently  introduced  with  the  i)eculiar  pause  in  the  flow  of 
discriminating  consciousness  with  its  accompanying  tone  of  feeling,  which 
we  characterize  as  doubt.  In  the  case  of  the  aforesaid  small  boy,  if  the  amount 
abstracted  from  his  hoard  were  too  small  for  immediate  and  confident 
awareness  of  difference,  such  a  feeling  of  doubt  would  be  certain  to  emerge. 
And  nothing  could  be  more  favorable  to  induce  an  unusual  activity  of  the 
relating  activity,  as  dependent  upon  both  consciousness  of  resemblance  and 
consciousness  of  difference. 

I  G.  Discriminating  consciousness  applies  itself  to  the  content  of  con- 
sciousness— to  sen.sation.s,  feelings,  and  ideas — as  respects  both  their  quan- 
tity and  tlieir  quality.  It  is  itself  a  consciousness  of  resemblances  and  of 
differences,  both  as  respects  the  kinds  and  the  intensities  of  the  states  of 
consciousness  or  of  the  factors  of  such  states.     This  is  true  both  of  sensa- 


NATURE   OF  TUE   PRIMUM   COGNITUM  299 

tions  and  of  those  diflFerent  ideation-processes  which  represent  their  so-called 
originals  with  various  degrees  of  intensity  and  life-likeness.  The  foundation 
for  our  perception  of  motion  was  seen  to  be  laid  in  the  changing,  as  respects 
intensity  and  local  coloring,  of  certain  sensation-complexes. 

In  considering  the  primary  intellectual  activities  we  are  in  danger  both  of 
over-estimating  and  of  under-estimating  the  amount  of  truly  intellectual  work 
involved.  Conscious  detailed  discrimination  of  various  possible  points  of  re- 
semblance and  difference  is  by  no  means  necessarily  implied  in  the  prom^jt 
recognition  of  even  minute  variations  of  quantity  and  quality.  Such  recog- 
nition often  proves  quite  unable  to  account  for  itself  when  asked  to  disclose 
the  data  on  which  it  has  taken  place.  Hence  the  tendency  (already  referred 
to)  to  speak  of  such  intellection  as  the  "  sensing  "  or  "  feeling  "  of  likeness- 
es or  unlikenesses.  The  astonishing  discrimination  of  children  and  of  the 
lower  animals  is  to  be  accounted  for  in  this  way.  Thus  the  crow,  of  which 
Romanes— borrowing  the  statement  of  Leroy — tells,  which  was  not  de- 
ceived into  being  shot  until  five  or  six  men  (of  whom  all  but  one  came  out) 
were  sent  into  the  watch-house,  neither  "counted"  as  the  latter  writer  sup- 
poses, nor  had"  ideas  of  »«7»6er,"  as  the  former  writer  affirms;  it  simiDly 
made,  under  influence  from  interest,  one  of  those  vague  quantitative  dis- 
criminations to  which  we  are  now  referring.  Binet's  experiments  j^rove  that 
a  child  of  from  four  to  six  years  old  will  discern  promptly  the  difference  be- 
tween a  group  of  14,  15,  or  16  and  one  of  18  objects,  of  the  same  size ;  and 
will  even  discriminate  between  17  and  18  objects  correctly,  eight  times  out 
of  nine  trials  ;  while  as  yet  it  cannot  count  beyond  three,  and  pronounces  10 
large  objects  "  more  "  than  18  small  ones.  And  Preyer  has  shown  that  one 
may  train  one's  self  to  discriminate  accurately  up  to  20,  or  even  30,  objects, 
when  exposed  to  view  far  too  briefly  to  count  them,  or  to  bring  them  under 
any  definite  idea  of  "  number."  '  In  the  promjjt  discernment  of  qualitative 
resemblances  and  differences,  also,  a  very  low  grade  of  intellect  will  often 
display  wonderful  results.  With  these  facts  (we  repeat  again)  the  mysteries 
of  instinct,  tact,  and  what  is  called  "  genius,"  are  connected.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  to  deny  totally  the  intellectual  character  of  these  activities,  and 
to  resolve  the  iDhenomena  into  "  feelings  "  interpolated  between  sensations, 
or  into  self-discriminating  sensations,  or  into  passive  association  of  ideas,  is 
equally  unwarrantable. 

The  attempt  to  describe  the  character  of  the  object  earliest 
known  {the  2)?'hnu?)i  cognitum),  and  of  the  i:»rocesses  of  knowledge 
which  result  in  this  object  as  their  product,  has  taxed  the  ingenu- 
ity of  psychologists  to  its  utmost  limits.  The  data  for  giving 
such  a  description  with  much  confidence  probably  do  not  exist ; 
and,  if  we  follow  the  exigencies  of  theory,  we  cannot  avoid  tak- 
ing the  standpoint  of  adult  developed  consciousness  from  which 
to  view  the  very  beginnings  of  all  conscious  knowledge.  Thus, 
with  respect  to  the  special  question  :  Which  precedes  in  the  cog- 
nition of  objects — the  consciousness  of  resemblance,  or  the  con- 

'  Sitzgabr.  d.  Gesells.  f.  Medicin  u.  NaturwisseiiBchaft,  29  Juli,  1881. 


300  PRIMARY   INTELLECTION 

sciousness  of  difference,  assimilation  or  differentiation,  synthesis 
or  analysis  ?  It  Avould  seem  tliat  objects  cannot  be  known  as  like, 
without  differencing-  them  from  each  other  as  different  "  like  " 
individuals,  and  from  other  objects,  in  some  respects,  at  least 
unlike  to  them.  But  then,  on  the  other  hand,  how  can  objects  be 
discerned  as  unlike,  unless  some  previous  experience,  in  the  form 
of  consciousness  of  resemblance  and  assimilative  activity,  has 
given  a  standard  from  Avhich  they  may  be  recognized  as  "  differ- 
ing," or  departing  ?  Plainly,  these  two  legs  on  which  the  early 
intellect  moves  cannot  get,  either  one,  far  in  advance  of  the 
other.  And  yet,  if  we  are  to  speak  of  the  logically,  and  possibly 
the  chronologically,  prior  form  of  discriminating  consciousness, 
we  must  assign  that  rank  to  the  vague  and  inchoate  conscious- 
ness of  resemblance.  At  any  rate,  it  would  seem  evident  that 
the  consciousness  of  difference,  and  the  resulting  act  of  difiereu- 
tiatioQ,  implies  the  higher  form  of  intellectual  activit3^ 

Several  important  considerations  are  involved  in  the  forego- 
ing view  of  primary  intellection.  And,  first,  those  psychical 
processes  which  were  described  as  primary  attention  and  as 
ideation,  are  necessary  to  all  developed  activity  of  discriminat- 
ing consciousness.  The  immediate  awareness  of  resemblances 
and  differences  accompanies  and  depends  upon  that  constant 
focusing  and  redistribution  of  i^sychic  energy  which  constitutes 
the  very  essence  of  primary  attention.  If  the  attention  is  of  the 
so-called  involuntary  or  forced  order,  then  we  may  say  that  the 
factors  of  the  state,  or  the  total  complex  states,  of  consciousness 
<jet  (passively)  discriminated.  Primary  intellection,  which  is  the 
active  discriminating  side  of  consciousness,  may  then  be  re- 
garded as  dependent  upon  the  intensity  of,  and  upon  the  in- 
terest attaching  itself  to,  the  content  of  consciousness.  Thus 
discrimination  itself  may  sometimes  be  involuntary  or  forced ; 
popularly  speaking,  we  cannot  help  noticing  the  likeness  or  un- 
likeness  of  the  object  to  which  attention  is  drawn.  But  when 
the  conative  aspect  of  consciousness  becomes  prominent,  and 
attention  is  voluntarily  rendered,  then  the  resulting  activity  of 
discrimination  may  also  be  said  to  be  voluntary.  Popularly 
speaking,  /  (liscriminafe — as  though  the  object  were  somewliat 
existing  apart  from  the  activity  of  discrimination  itself  (even 
when  my  own  feelings  and  thoughts  are  the  object);  and  as 
though  this  activity  were  dependent  upon  another  activity  called 
volition.  Of  course,  in  em[)l()yiiig  these  different  Avays  of  de- 
scribing our  exix^rience,  we  are  only  laying  enij)liasis  upon  one 
element,  or  phase,  or  aspect,  to  the  jKirtial  exclusion  of  others, 
in  the   living  and  manifold  movement  of  psychical  life.     jDis- 


IDEATION   NECESSARY   TO   INTELLECTION  3<)1 

crimination  is  always  moi'c  or  less  attentive  ;  and  icUhout  attention, 
and  dejyendence  upon  attention,  there  is  no  intellection  at  all. 

Nor  is  the  development  of  intellection  possible  without  idea- 
tion. The  relation  of  ideation  and  intellection  is  provided  for 
in  the  very  nature  of  the  stream  of  consciousness.  One  may,  in- 
deed, try  to  think  of  any  field  of  consciousness  as  a  stationary 
aft'air,  consisting-  of  so  many  ready-made  objects,  and  of  the  in- 
tellect as  Avandering-  over  the  field  and  selecting-  resemblances 
and  differences  in  its  objects,  under  the  guidance  of  interested 
attention.  But  this  is  to  employ,  in  a  figurative  "way,  one's 
highly  complex  and  elaborate  experience  (when,  for  example,  one 
goes  botanizing,  or  geologizing,  or  exploring  ruins)  to  account 
for  that  which  is  most  fundamental  and  simple,  in  the  very  con- 
stitution of  all  mental  faculty.  No  field  of  consciousness  is 
stationary ;  nor  are  its  objects  ready  made  ;  nor  is  the  intellect 
a  separable  entity  wandering  about  hand  in  hand  with  attention, 
like  two  boon  companions  bent  on  discovery.  But  in  the  one 
field — with  all  its  objects  growing  into  or  passing  out  of  their 
place  in  the  one  field — discrimination,  attention,  and  ideation 
are  simultaneous  and  mutually  conditioning  processes  of  the 
same  mental  life.  Yet  from  the  point  of  view  of  psychological 
science,  the  mental  images  are  secondary  conditions  of  the  devel- 
opment of  discrimination.  The  very  words  *'  representation," 
"  \\ie-lil'eness,"  and  "  association  by  similarity,'"  impl}'  this.  Dif- 
ferent individual  sensation-complexes,  or  feelings,  or  thoughts, 
as  well  as  complex  objects  of  sense  and  self-consciousness,  could 
not  be  comjiared,  and  so  be  known  as  like  or  unlike,  if  they  were 
not  capable  of  becoming  ideated.  Even  when  the  comparison 
pertains  to  the  different  factors  in  one  field  of  consciousness,  as 
discriminating  and  attentive  intellection  proceeds,  these  factors 
appear  successively  on  the  way,  as  it  were,  to  the  condition  of 
those  paler  and  less  life-like  psychoses  to  which  we  give  the 
name  of  ideas.  Oar  very  liower  to  constitute  the  different  raentcd 
factors  into  the  unity  of  one  state,  into  a  system  of  related  parts 
{similar  or  different  in  quantity,  quality,  and  local  coloring)  is 
dependent  upon  the  influence  of  ideas. 

§  7.  The  interclependence  of  volition,  attention,  and  the  discernment  of 
resemblances  and  differences,  scarcely  needs  at  present  additional  illustra- 
tion ;  and  all  our  subsequent  study  of  mental  develoi^ment  will  furnish 
abundant  illustration.  Indeed,  the  complex  process  which  is  popularly  de- 
scribed as  "  minding"  anything,  implies  and  affirms  this  interdependence. 
When  I  am  called  upon  to  mind  some  object  of  sense  or  self-consciousness, 
I  am  summoned  voluntarily  to  attend  and  attentively  to  compare  one  part  or 
trait  of  that  object  with  other  parts  and  traits  ;  or  the  whole  object  with  some 


302  PEIMAEY    INTELLECTION 

other  object  as  resiDects  those  qualities  in  which  the  two  resemble  or  differ 
from  each  other.  Moreover,  any  high  degree  of  voluntary  and  attentive  dis- 
crimination usually  imijlies  i^receding  acts  of  attention  of  a  more  i^assive  and 
less  discerning  kind. 

§8.  The  first  activities  of  discriminating  consciousness  are  undoubtedly 
exercised  upon  the  more  immediately  contiguous  contents  of  consciousness. 
It  is  in  connection  with  series  of  like  or  unlike  sensations  and  ideas  that 
primary  intellection  appears  ;  and  it  apjjears  as  an  activity  of  the  mind  re- 
acting upon  two  members  of  a  series,  so  as  to  bring  them  into  discerned  re- 
lation with  one  another.  Hence  the  gist  of  intellection  is  said  to  be  found 
in  this  "relating  activity."  Were  it  not  for  such  a  peculiar  form  of  my  con- 
scious reaction,  the  different  members  of  any  series  of  my  sensations  or  ideas 
would  have  to  be  regarded  simply  as  capable  of  being  related  by  some  other 
consciousness  ;  but  they  could  never  become  actually  related  as  content  of  mi/ 
consciousness.  Thus  we  may  say  :  No  external  activity  or  j^ower  can  com- 
pare or  relate  the  psychoses  of  another's  consciousness  ;  each  consciousness 
must,  as  a  relating  activity,  cognize  and  recognize  its  own  resemblances  and 
differences  of  content  for  its  own  self.  Now  the  onward  flow  of  the  stream 
of  consciousness  regarded  with  respect  to  its  content,  cannot  be  arrested 
in  such  a  way  that  what  has,  but  a  moment  since,  been  a  presentation  of  sense 
shall  not,  in  the  moment  to  come,  be  passing  into  the  stage  of  representa- 
tion and  idea.  In  other  words,  ideation  is  the  necessary  accompaniment  and 
precondition  of  all  discriminating  consciousness.  In  the  case  of  sight, 
Professor  James  has  correctly  said  :  "We  may  read  off  j^eculiarities  in  an 
after  image  left  by  an  object  on  the  eye  which  we  failed  to  note  in  the  orig- 
inal. We  may  '  hark  back '  and  take  in  the  meaning  of  a  sound  several 
seconds  after  it  has  ceased.  .  .  .  With  the  feeling  of  the  present  thing 
there  must  at  all  times  mingle  the  fading  also  of  all  those  other  things 
which  the  previous  few  seconds  have  supplied."  What  is  here  called  "  read- 
ing off"  and  "  harking  back"  implies  the  simultaneous  activity  of  ideation 
and  intellection.  In  all  complex  acts  of  comparison  the  dependence  of  the 
relating  activity  upon  representative  image-making  is  obvious.  For  ex- 
amples, we  have  only  to  analyze  our  mental  jirocedure  when  we  are  given  a 
picture  or  a  signature  and  asked  to  tell  trJiose  it  is  like  ;  or  when  we  are  try- 
ing to  recall  a  half-forgotten  tune  or  passage  from  some  poet ;  or  when  we 
are  choosing  words  and  thinking  out  the  meaning  of  similes;  or  when  we 
are  trying  to  decide  whether  we  will  trust  ourselves  to  this  piece  of  aj^par- 
ently  thin  ice,  or  will  confide  in  this  stranger,  or  will  classify  any  strange 
object  with  the  species  A  or  with  the  species  A'.  [The  author  well  remem- 
bers how  distinctly  no  fewer  tlian  four  complex  fields  of  consciousness  each 
involving  higher  stages  of  ideation  and  discrimination  than  the  preceding 
followed  on(!  another  in  his  experience  within  two  or  three  seconds  of  time. 
Standing  on  the  corner  of  a  city  street,  waiting  for  a  car  and  meanwhile 
meditating  a  lecture,  ho  was  aware  (1)  of  a  very  obscTire  and  slightly  pleasant 
(but  mistaken)  consciousness  of  resemblance  and  of  a  tendency  to  raise  his 
hand  to  his  hat  ;  (2)  of  a  less  obscure  and  slightly  unpleasant  consciousness 
of  difference,  and  an  accompanying  inhibition  of  the  rising  hand  ;  (3)  of  a 
tolerably  clear  and  more  distinctly  jileasant  (but  mistaken)  recognition  of  an 
approaching  friend  ;  (4)  of  a  perfectly  clear,  correct,  and  detailed  recognition 


ASSIMILATIOiSr   AND   DIFFERENTIATION  303 

of  the  person  approaching,  as  a  stranger,  and  the  consequent  feeling  of  dis- 
appointment and  chagrin  at  being  deceived  into  the  wrong  set  of  ideas, 
feelings,  and  actions  under  the  circumstances.] 

Experiment  can,  of  course,  only  point  out  the  relations  of  trains  of 
associated  impressions  to  the  discriminating  activity  of  mind,  as  they  occur 
when  both  the  process  of  ideation  and  the  process  of  intellection  have 
already  been  highly  developed.  But  experiment  i^roves  the  fundamental 
relations  of  these  two  processes,  while  it  does  not  justify  us  in  resolving 
either  one  into  the  other.  It  shows,  in  brief,  that  our  total  ability  to 
handle  our  impressions  satisfactorily  depends  upon  (1)  the  time  -  rate  of 
their  succession ;  (2)  the  comjilexity  of  the  objects  to  be  apprehended ;  (3) 
the  character — as  respects  speed,  completeness,  and  accuracy — of  the  proc- 
ess of  ideation ;  (4)  the  speed,  completeness,  and  accuracy  of  the  rela- 
ting activity  itself,  of  the  movement  of  discriminating  consciousness. 
Where  all  of  these  considerations  are  not  rightly  balanced,  what  is  called 
confusion  of  mind  results  ;  and  such  confusion  may  be  called,  with  equal 
propriety  and  expressiveness,  either  "confusion  of  ideas"  or  "  confusion  of 
thought." 

The  relation  of  association  and  intellection  is  pointed  out  by  those 
experiments  which  determine  the  reaction-time  for  what  is  called  "  question- 
answer"  associations.'  This  time  is  shortened,' as  we  should  expect,  when 
tolerably  fixed  associations  are  allowed  to  have  free  ■pl&j ;  or  when  the 
relating  activity  is  partly  got  through  with,  as  a  preparatoiy  process  in  con- 
nection with  the  attention  given  to  the  question  itself.  Thus  while  the 
ordinary  association-time  was,  for  two  persons,  845  a  and  948  a,  it  took  the 
same  persons  970  a-  and  1,103  o-  to  name  an  instance  under  a  familiar  general 
term  (that  is,  to  make  such  a  limited  or  definite  association  as  implies  more 
of  conscious  active  discrimination  or  thought).  Again,  in  asking  a  person  to 
name  his  choice  of  several  diflferent  fruits,  the  time  is  diminished  when  the 
question  is  aiTanged  as  follows:  "Apples,  jDcars,  cherries,  etc.  Which  do 
you  like  best  ?  "  For  here  the  act  of  discrimination  is  in  progress  while  the 
names  of  the  objects  with  which  the  liking  is  associated  are  being  read. 
Popularly  speaking,  the  mind  is  "made  up  "  by  association  beforehand,  and 
pronounces  its  judgment  as  soon  as  the  low  degree  of  conscious  discrimina- 
tion necessary  to  apprehend  the  meaning  of  the  names  of  the  objects  is 
completed. 

Among-  the  processes  of  primary  intellection  are  those  M-hich 
are  ordinaril}^  referred  to  as  "  Comparison,"  with  its  two  result- 
ing sides  of  Analysis  and  Synthesis  ;  and  as  well,  those  which 
are  sometimes  called  "  Assimilation  "  and  "  Differentiation." 
Some  low  degree,  at  least,  of  cliferentiathm  would  seem  to  be 
implied  in  merely  having  the  content  of  consciousness  defined  as 
such  a  sensation,  or  idea,  and  no  other.  And  here  it  may  be  said 
that  the  conception  of  a  "  primitive  blur"  of  consciousness,  or  of 
a  sensation-content  tliat  is  wholly  "  undifferentiated "  and  is  no 
particular  sensation  (so  Mr.  Spencer),  is  probably  an  unjustifiable 

1  Munsterberg,  Beitrage  znr  experimenteUen  Psychologic,  Heft  1, 18S9. 


304  PKIMARY   INTELLECTION 

fiction  of  the  psychologist.  At  best,  it  is  a  negative  conception 
and  of  no  help  to  scientific  psychology.^  At  the  same  time,  any 
such  primary  awareness  of  difl'erence  must  be  inexpressibly 
vague  as  compared  with  the  clearest  subsequent  discriminations 
possible  for  the  cultivated  intellect. 

Assimilation,  as  a  conscious  intellectual  process  in  distinction 
from  the  mere  fusion  or  association  of  factors  and  states  of  con- 
sciousness that  are  not  consciously  related,  is  also  included  in 
the  work  of  discrimination.  In  its  lowest  form,  however,  assimi- 
lation simply  implies  fusion  or  association  accompanied  by  the 
consciousness  of  resemblance ;  in  this  form  it  is  automatic  as 
distinguished  from  voluntary,  vague  as  distinguished  from  clear, 
and  having  to  do  with  only  one  point  of  likeness.  As  says 
Sully :  "  If  the  sensation  has  been  preceded  by  a  like  one  shortly 
he/ore,  the  trace  of  this  last  assuming  especial  distinctness  gives 
the  peculiar  mode  of  consciousness  signified  by  '  again '  or  '  over 
again.' "  This  sentence  just  quoted,  however,  only  describes  the 
occasion  on  which  the  dawning  of  this  primary  intellectual  life 
takes  place  ;  in  its  nature  such  activity  has  already  been  recog- 
nized as  unique  and  indescribable  by  further  analysis.  Thus 
assimilation  has  already  been  described  as  the  most  primary 
process  in  "  discriminating  "  consciousness  (as  though  <:7/«crimi- 
nation,  or  diffei^eniioiion,  were  itself  essentially  dependent  upon 
the  consciousness  of  resemblance).  But  as  the  association  of 
ideas  accompanied  by  this  intellectual  process  of  assimilation 
proceeds,  the  mental  life  becomes  organized.  Conception,  classi- 
fication, (logical)  judgment,  (intelligent)  recognition,  and  all 
mental  development  depend  upon  this  primary  activity  of  intel- 
lectual assimilation. 

Coinparison — as  the  term  is  ordinarily  used — involves  the  act 
of  selective  attention,  applied  successively  to  one  part  or  quality 
of  an  object  after  another  and  consciously  diS'erencing  the  unlike 
and  assimilating  the  like.  If  this  highly  complex  and  intellect- 
ual activity  be  regarded  as  resulting  in  tlie  separation  of  the 
difi'ercut  like  and  unlike  factors  from  the  totality  of  the  object, 
it  is  called  "  analj^sis."  But  inasmuch  as  it  results  in  bringing 
together  some  of  these  factors  to  the  exclusion  of  others,  and  so 
in  constituting  a  new  totality,  it  is  called  "  synthesis."  But  the 
development  of  ideation  along  the  lines  of  fusion  of  ideas,  asso- 
ciation of  ideas  and  "  freeing  "  (or  making  more  "  abstract ")  of 
tlie  ideas,  has  already  been  seen  to  impl}"  processes  somewhat 
corresponding  to  these.  All  fusion  of  sensations  and  ideas  into 
more  compU'X  fonns,  and  all  association  of  ideas — when  accompanied 

1  Lotze  has  combatted  this  view,  Microcosmus,  1.  p.  209  f. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   DISCRIMINATION  305 

by  iJie  conscious  fixation  af  attention  upon  their  resemblances  and 
(lijf'e/rnces,  inqdies  co/nparison  as  an  analytic  and  synthetic  process. 
lu  the  earlier  forms  of  relating  activity,  comparison  is  vague, 
uncertain,  not  consciously  adapted  to  an  end,  and  not  under  the 
control  of  voluntarily  selective  attention.  It  is  a  root,  however, 
out  of  which  comes  the  growth  of  intellectual  faculty.  There- 
fore we  may  say  that  conception,  classitication,  (logical)  judg- 
ment, (intelligent)  recognition,  and  all  mental  development  de- 
pend upon  comparison  too,  as  primitive  intellectual  activity. 

\  9.  Some  apology  seems  duo  for  usiug  the  term  "  discriminating  consci- 
ousness "  to  cover  an  intellectual  activity  which  is  largely,  and  perhaps 
more  strictly  primarily,  a  conscious  assimilation  of  the  like,  as  like.  For — 
surely — to  discriminate  (and  also  to  rftscern)  is  to  attend  to  differences.  But 
no  other  term  seems  equally  well  adapted  to  express  on  the  two  sides  of 
assimilation  and  differentiation,  all  that  essentially  belongs  to  the  primaiy 
activities  of  intellect.  This  use  does  not  prevent  us,  however,  from  holding 
that  the  positive  consciousness  of  resemblance,  as  established  between  two 
"  moments  "  in  the  complex  field  of  consciousness  or  two  states  in  the  stream 
of  consciousness,  is  the  most  primitive  and  unanalyzable  of  all  intellectual 
acts.  Consciousness  of  resemblance,  awakened  in  obscure  and  uncertain 
form  between  two  factors  or  states  that  are  sejiarable  in  time,  is  necessarily 
followed,  however,  by  consciousness  of  difference,  under  the  shock  of  feel- 
ing, as  already  described.  Thus  we  agree  with  Sully  :  '  "  Crude  assimilation 
progresses  in  advance  of  discrimination  (differentiation).  .  .  .  On  the 
other  hand,  assimilation  as  a  precise  process  follows,  or  at  least  involves, 
discrimination.  .  .  .  While,  however,  this  circumscribes  the  area  of 
exact  assimilation,  assimilation  reacts  ujion  differentiation." 

\  10.  All  objects  of  developed  experience — things  perceived,  or  states  self- 
consciously cognized,  memories,  imaginations,  thoughts,  plans,  etc. — are  to 
be  regarded,  from  the  psychological  point  of  view,  as  complex  wholes.  As 
complex  wholes,  they  result  from  synthesis  ;  and  the  synthesis  may  be  said 
to  be  repeated  so  often  as  the  objects,  whatever  they  may  be,  api^ear  in  the 
stream  of  conscious  life.  In  them  all,  psychological  analysis  recognizes  the 
traces  of  a  constructive  mental  life  ;  the  fruits— ceaselessly  being  finished, 
and  then  immediately  dissolved— of  a  living  intellectual  growth.  Psycholog- 
ically considered,  all  presentations  of  sense,  no  less  than  the  castles-iu-the- 
air  constituted  by  our  wildest  day-dreamings,  all  things  perceived  no  less 
than  the  phantoms  of  the  night  that  like  thin  and  ghost-like  forms,  flit  over 
the  fields  of  fancy,  are  temporary  structures  put  together  by  the  energy  of 
the  conscious  mind.  In  saying  this,  we  are  not  speaking  in  terms  of  meta- 
physics ;  we  are  only  figuratively  expressing  the  psychological  tmth  that  men- 
tal "  objects"  as  such  (and  it  is  "  as  such  "  that  psychology  regards  them), 
ni-e  capable  of  being  regarded  as  tcholes  for  scientific  analysis,  only  as  tee  recog- 
nize  that  the  conscious  activity  of  the  persoii,  whose  objects  they  are,  constructs 
them  by  a  jy'evious  syjithesis.  Moreover,  in  the  development  of  mental 
life,  every  such  act  of  synthesis  presupposes  countless  still  previous  acts 

>  The  Human  Mind,  I.  p.  184. 
20 


i 


30t5  PRIMARY   INTELLECTION 

of  both  analysis  and  synthesis— of  a  more  and  more  elementary  sort,  down 
to  the  obscure  beginnings  of  all  intellectual  life. 

Some  sort  of  Eudimentary  Judgment  is  involved  in  the  earlier 
and  most  primary  intellectual  processes.  It  has  been  customary 
for  writers  on  logic  to  describe  judgment  as  the  process  of  unit- 
ing two  concepts  as  subject  and  predicate  of  a  proposition, 
affirmatively  or  negatively.  We  shall  subsequently  see  that, 
however  true  this  may  seem  to  be  of  certain  logical  and  formal 
acts  of  thought,  in  the  development  of  mental  life  the  procedure 
of  the  mind  is  actually  the  reverse  of  this.  For,  the  essence  of 
thinking  is  judging ;  it  is  thinking  that  converts  representative 
images  into  concepts  ;  and  concepts  have  their  very  psychical 
being  in  the  processes  of  judgment  which  construct  them.  Fur- 
thermore, whole  groups  and  series  of  judgments  seem  condensed, 
as  it  were,  into  many  of  our  more  complicated  acts  of  perception. 
Seeing,  hearing,  tasting,  touching,  and  even  smelling,  as  result- 
ing in  knowledge,  involve  a  sort  of  inference.  What  isjudcjed, 
or  inferred,  as  smelled,  seen,  heard,  tasted,  touched,  is  by  far  the 
larger  part  of  these  so-called  immediate  and  intuitional  processes 
of  sense-perception. 

The  character  of  those  acts  of  judgment  and  reasoning  which 
enter  into  our  so-called  "  immediate  "  knowledge,  can  be  dis- 
cussed only  later  on.  At  present  the  following  three  points 
should  be  emphasized : 

(1)  There  is  no  marked  break  in  the  continuity  of  intellectual 
development.  Judgment  never  appears  as  an  act  which  springs 
forth  at  once,  full-armed,  from  the  brain  or  the  mind — without 
preparation  or  warning,  and  as  a  complete  departure  from  the 
old  life  of  merely  passive  association  of  mental  images  or  recep- 
tivity of  sensations.  Rudimentary  intellection  develops  from  the 
first— we  assert  the  truth  again — in  dependence  upon  attention 
and  ideation.  And  judgment  becomes  more  and  more  evidently 
a  conscious  process  of  clearly  discriminating  activity  in  relat- 
ing the  different  contents  of  consciousness,  along  a  smooth  and 
continuous  course  of  development.  (2)  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
true  judgment  can  never  be  developed  out  of  mere  fusion  or 
mere  association  of  sensations  and  ideas.  It  is,  as  a  form  of 
intellectual  life,  a  unique  reaction  upon  the  content  of  conscious- 
ness— a  consciousness  of  relation  as  something  over  and  above 
the  mere  leh)r/-relatcd,iis  this  latter  fact  applies  to  the  succession 
of  contents  in  the  stream  of  consciousness.  (3)  Considered  as  a 
conscious  act,  all  synthesis  or  analysis  established  between  two 
factors,  or  states  of  consciousness,  involves  a  species  of  rudimen- 


RUDIMENTARY   JUDGMENT  307 

tary  judgment.  The  rather  may  it  be  claimed  that  the  actual 
synthesis  which  attentive  discriminating  consciousness  estab- 
lislics  between  the  different  contents  of  consciousness,  considered 
primarily  as  like  or  unlike,  is  rudimentary  judgment.  Such  a 
synthesizing  activity  is  in  its  very  essence,  a  judging  activity  ; 
and  out  of  it  all  the  subsequent  life  of  judgment  is  to  be  devel- 
oped. 

In  other  words,  t/ie  conscious  affirmafio7i  of  relations  of  re- 
semblance or  difference  hetween  the  contents  of  consciousness  is  the 
primitive  form  of  judgment.  Such  judgment,  therefore,  enters 
into  all  comparison  with  its  processes  of  analysis  and  syn- 
thesis. It  is  implied  in  all  assimilation  and  differentiation,  so 
soon  as  these  two  terois  are  employed  to  denote  truly  psychical 
and  intellectual  processes.  Such  judgment  is,  moreover,  the 
form  of  mental  relating  activity  which,  as  it  accompanies  and 
gives  conditions  to  all  elaboration  of  mental  life  and  is  itself 
modified  in  the  course  of  this  elaboration,  accounts  for  all  con- 
ception, logical  judgment,  and  reasoning — in  fine,  for  all  that 
we  comprise  under  the  words  "thinking"  and  "thought." 

§  11.  The  nature  of  primary  intellection,  as  involving  the  judging  ac- 
tivity of  mind,  can  perhaps  best  be  made  clear  by  reference  to  the  views  of 
a  number  of  writers  on  psychology.  It  will  be  noticed  that  the  following 
admit  the  truthfulness  of  the  views  just  expressed,  while  expressing  their 
own  views  in  a  variety  of  ways.  Thus  Dr.  Ward '  follows  Lotze  -  in  holding 
that,  while  only  two  things  can  be  judged  or  synthesized  at  once,  since  only 
one  movement  of  attentive  discriminating  consciousness  is  possible  at  a 
time,  the  two  impressions  do  not  judge  or  synthesize  themselves.  The  im- 
pressions are  rather  to  be  regarded  as  "  stimuli  "  to  the  act  of  judging.  In 
this  way  these  writers  emphasize  the  tnith  that  intellection  is  a  synthetic 
activity — dejoendent  upon  attention  and  associated  ideation,  and  yet  some- 
thing over  and  above  ideation  sui  generis,  and  incomparable  to  any  merely 
passive  relations,  externally  brought  about,  between  the  contents  of  the 
stream  of  consciousness.  Hence  Lotze  s^Deaks  of  judging  as  "  a  second  and 
higher  consciousness,"  "  a  new  manifestation  of  psychic  energy."  Another 
authority,^  in  expressive  but  figurative  language,  calls  judgment  *'  a  non- 
suiting of  the  fusion  of  two  ideas  which  is  necessary  in  order  to  raise  the 
fusion,  as  such,  into  the  position  of  an  object  of  consciousness."  That  is  to 
say,  in  judging,  the  two  elements  about  to  be  related  miist  bo  considered 
as  tiro — and  not  already  indistinguishably  fused  into  one  idea — and  must 
also,  by  the  act  of  judging,  be  consciously  brought  together  and  united 
under  some  terra  of  relation  (primarily,  of  resemblance  or  difference).  Still 
another  author,*  while  holding  that  judgment  is  not  an  accidental  fact  but 

>  Article  on  Psychology,  Encyc.  Brit.,  p.  75  f. 

»  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  40  f .;  Microcosmns,  I.,  p.  220  f. 

3  Volkmann  :  Lehrbnch  d.  Psychologic,  H.,  p.  263. 

*  Binet :  Psychologie  du  Raisonnement,  p.  9G  f . ;  129  f . 


308  PKIMAKY   INTELLECTION 

a  constant  process  of  our  mental  life,  finds  the  essence  of  judgment  in  the 
"law  of  fusion."  It  enters  into  all  perception  of  objects.  "This  assim- 
ilation of  two  impressions  is  the  biological  property  from  which  reasoning 
is  derived."  But  in  correction  of  this  vague  way  of  speaking,  as  though 
mere  fusion  of  impressions  accounted  for  judgment  as  an  intellectual  ac- 
tivity, it  may  be  noticed  that  this  author  only  aims  to  account  for  "  the 
meclianism  of  reasoning  ;"  the  judging  activity  i/se//"  implies  something  more 
than  the  existence  of  the  mechanism,  acting  under  the  laws  of  associated 
reproduction.  For  here — to  borrow  an  expressive  figure  of  speech — we 
must  recognize  not  only  the  existence  of  the  ideas  that  become  "  cemented  " 
together,  but  the  "  cejue^ii"  that  accomplishes  this  new  (and  intellectual) 
form  of  union  {der  Kitt  zwischen  den  Vorstellungen  ')  ;  this  "  cement "  is  no 
other  than  that  attentive,  comparative,  and  synthetic  activity  which  we  call 
primary  intellection. 

In  the  contraiy  direction,  certain  authors  have  doubtless  so  insisted 
upon  this  intellectual  and  active  side  of  all  judgment  in  distinction  from  the 
relatively  passive  flow  of  associated  ideas,  as  to  require  of  the  beginnings  of 
intellectual  life  a  work,  the  ability  to  perform  which  is  itself  the  result  of 
development.  Thus  we  find  one  writer  ^  maintaining  that  in  every  true  judg- 
ment subject  and  i^redicate  must  be  distinguished  ;  each  of  the  two  must 
be  especially  thought ;  and  the  subject  must  be  mentally  rej^resented  as  the 
fixed  point  to  which  the  predicate  refers.  And  even  M.  Paulhan  ^  maintains 
that  judgment  requires  the  separation  of  psychic  elements,  which  have,  in 
fact,  fused  together  (as  in  naming  things,  and  mistaking  of  words,  by  chil- 
dren), and  their  recombination  under  rational  forms.  Judgment,  beholds, 
is  therefore  "  the  act  by  which  an  abstract  element  of  a  complex  idea  is  re- 
attached to  a  new  system  of  elements."  The  logical  bond  between  the  two 
states  whose  synthesis  constitutes  the  judgment  is  "  the  aptitude  of  these  two 
states  for  co-ordinating  themselves  in  view  of  a  common  end."  Now  in  so 
far  as  M.  Paulhan's  statements  concern  the  mechanism  of  ideas,  or  the  char- 
acter of  the  two  states  which  get  co-ordinated,  they  aftbrd  no  full  explanation 
of  the  activity  of  co-ordinating  (the  synthesizing  itself).  But  the  description 
given  by  both  these  authors  of  the  nature  of  the  primitive  intellectual  proc- 
ess of  judging  is  overdrawn.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  if  so  much  were  re- 
quired of  the  beginnings  of  all  judgment,  we  could  never  learn  to  judge. 
For  "distinguishing  subject  and  predicate,"  and  '•  thinkitig  "  the  two,  and 
"  separating  psychic  elements,"  and  co-ordinating  them  "  in  view  of  an  end  " 
— all  these  are  elaborate  intellectual  processes  dependent  upon  a  preceding 
training  in  primary  activities  of  judging,  as  the  essentials  of  this  process 
have  already  been  described. 

?  12.  Peculiar  forms  of  feeling  are  the  distinctive  accompaniment  of  all 
intellectual  activity,  even  in  the  most  primary  acts  of  judging.  Such  are  the 
more  obscure  forms  of  those  same  aff"ective  accompaniments  of  judgment 
with  which  developed  self-consciousness  makes  us  familiar.  Among  thom 
are  (1)  a  feeling  of  mental  tension  which  may  take  the  form  of  expectation, 

'  See  Fortlatrc  :  Psychologie,  p.  174 ;  and  compare  Brentano  (Psychologic,  p.  266  f.;  296  f.)  who 
maintains  tliat  in  every  act  of  conscionBness— however  simple  it  may  be,  as,  for  example,  the  men- 
tal representation  of  a  tone— a  judgment  is  included. 

"^  Ballauf  :  Eleincntc  d.  Pi^ychologie,  p.  114  f. 

'  L'ActivitC"  mentale  et  lee  i;it'ment8  de  I'Esprit,  p.  109  f. 


RUDIMENTARY   TIME-CONSCIOUSNESS  309 

or  of  vacillation,  or  of  doubt,  etc.  Tins  feeling  may  be  regarded  as  directed 
either  forward  from  the  idea  A  to  the  idea  Ji,  or  backward  from  the  idea  B 
to  the  idea  A.  For  judging,  even  in  its  most  jjrimitive  form,  resembles  the 
attempt  to  solve  a  liroblem  :  Is  ^,  which  is  fading  from  the  central  point, 
the  focus  of  attention  in  the  field  of  consciousness,  like  or  unlike  7>,  wliich 
is  just  now  occupying  this  central  point  ?  Or  the  order  of  the  problem  may 
be  reversed ;  and  with  the  feelings  which  belong  to  the  pause  preceding 
the  act  of  intellectual  synthesis  all  are  familiar.  But  (2)  a  vague  feeling, 
corresponding  to  what  we  recognize  as  "  conviction  " — a  feeling  intrinsi- 
cally appropriate  to  the  ajffrmaiion  of  resemblance  or  difference — may  also 
be  supposed  to  set  its  seal  upon  the  acts  of  primary  intellection.  Indeed, 
so  intrinsically  apj^ropriate  and  essential  is  this  jseculiar  feeling  that  at 
least  one  very  acute  psychologist  '  has  been  led  to  define  judgment  as 
"  ideating  with  the  consciousness  of  actuality."  By  the  "  consciousness  of 
actuality  "  is  here  meant  the  consciousness  that  a  laarticular  way  of  ideating 
is  necessary,  "  mtrst  be,"  or  "  ought  to  be."  This,  then,  would  amount  to 
a  sort  of  indirect  feeling  of  the  validity  of  the  laws  of  intellectual  life.  But 
here  again  such  modifications  of  feeling  as  belong  with  developed  thinking 
faculty  must  be  distinguished  from  such  as  are  the  conjectural  but  natural 
accompaniment  of  primary  intellection.  [It  may  be  noted  in  i)assing  that 
the  first  class  of  feelings  belong  rather  to  the  analytic  aspect  of  the  relating 
activity,  and  the  second  to  its  synthetic  asjiect ;  the  first  are,  then,  rather 
preparatory  to  pronouncing  judgment  ;  but  the  second  are  the  affective  ac- 
companiment of  the  actual  pronouncing  of  judgment.] 

^  13.  Let  us  state  the  results  of  our  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  primaiT 
intellection  in  the  following  way  :  I  may  regard  any  stream  of  consciousness 
with  respect  to  its  contiguous  members,  or  any  field  of  consciousness  with 
respect  to  its  numerous  factors  or  objects,  as  simply  capable  of  having  its 
contents  described.  The  contents  are,  for  example,  certain  sensations,  feel- 
ings, ideas,  conations — A,  B,  C,  D,  etc.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  objectively 
regarded,  these  sensations,  feelings,  ideas,  conations,  are  related  in  certain 
ways ;  they  are  more  or  less  like  or  unlike  each  other.  But  now  let  the 
question  be  raised  :  What  new  factors,  or  shadings  of  old  factors,  enter  into 
this  complex  of  consciousness  as  soon  as  we  introduce  the  conception  of  in- 
tellectual activity  in  the  forai  of  a  judgment  made  by  the  subject  of  these 
sensations,  feelings,  ideas,  and  conations  ?  Why,  then,  a  relating  activity  must 
be  recognized  ;  an  active  consciousness  of  resemblance  and  of  difference — 
resulting,  by  processes  of  assimilation  and  differentiation,  in  a  new  and  in- 
tellectual ordering  of  the  sensations  and  ideas,  stirred  and  accompanied  by 
peculiar  feelings,  and  dependent  upon  the  voluntary  focusing  and  redistri- 
bution of  attention  ;  and  finally,  the  establishment  of  laws  of  rational  con- 
nection between  mental  states,  which  give  a  new  definitive  flow  to  subse- 
quent mental  life. 

Once  more,  rudimentary  and  developing-  Time-consciousness 
is  assumed  as  a  condition,  result,  and  accompaniment  of  all  acts 
of  g-enuine  primary  intellection.  Witli  the  metaphysics  of  time 
— ^the  validity  of  this  conception  as  applied  to  reality,  etc. — de- 

»  Lipps  :  Grundtatsachen  d.  Seelenlebens,  p.  396  f. 


310  PRIMAEY   INTELLECTION 

scriptive  and  explanatory  psycliolog-y  does  not  have  to  deal. 
Moreover,  in  its  efforts  to  trace  the  genesis  and  evolution  of  time- 
consciousness  science  finds  itself  limited  at  certain  points ;  at 
last  we  have  to  acknowledge  that  we  have  reached  one  of  those 
ultimate  facts  of  all  mental  life  beyond  or  behind  which  it  is 
impossible  for  science  to  explore.  Such  facts  we  call  laws  of  all 
mental  development.  Thus  we  may  say  that  to  become  conscious 
of  time  as  the  universal  form  of  all  ^jsychoses  belongs  to  the 
very  nature  of  the  mind.  Indeed,  only  as  an  immediate  awareness 
of  our  states  as  enduring  and  as  succeeding  each  other  ("  in  time,'' 
so  we  popularly  say)  is  recognized,  can  we  provide  for  any  in- 
tellectual development.  On  the  other  hand,  intellectual  activity 
is  necessary  for  developing  this  peculiar  consciousness.  In 
other  words,  comparison,  analysis,  synthesis,  judgment,  must 
co-operate  and  develop  together  with  "  time-consciousness  "  for 
the  completer  elaboration  of  mental  life. 

Scientific  psychology  can,  however,  trace  certain  conditions 
under  which  time-consciousness  arises  and  undergoes  the  various 
stages  of  its  develoj^ment ;  but  in  doing  this  two  classes  of  fal- 
lacies and  their  resulting  extremes  of  ojiinion  must  be  avoided. 

(1)  The  consciousness  of  time,  in  the  abstract,  cannot  be  de- 
rived merely  from  single  or  repeated  observations  of  the  fact 
that  the  states  of  consciousness  actually  do  endure  and  succeed 
each  other  "  in  time."  Enduring  and  succeeding  conscious  states,  in 
themselves  considered,  afford  us  710  full  explanation  of  the  conscioits- 
ness  of  time-relations  as  aj>plical>le  to  those  states.  Sensations,  feel- 
ings, "  moments  "  of  conation,  might  come  and  go  forever,  with- 
out, by  the  mere  fact  of  their  coming  and  going,  accounting  for 
or  arousing  the  consciousness  of  time.  This  consciousness  is  a 
new  and  unique  reaction  of  the  subject  of  all  the  states  of  con- 
sciousness ;  it  implies  the  active  and  immediate  relating  work 
of  mind,  according  to  the  laws  of  its  own  life.  And  Sull}'  ^  is 
quite  right  when  he  accuses  English  psychologists  generally  of 
having  too  naively  held  that  the  cognition  of  time  is  to  be  ex- 
plained as  "  an  immediate  apprehension  of  a  certain  aspect  or 
certain  relations  of  our  experience — that  is,  our  enduring  and 
succeeding  states."  We  repeat,  the  consciousness  itself  is  a  new 
form  of  intellectual  reaction.  Nor  can  the  conception  of  abstract 
time  be  abstracted  from  enduring  or  succeeding  states  of  con- 
sciousness as  such  ;  it  can  only  be  abstracted  from  the  conscious 
activities  which  relate  these  states,  as  enduring  and  succeeding, 
in  time. 

(2)  On  the  other  hand,  the  consciousness  of  time  does  not 

'  The  nuinan  Mind,  I.,  p.  329. 


CONSTRUCTION   OF  TIME-CONSCIOUSNESS  311 

spring-  up  iu  the  mind,  as  a  mere  form  of  mental  life  (an  a  priori 
empty  frame  work  of  experience),  independent  for  its  origin  and 
development  of  the  actual  experience  of  concrete  states  of  con- 
sciousness and  of  the  conscious  comparison  of  one  state  with 
another.  In  some  sort  it  is  t7ice  that  every  intellect  constructs  its 
own  tlnie-consciousness.  It  is  by  conscious  processes  of  compar- 
ison, under  the  excitement  of  feeling,  that  the  temporal  frame- 
work of  experience  is  itself  erected.  Moreover,  this  time-consci- 
ousness is  capable  of  development.  It  begins  in  the  obscure, 
uncertain,  and  fitful  recognition  of  relations  among"  the  factors 
and  "  moments  "  of  experience  ;  it  grows  with  g-rowing  intellect- 
ual life,  as  both  itself  affecting,  and  affected  by,  all  other  intel- 
lectual development ;  it  attains  only  such  degree  of  development, 
with  regard  to  clearness  and  accuracy,  as  belongs  to  the  char- 
acteristics of  the  individual  assisted  by  the  means  acquired  by 
the  race  for  the  measurement  and  recording  of  experience,  in 
time.  In  all  this  i^rocess  of  development  the  actually  enduring 
and  succeeding-  states,  with  those  modifications  of  consciousness 
which  are  dependent  upon  the  time  of  their  endurance  and  the 
rate  of  their  succession,  are  material,  as  it  were,  furnished  for  the 
constructive  and  relating-  activity  of  mind. 

§  14.  The  development  of  the  consciousness  of  time  is  connected,  of 
course,  with  the  development  of  all  the  faculties  so  called.  For  example, 
memory,  in  its  complete  form  as  recognitive,  implies  the  ability  to  place  the 
thing  remembered  in  a  particular  j)osition  in  that  succession  of  events  which 
constitutes  the  stream  of  consciousness  ascribed  to  self.  Thus  recognitive 
memory  and  developed  time-consciousness  are  interdeiDcndent.  In  doing 
this  we  also  judge  ;  we  lay  down  propositions  as  to  "  the  time  "  when  the 
remembered  event  occurred.  Imagination,  too,  is  required  in  order  to 
frame  and  apply  those  ideal  standards  by  which  the  times  and  seasons  of  all 
the  events  in  our  past  experience,  or  in  our  dreams  and  anticipations  of  the 
future,  are  arranged  and  displayed. 

Every  form  of  intellectual  faculty,  however  primitive,  depends  u^jon  the 
rudimentai-y  consciousness  of  time.  In  elucidating  the  nature  of  such  rudi- 
mentaiy  consciousness  the  following  jooints  must  be  chiefly  borne  in  mind  : 

(1)  The  beginnings  of  time-consciousness  imply  that  all  the  contents  of 
consciousness,  to  be  related  in  time,  are  somewhat  prolonged  processes  ' 
rather  than  instantaneous  or  non-enduring  events.  All  sensations,  feelings, 
conditions — however  simple  or  complex — all  psychoses  or  states  of  conscious- 
ness are  processes.  Psychologically  considered,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
"  mathematical  point  of  time  " — no  time  that  is  not  enduring  time.  It 
"  takes  time  "  to  come  to  consciousness,  and  time  that  endures  less  than  so 
much  time  is  an  unreality,  is  no  time  at  all  for  consciousness. " 

•  Compare  Nichols  :  American  .Journal  of  Psychology,  iii.,  p.  453  f.  ;  iv. ,  p.  60  f. 

'  Professor  James's  term.  "  the  specious  present  "—to  designate  this  actual  "  time-grasp  "  of  con- 
sciousness— seems  particularly  unfortunate.  It  is  just  this  "  present "  which  is  real ;  the  mathemat- 
ical present,  the  instant  that  is  gone  before  it  can  be  seized,  is  "  specious  "  and  unreal. 


312  PRIMARY   INTELLECTION 

(2)  The  consciousness  of  time,  wlietlier  of  the  endurance  of  a  state  or  of 
the  successiou  of  states,  is  itself  a  process.  As  says  Sully,  laertiueutly  :  "  The 
secondary  consciousness  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  an  instantaneous  act,  but 
is  itself  a  process  in  time.  In  other  words,  the  cognition  of  time  is  only  pos- 
sible through  and  by  means  of  a  time- experience." 

(3)  The  foundation  of  a  consciousness  of  time  implies  the  direction  of 
attention  to  a  certain  aspect  or  quality  (if  the  word  be  not  inapt)  of  a  psy- 
chosis, or  a  certain  relation  of  two  succeeding  psychoses.  It  is  this  aspect 
or  quality  (?)  which  we  call  the  endurance,  it  is  this  relation  which  we  call 
the  succession — of  jasychoses,  in  time. 

(4)  Ditferences  in  the  proper  qualities  and  the  affective  accompaniments 
of  single  states,  and  of  succeeding  states,  actually  depend  upon  the  time  of 
their  endurance  or  upon  the  rate  and  order  of  their  succession.  Pains  and 
pleasures  that  endure,  however  alike  in  other  respects,  are  not  the  same 
pains  or  pleasures  with  those  more  fleeting.  Perceptions  and  ideas  are 
marked  off  from  each  other  in  consciousness  by  the  amount  of  the  quality  (?) 
of  steadiness  which  they  possess,  or  by  the  time-rate  of  that  stream  of  suc- 
cessive states  in  which  they  have  their  part. 

(5)  The  discernment  of  that  attribiite  or  relation  of  our  psychoses  which 
we  call  "  their  being  in  time,"  is  stimulated  and  assisted  by  the  affective  or 
emotional  character  of  certain  of  these  psychoses.  In  adult  developed  con- 
sciousness such  an  effect  of  feeling  on  judgment  is  very  familiar.  Inter- 
ested attention,  whether  forced  or  voluntary,  with  its  pleasure-pains,  deter- 
mines the  "  seeming  "  endurance  and  time-rate  of  our  states  of  consciousness. 
The  more  comiilex  feelings  of  expectation,  hopeful  or  fearful,  of  tedium  and 
ennui,  of  mental  tension,  of  longing  for  change  or  affectionate  lingering  over 
the  fading  memoiy-images  of  past  states,  etc.,  are  powerful  stimulants  and 
guides  of  our  time-consciousness.  These  are  themselves,  of  course,  forms 
of  feeling  which  depend  upon  a  certain  develoijment  of  time-consciousness. 
But  corresponding  rudimentary  forms  of  feeling  may  properly  be  assumed 
to  accomjjany  and  influence  the  most  rudimentary  apprehension  of  our  own 
states  as  having  the  attribute  of  time.  The  behavior  of  children  and  of  the 
lower  animals  confirms  this  assumption.  The  infant  whose  present  content 
of  consciousness  may  be  described  as  made  up  of  unpleasant  impressions  of 
growing  vividness,  and  fading  memory-images  of  pleasant  impressions  (as, 
for  example,  when  its  nursing-bottle  is  rudely  pulled  from  its  mouth)  is  in  a 
condition  favorable  to  the  mental  seizure  of  a  primitive  time-relation.  All 
consciousness  of  difference  in  quality  is,  in  fact,  an  actual  process  of  devel- 
opment, closely  akin  to  the  consciousness  of  succession.  The  same  infant, 
hungry  and  waiting  to  feel  the  soothing  of  its  well-warmed  and  well- 
sweetened  draught,  is  being  disciplined  not  only  in  patience  but  also  in 
the  perception  of  time.  To  endure  quickens  the  cognition  of  dxrafion  in 
time.  But,  chiefly,  does  the  experience  with  rhythmically  recurrent  similar 
sensations,  and  the  agreeable  feelings  of  interest,  expectation,  and  famili- 
arity which  accompany  the  sensations,  favor  the  apprehension  of  succession 
in  time.  To  swing  a  bright  ball  before  the  infant's  eyes,  to  croon  tunes  in 
its  ear,  to  rock  it  in  a  cradle,  or  sway  it  in  the  arms,  is  to  train  not  only  the 
consciousness  of  resemblance  (as  wo  have  already  seen)  but  also  the  con- 
sciousness of  time.     And  when  we  note  "  the  fragment  of  the  childish  hymn 


DIFFERENTIATION   IN   TIME-CONSCIOUSNESS  313 

with  whicli  ho  sings  and  croons  himself  to  sleep,"  under  influence  from  the 
instinct  of  imitation,  and  with  the  help  of  associated  ideation,  we  are 
witnesses  of  the  beginnings  of  self-cnlture  in  the  apprehension  of  primaiy 
relations  of  time. 

(G)  In  all  mental  activity  directed  toward  the  construction  of  timc-con- 
sciousuess  the  entire  mechanism  of  i)rimary  intellection  is  called  into  play. 
So  far  as  we  are  able  to  say,  the  consciousness  of  succession  of  like  states 
is  here  most  primary.  "Again,"  "again,"  and  "yet  again" — the  "same," 
is  the  voice  with  which  nature  gives  her  first  lessons  in  time  to  her  children. 
And  "now" — behold! — the  "unlike;"  "going"  and  "yet  going"  and 
"  now  gone" — somewhat  thus  may  we  suppose  the  heading  of  her  second 
lesson  to  be.  "  Wait "  and  "  yet  wait ;  "  it  is  "not  yet,"  but  it  is  "  coming," 
defines  what  she  would  next  have  her  jiupils  apprehend.  But  while  we  are 
able  thus  far  to  detect  the  secrets  of  her  elementary  forms  of  discipline,  we 
must  not  forget  that  the  nature  of  her  pupil  is  the  thing  whicli  both  she  and 
we  have  chiefly  to  take  into  account.  For  the  consciousness  of  time  is  itself, 
like  every  form  of  consciousness,  a  process ;  but  its  peculiarity  is,  that  it  is  a 
unique  form  of  intellectual  reaction  resulting  in  the  apprehension  of  all  the  con- 
tents of  consciousness  as  processes,  enduring  and  succeeding  each  other  "  in 
time."  What  is  the  meaning  of  this  phrase,  "in  time,"  we  shall  discover 
more  clearly  later  on. 

"We  have  now  completed  the  survey  of  those  most  primary 
and  yet  ever  present  forms  of  consciousness  to  which  was  given 
the  title  of  "  elements  of  mental  life."  Strictly  speaking-,  they 
are  all  only  partial  aspects,  as  it  were,  of  every  true  and  com- 
plete psychosis  —  processes  constituent  and  determinative  of 
every  so-called  field  of  consciousness.  Detailed  as  our  descrip- 
tion has  been,  it  has  only  faintly  represented  the  intricacy  and 
many-sidedness  of  psychical  activity  as  it  is  realized  in  every  one 
of  our  mental  states.  For  that  which  nature  brings  to  pass, 
at  once  in  all  its  infinite  variety,  as  a  unique  totality,  science 
slowly  follows  after,  in  its  attempt  faithfully  to  represent  and  to 
explain.  We  now  turn  our  attention  to  the  combinations  of  these 
elementary  processes,  in  increasing-  complexity,  as  the  formation 
of  faculty  takes  place,  and  the  attainment  of  "  mind  "  (in  the  full 
meaning-  of  the  word)  is  secured.  That  is,  we  now  consider  the 
further  development  of  mental  life. 

[Besides  the  references  in  the  notes  of  this  chapter,  few  can  be  made  to  works  throw- 
ing additional  light  upon  the  phenomena  of  "  primary  intellection."  Of  course,  parts  of 
all  the  more  vital  and  truly  psychological  works  on  Logic,  and  the  chapters  on  Judgment 
and  Thought,  in  all  the  principal  psychological  treatises,  may  be  consulted  with  profit. 
Especially  would  we  refer  to  the  chapters  on  "  Conception  "  and  "Discrimination  and  Com- 
parison," in  James  :  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  I.,  xii.  and  xiii.  Consult  also,  Wnndt : 
Logik,  I. ,  pt.  i. ,  chap.  ii.  ( Jeorge  :  Lchrbuch  d.  Psychologic,  p.  3.51  f .  ;  p.  490  f .  Waitz  : 
Lehrbnch,  etc. ,  p.  .508  f.  Binet :  La  Psychologic  du  Raisonnement.  Preyer  :  The  Devel- 
opment of  the  Intellect.  Striimpell :  Crundriss  d.  Logik.  Spencer  :  Principles  of  Psy- 
chology, II.,  chap.  viii.  Ward:  Art.  Psychology,  Encyc.  Brit.,  p.  75  f.  Horwicz :  Psy- 
chologische  Analysen,  ii.,  Bucb,  i.    Lipps  :  Grundtatsachen  d.  Seelenlebens,  chap,  xx.] 


part  ^birb 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  MENTAL  LIFE 


part  ZTbirb 

THE   DEVELOPMENT  OF  MENTAL  LIFE 

CHAPTEK  XV. 
PERCEPTION  BY  THE  SENSES 

Attention  has  already  frequently  been  directed  to  the  im- 
portant truth,  that  the  so-called  "  faculties  of  mind  " — or  forms 
of  psychical  activity  in  which  adult  experience  consists — are 
developed  only  in  dependence  upon  the  combined  effect  of  all 
the  elementary  processes.  The  different  faculties,  however, 
involve  these  elementary  processes  in  different  ways  and  in  dif- 
ferent deg-rees ;  it  is  this  fact,  indeed,  which  makes  it  possible  to 
speak  of  them  as  different  faculties.  For  example,  without  per- 
ception and  self-consciousness,  memory  and  imagination  are  im- 
possible ;  and  yet  not  more  impossible  than  are  the  former 
faculties  without  the  latter.  For  if  I  could  not  remember  and 
imagine,  I  could  perceive  nothing,  nor  could  I  be  conscious  of 
Self.  Yet  again,  intellect,  in  the  form  of  judgment  and  reason- 
ing, depends  upon  all  four  of  the  above-mentioned  faculties  ; 
while  they,  in  their  turn,  depend  for  their  development  upon  it. 

How,  then,  it  may  be  asked,  shall  we  distinguish  the  differ- 
ent faculties,  if  they  all  result  from  combination  of  the  same  ele- 
mentary processes  and  all  involve  one  another  in  this  compli- 
cated way  ?  The  answer  to  this  question  has  already  been  indi- 
cated :  the  different  faculties  differ  in  the  forms  and  amounts  of 
the  elementary  processes  which,  in  some  form  and  to  some  ex- 
tent, enter  into  them  all.  Each  faculty,  so  to  speak,  emphasizes 
one  principal  kind  of  these  processes.  For  example,  my  perceiv- 
ing a  ten-dollar  gold  piece  in  my  pocket  differs  from  my  imagin- 
ing one  to  be  there ;  the  difference  is  not,  however,  simply  because 
my  perception  is  all  sensation  and  motion  without  ideation  and 
my  imagination  devoid  of  all  sensory-motor  elements.  Again, 
my  being  angry  at  the  sight  of  the  man  who  has  insulted  me 


318  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

differs  from  my  perception  of  his  face,  from  my  memory  of  the 
insult,  and  my  imagination  of  its  meaning  and  result ;  but  this 
difference  is  not  because  the  emotion,  as  such,  is  devoid  of 
coloring-  from  sensory  and  ideating  activity,  or  because  the 
intellectual  acts  have  no  -affective  accomjjaniment  peculiar  to 
them.  But  percej)tion  differs  from  memory,  and  memory  and 
perception  differ  from  emotion,  because  each  emphasizes  some 
of  the  elementary  processes,  previously  developed,  to  the  rela- 
tive exclusion  or  depression  of  the  others.  And,  in  reality,  ecenj 
complex  state  of  adult  consciousness — that  is,  every  exercise  of 
developed  faculty — is  what  it  is,  just  because  of  where  it  puts  the 
emphasis  upon  the  tnany  elements  uihich  enter  i?ito  it. 

Sense-Perception  (as  the  very  term  indicates)  is  a  complex 
form  of  mental  life  in  which  emphasis  is  laid  upon  the  combined 
results  of  processes  of  sensation.  The  obvious  truth  about  per- 
ception looked  upon  as  psychical  activity,  is  that  the  senses  are 
actively  concerned.  We  perceive  things,  their  qualities  and 
relations,  through  the  eye,  the  hand,  the  ear,  etc.  Perception, 
looked  upon  as  a  product  or  accomplished  result,  gives  us  the 
sensumis  qualities  and  relations  of  our  own  bodies  and  of  other 
things.  But  should  we  attempt  to  account  for  perception  solely 
as  an  affair  of  complex  combination  of  sensation-elements,  we 
should  find  our  attempt  unsuccessful.  For  although  sense-per- 
ception is  chiefly  an  affair  of  the  senses,  a  resultant  of  sensation - 
complexes  that  have  entered  into  higher  and  yet  higher  forms 
of  fusion  and  complication,  it  is  by  no  means  simply  this.  As 
we  shall  see  more  and  more  clearly  in  the  course  of  our  studj'  of 
the  development  of  this  faculty,  all  the  other  primary  processes 
of  mind  are  involved  in  the  full  account  of  it. 

And  now  it  will  clear  up  the  entire  field  lying  just  before  us 
if  we  consider  what  data  for  our  explanation  of  the  development 
of  the  faculty  of  sense-perception  are  already  in  hand.  These 
may  be  enumerated  as  follows  :  (1)  Complex  forms  of  sensation, 
due  to  different  admixtures  of  qualitatively  and  quantitatively 
like  or  unlike  simple  sensations,  and  varying  in  a  discernible 
way  according  to  the  locality  of  the  organism  Avhose  nervous 
elements  are  stimulated  simultaneously  or  in  close  succession 
("sensation-complexes"  serviceable  as  "local  signs")  ;  (2)  Eep- 
resentative  images,  with  varying  degrees  of  intensity  and  "  life- 
likeness,"  which,  on  due  excitement  being  furnished,  tend  to 
recur  in  consciousness,  to  "  fuse  "  witli  the  sensation-complexes 
and  with  one  another,  and  to  follow  the  sensation-complexes  and 
one  another,  under  the  laws  of  association ;   (3)   Feelings,   or 


MEANING   OF   THE   WORD   PERC1':PTI0N  319 

affective  accompaniments  of  the  combined  sensation-complexes 
and  ideas,  "which  depend  in  part  upon  the  character  and  succes- 
sion of  the  hitter  and  by  their  variations  in  "  interest,"  tone  of 
"  pleasure-pain,"  expectation,  -etc.,  corresj^ond  to  the  changes 
that  g-o  on  in  sensuous  things ;  (4)  Attention,  with  its  "  wander- 
ing point  of  regard,"  actively  or  passively  directed  and  focused 
in  the  complex  field  of  perceptive  consciousness — especially  as 
influenced  by  the  aforesaid  feelings  of  interest,  expectation,  etc.; 
(5)  Discriminating  consciousness  (beginning  as  the  "  immediate 
awareness  "  of  resemblance  and  difierence),  assimilating,  differ- 
entiating, analyzing,  synthesizing,  judging ;  and  so  progres- 
sively elaborating  the  content  of  consciousness  (not  as  some- 
thing apart  from  that  content— in  the  full  meaning  of  the  word — 
but  as  a  relating  activity  in  and  through  the  content  of  con- 
sciousness) into  higher  and  higher  intellectual  forms. 

With  the  preceding  five  sets  of  considerations  in  hand  the 
formation  of  sense-perceptions  (or  "  presentations  of  sense,"  for 
we  shall  use  these  two  terms  interchangeably)  and  the  develoj?- 
ment  of  the  knowledge  of  sensuous  things,  offers  a  series  of 
problems,  each  with  its  peculiar  data  as  it  were,  to  be  solved  by 
the  mind.  On  the  other  hand,  what  Ave  call  "  Mind  "  is  itself 
developed  in  and  through  the  actual  activity  employed  in  the 
soliTtion  of  these  problems.  It  is  the  purpose  of  the  following 
two  chapters  to  sketch  the  principal  features  of  _  this  develop- 
ment. This  sketch  constantly  assumes  a  reference  to  the  ele- 
mentary psychical  processes  already  described  in  detail. 

?  1.  The  word  "perception  "  has  been  variously  employed,  as  tlie  history 
of  psychological  science  shows.'  The  earlier  writers  made  that  vague  and 
general  use  of  the  term  which  still  jn-evails  in  popular  language — as  when  we 
say:  "  I  perceive  your  meaning;  "  or."  I  now  perceive  the  truth  about  the 
matter,"  etc.  Most  recent  writers,  however,  restrict  the  word  to  the  imme- 
diate knowledge  of  external  objects  by  the  senses.  This  at  once  introduces 
the  question:  How  do  sensations  and  perceptions  diflfer?  The  answer  to 
this  question  is  not  only,  in  some  large  degree,  a  test  of  any  author's  entire 
theory  of  sense-perception  ;  it  is  also,  not  infrequently,  an  indication  of  the 
position  which  he  feels  himself  compelled  to  assume  toward  a  number  of 
important  philosophical  inquiries.  A  view  somewhat  widely  prevalent  of 
late  holds  that  sensations  and  perceptions  differ  only  in  respect  of  their  com- 
plexity.*    But  strictly  speaking,  no  statement  could  bo  more  inadequate  and 

'  Compare  HamiltoTi :  Metaphysics,  Lectures  xxi.-xxiv. 

2  Even  Wundt,  whose  whole  theory  of  the  nature  and  development  of  mental  life  would  seem 
opposed  to  the  theories  ordinarily  connected  with  this  statement,  is  found  claiminsx  that  Vorstelhm- 
qen  differ  from  Em]ifindun<jen  only  in  being  composites  of  the  latter,  regarded  as  hypothetical 
eimples ;  and  then  Wahrnehmungen  appear  as  Vorstellungcn  considered  as  referable  to  an  actual 
object.    But  in  estimating  all  this  we  must  remember  the  meaning  which  Wundt  attaches  to  his 

r 


320  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

misleading  than  this.  Sucli  a  view  results,  either  in  denying  the  greater 
part  of  what  really  belongs  to  the  perception  of  things,  or  else  in  putting 
into  the  sensations  a  manifold  of  content  and  powers  which  makes  them 
equivalent  to  the  sum-total  of  all  the  elementary  forms  of  psychical  life. 
That  ideation,  as  well  as  sensation,  is  necessary  to  perception,  has  been  cor- 
rectly asserted  by  various  modern  writers.  Thus  Binet '  defines  perception 
as  "  the  process  by  which  the  mind  completes  an  impression  of  sense  by  an 
escort  of  images."  And  Taine,'-  in  his  usual  lively  and  exaggerated  way, 
has  declared:  "Perception  is  a  tme  hallucination."  (It  involves  an  asso- 
ciation of  resemblance  fusing  with  one  of  contiguity.)  This  need  of  ideation 
to  supplement  sensation,  if  presentations  of  sense  are  to  arise  in  conscious- 
ness, is  more  cautiously  and  elaborately  expressed  by  Sully  in  the  following 
definition  :  ^  "  Perception  is  that  process  by  which  the  mind,  after  discrimi- 
nating and  classing  a  sensation  or  sensation-complex,  supplements  it  by  an 
accomiJaniment  or  escort  of  revived  sensations  (representative  images),  the 
whole  aggregate  of  actual  and  revived  sensations  being  integrated  or  solidi- 
fied into  the  form  of  a  percept." 

It  will  be  noticed,  however,  that  the  definitions  just  given  (and  especially 
the  last)  imply  the  discriminating  and  relating  activity  of  mind  as  necessary 
to  completed  perception.  This  necessity  is  jiarticularly  emphasized  iu  the 
following  (otherwise  uncouth  and  inadequate)  definition  of  Mr.  Spencer :  * 
Perception  is  "a  discerning  of  the  relation  or  relations  between  states  of 
consciousness,  i^artly  presentative  and  partly  representative  ;  which  states  of 
consciousness  must  be  themselves  known  to  the  extent  involved  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  their  relations."  Professor  James  ^  also,  who  starts  his  discussion 
by  emphasizing  the  truth  that  "perception  differs  from  sensation  by  the 
consciousness  of  farther  facts  associated  with  the  object  of  sensation,"  and 
by  denying  that  any  sharp  line  can  be  drawn  "  between  the  barer  and  the 
richer  consciousness,"  himself  constantly  emphasizes  the  judging  activity  in 
his  account  of  the  formation  and  development  of  perceptions.  Indeed,  when 
he  assumes  the  existence  of  an  "object"  with  which  farther  facts  may  be 
"  consciously  associated,"  he  assumes  the  entire  problem  of  perception  as 
already  solved  in  its  principal  and  more  difficult  features.  Dr.  Ward,^  how- 
ever, emphasizes  the  further  processes  needed  to  comjilete  perception  by 
speaking  of  it  as  resulting  from  the  intellectual  synthesis  of  proximately 
elementary  presentations  ;  and  of  this  synthesis  as  determined  primarily  by 
the  movements  of  attention,  which  movements  in  turn  depend  very  largely 
upon  the  pleasure  or  j^ain  which  the  jiresentations  occasion. 

When,  then,  we  define  this  faculty  as  "  the  consciousness  of  external  ob- 
jects through  the  senses,"  we  affirm  that  oW  the  elementary  2'>'>'ocesses  of  con- 
scious mental  life  are  concerned  in  Perception ;  but  the  other  processes  are  to  be 
regarded  as  excited,  directed,  and  determined,  rcitJi  respect  to  the  completed  state 
of  consciousness,  chiefly  by  those  peculiar  modifications  of  consciousness  xchich  ice 
have  hitherto  described  as  sensations. 

words.    (Sec  Physiolog.  Psychologie  (Third  ed.),  I.,  p.  2S9  f.,  and  II.,  p.  1  f.)    The  lanfjuagre  of  the 
fouvtb  and  last  edition  (I.,  p.  181  £.).  however,  implies  a  view  very  closely  resembling  ours. 

'  Psychologie  du  Raisonnement,  p.  10  f.  "  De  rinlelli<ronce,  IT.,  pp.  50  f.  and  12S  t. 

*  The  Human  Mind,  I.,  p.  212.  <  Principles  of  Psychology,  11.,  p.  253. 

»  The  Principles  of  Psychologj',  II.,  p.  76  f.  «  Art.  Psychology,  Encyc.  Brit.,  p.  52. 


GENERAL   CONSIDERATIONS  321 

The  foregoing-  conception  of  the  Origin  and  Development  of 
Presentations  of  Sense  may  serve  to  introduce  the  statement  of 
the  following-  important  general  considerations. 

(1)  Psychology  reg-ards  the  "  external  object,"  with  all  those 
qualities  which  constitute  its  "  externality  "  and  those  relations 
which  it  sustains  to  other  external  objects,  as  the  construction  of 
the  mind  whoso  object  it  is ;  that  is,  this  science  describes  and 
explains  the  2)resentations  of  sense,  like  other  phenomena  of  con- 
sciousness, "  as  such."  IViinys,  regarded  as  in  any  way  inde- 
pendent of  mind — of  the  receptivity  and  constructive  activity 
of  consciousness — may  be  of  interest  to  other  forms  of  scientific 
inquiry.  But  for  psychology  things  have  an  interest  only  as 
they  are  (however  "  externally  objective  ")  psychoses.  In  study- 
ing i^erception,  then,  we  have  to  do  with  tracing-  a  certain  form 
of  the  productive  activity  of  mental  life. 

(2)  It  is  further  apparent,  however,  that  the  very  words,  "  ex- 
ternal object "  (and  these  words  enter  into  any  concei^tion  of 
the  perfected  process  of  sense-perception),  suggest  a  contrast  to 
the  so-called  state  of  consciousness,  as  such — to  describe  and  ex- 
plain which  has  been  said  to  be  the  primary  jDroblem  of  psychol- 
ogy. An  external  object  is  necessarily  regarded  as  "  out  "  of  con- 
sciousness ;  so  far  as  it  is  immediately  knowable  by  the  senses, 
it  is  also  "  spread  out,"  more  or  less  extensively,  in  space.  This 
being-  "  out "  and  "  spread  out "  is  the  very  essence,  so  to  speak,  of 
the  externalit}"  of  the  object.  Hence  our  problem  includes  the 
description  and  explanation  of  the  way  in  which  this  "  externally 
objective"  character  is  acquired  by  certain  psychoses.  In  other 
words,  we  ask  of  science  to  tell  us  how  things  come  to  be  per- 
ceived as  "  out "  of  us,  and  "  spread  out,"  and  related  to  one 
another,  in  space.  But  here  the  psychological  question  must  be 
carefully  distinguished  from  the  philosophical  problems  which 
it  starts,  and  to  which  it  leads  up.  Empirical  psychology  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  metaphysical  problems: — Whether  space 
extra-mentally  exists,  and  real  things  exist  related  in  it,  as  we 
perceive  them  to  be  ;  or,  "What  sort  of  an  extra-mental  existence, 
if  any,  space  and  things  in  it  can  possibly  have.  In  so  far  as 
we  find  belief  in  the  extra-mental  reality  of  space  and  of  things, 
to  be  a  form  of  conscious  mental  life,  it  is,  of  course,  the  business 
of  psychology  to  make  a  note  of  this,  as  of  any  other  phenom- 
enon of  consciousness. 

(3)  Our  problem  is  not,  then,  to  show  how  external  objects 
get  set  by  the  mind  in  an  already  really  existing  and  empty 
space.  For  psychology  "  empty  space  "  is  itself  only  an  abstrac- 
tion, dependent  (as  every  mental  abstraction  is)  on  a  developed 

21 


322  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

activity  of  memory,  imagination,  and  judgment,  in  connection 
with  presentations  of  sense  already  acquired.  In  otlier  words, 
we  neither  make  empty  space,  nor  assume  such  space,  and  then 
put  into  it  our  i^resentations  of  sense.  On  the  contrary,  as  has 
just  been  said,  we  derive  our  conception  of  empty  sjaace  from 
presentations  of  sense.  Still  furtlier  reflection  shows  us  that 
these  same  presentations  of  sense  exist  for  us  as  a  basis  for  the 
process  of  conception,  only  as  they  alreadj^  have  the  characteris- 
tics of  being  "  out  "  of  consciousness,  and  "  sjDread  out  " — in 
space.  And  so  the  problem  recurs  :  How  does  this  immediate 
awareness  of  the  objects  of  sense  as  external  and  extended,  come 
about  ?  For  to  adult  and  developed  consciousness,  all  presenta- 
tions of  sense  have  the  characteristics  of  externality  and  exten- 
sion. Indeed,  sense-perceptions  difier  from  mere  sensation- 
complexes  (if  we  neglect  for  the  moment  the  objective  reference 
of  the  latter)  chiefly  in  resxaect  of  these  important  characteris- 
tics. 

(4)  Strictly  speaking,  however,  what  we  are  seeking  has  to 
be,  at  some  point  in  the  course  of  our  descriptive  and  explan- 
atory science,  assumed  as  already  existing.  What  is  sought 
and  assumed  is  the  externality  and  extensity  of  the  object  pre- 
sented through  the  senses.  Now,  at  some  point  everj'  investi- 
gator is  obliged  to  confess  that  his  data  of  explanation  begin 
to  fail  him.  This  is  necessarily  true  of  all  theories  of  sense- 
perception.  They  all  have  to  make  an  appeal,  in  order  to  find 
an  explanation  of  certain  primary  facts  and  results,  to  the  as- 
sumed but  unexplained  nature  of  the  Mind  itself. 

(5)  It  follows  from  the  foregoing  considerations,  that  the 
constituting  of  presentations  of  sense,  into  extended  and  external 
objects,  is  the  result  of  a  mental  development.  It  is  a  progres- 
sive achievement  of  mind,  a  resultant  of  a  growth  in  knowledge. 
This  achievement  and  growth  are  made  possible  by  the  combined 
action,  in  higher  and  more  complex  forms,  of  all  the  elementary 
psj^chical  iDrocesses.  But  just  as  every  living  being  has,  in  its 
so-called  "nature,"  certain  laws  to  observe,  or  certain  general 
forms  of  development  to  Avhich  it  must  conform,  so  it  is  with 
the  Mind.  In  the  discovery  and  statement  of  these  laws  and 
powers  we  reach  again  the  limits  set  to  scientific  analysis  and  to 
the  explanations  it  affords. 

(6)  Roughly  speaking,  two  principal  stages  in  the  construc- 
tion of  presentations  of  sense  may  be  recognized.  These  are 
not,  however,  distinctly  separable  either  in  time  or  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  eflcet  upon  consciousness  from  the  maturity  of  expe- 
rience which  they  indicate.     They  are  sometimes  called  "  local- 


GENERAL   CONSIDERATIONS  323 

ization  "  and  "  eccentric  projection."  The  former  emphasizes 
the  necessity  for  a  system  of  cog-nitions  relating-  to  the  different 
areas,  both  internal  and  superficial,  of  the  body,  in  order  that 
all  thing's  other  than  the  bodily  members  may  bo  known 
through  the  spatial  relations  they  sustain  to  it.  The  latter  em- 
phasizes the  cognition  of  these  things  as  altogether  external  to 
ourselves  (including-  "  in  ourselves  "  the  entire  bodily  organism), 
and  as  having  spatial  cpialitics  and  spatial  relations  to  one  an- 
other. But  neitlier  of  these  comijlex  processes  can  be  carried 
forward  without  involving  the  other ;  neither  can  be  carried  far 
without  bringing  forward,  in  a  corresponding  manner,  the  other. 
The  child  gets  acquainted  with  its  own  body  and  with  things 
external  to  it,  pari  passu,  as  it  were.  Or  rather,  even  our  pri- 
mary problems  of  perception  are  complex  and  have  reference  to 
these  two  ends  :  to  know  our  own  body,  so  as  to  know  all  other 
things  as  related  to  our  own  body.  At  first,  and  previous  to  a 
considerable  development  of  j)erceptive  experience,  the  child 
neither  knows  things  nor  its  own  body  as  separable  objects. 
All  the  way  along  the  path  of  its  early  development,  it  is  learn- 
ing to  know  things,  as  separable  from  its  own  body,  through 
their  changing  relations  to,  and  effects  upon,  the  body ;  and  it  is 
also  learning  to  know  the  different  parts  of  its  own  body,  as 
separable  from  each  other  and  from  things,  by  the  same  general 
class  of  means. 

(7)  In  all  this  complicated  history  of  the  development  of  per- 
ception, certain  of  the  senses  play  altogether  a  different  part 
from  that  which  can  be  assigned  to  the  others.  It  is  experience 
gained  through  the  eyes,  and  through  the  skin,  muscles,  and 
joints — with  their  constantly  combined  activities  and  conse- 
quent fusion  of  resulting  sensation  -  complexes  —  which  con- 
stitutes the  spatial  qualities  and  relations  of  sensible  objects. 
Through  sight  and  touch  (in  the  extended  meaning  of  the  latter 
word)  alone  does  the  consciousness  of  extended  and  external  ob- 
jects originally  come.  The  other  senses  give  us  only  secondary 
and  inferential  knowledge  of  the  qualities  of  things  as  they  have 
already  been  constructed,  with  their  spatial  qualities  and  rela- 
tions, by  visual  and  tactual  perception.  In  other  words,  pres- 
entations of  sense  are  regarded  as  smellable,  tastable,  audible, 
only  as  we  attribute  the  exciting  cause  of  these  modifications  of 
consciousness  to  external  objects  already  known  as  existing  in 
space  constructed  by  sight  and  touch.  It  follows,  therefore, 
that  the  description  of  the  formation  and  development  of  a  so- 
called  "  field  of  touch  "  and  a  "  field  of  sight,"  covers  the  princi- 
pal part  of  the  psychological  science  of  perception. 


324  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

(8)  And,  finally,  when  we  raise  the  inquiry  as  to  why  sight 
and  touch,  not  only  lead  the  other  senses,  but  really  cover  nearly 
the  whole  field  of  investigation  here,  we  can  give  only  a  partial 
answer.  The  reason  appears,  however,  to  be  connected  with  the 
character  of  the  sensation-complexes,  which  can  be  excited  only 
by  the  activity  of  these  senses.  Only  the  organs  of  the  eye  and 
of  the  skin  (including  muscles  and  joints)  are  capable  of  giving 
rise  to  so-called  "  sjDatial  series  "of  sensation-complexes.  The 
chief  characteristics  of  these  eininently  spatial  series  of  sensa- 
tion-complexes are  the  following  three  :  {a)  They  possess  a  sj-s- 
tem  of  "  local  signs  "  as  the  non-spatial  series  do  not.  How  true 
this  is,  and  in  what  manner  true,  of  sight  and  touch — the  so- 
called  "  geometrical  senses  " — has  already  been  sufficiently  ex- 
plained (see  chap.  viii).  (J)  Spatial  series,  or  such  as  are 
adapted  to  combine  into  external  and  extended  objects  of  sense, 
must  admit  of  easy,  frequent,  and  rapid  repetition,  in  varying 
order  of  arrangement.  These  characteristics,  too,  belong  chiefly 
to  sensation-complexes  of  the  eye  and  skin — including  the  mus- 
cles and  joints,  (c)  Two  spatial  series  of  sensation-complexes 
when  experienced  simultaneously  or  in  close  succession  (that 
is,  when  entering  into  the  same  field  of  consciousness — in  the 
broadest  meaning  of  this  term),  must  be  comparable  and  asso- 
ciable  with  each  other.  Only  thus  can  that  unity  which  belongs 
to  objects  of  sense,  as  resulting  from  the  intellectual  activities 
already  described,  be  secured.  Here,  again,  the  two  geometri- 
cal senses  are  incomparably  superior  to  the  other  senses. 

It  may  be  declared,  then,  in  a  preliminary  way,  that  the  fol- 
lowing is  a  brief  history  of  the  formation  of  every  presentation 
of  sense  :  Two  of  more  series  of  sensation-complexes,  having 
the  characteristics  of  spatial  series,  and  belonging  to  the  same 
or  to  different  organs  of  sense,  occur  simultaneously  or  in  im- 
mediate succession  ;  they  are  frequently  repeated  in  close  con- 
junction in  consciousness,  and  are  associated  with  conative 
impulses  that  result  in  movements  of  accommodation  ;  repre- 
sentative images  and  traces  of  conative  impulse,  due  to  this  fre- 
quent repetition,  become  fused  with,  and  are  suggested  by, 
similar  sensation-complexes  in  every  new  experience  ;  feelings 
of  interest,  expectation,  etc.,  become  the  habitual  affective  ac- 
companiments of  this  comjilicated  "  mass "  of  sensation-  and 
ideation-elements  ;  and  discriminating  and  reflating  conscious- 
ness is  ever  active  (comparing,  assimilating,  diflerentiating)  to 
accomplish  the  higher  unifying  process  which  is  also  necessary 
to  the  cognition  of  all  objects  of  sense. 

In  the  development  of  perception  two  things  are  especially  to 


NATIVISTS   AND   EMPIRICISTS  325 

be  noticed  :  First,  the  relative  amount  of  sensation-complexes 
that  have  a  genuine  peripheral  orig-in,  becomes  smaller  ;  the 
relative  amount  due  to  manifold  revived  ideas,  and  to  subtle  and 
rapid  judgments  habitually  jDerformed,  becomes  greater.'  Phys- 
iologically expressed :  Perception  becomes  more  and  more 
brainy,  rather  than  external-organic.  Psychologically  expressed  : 
Perception  becomes  more  and  more  a  matter  of  ideation  and  of 
quick  inference,  rather  than  the  mere  having  of  sensation-com- 
plexes. But,  second,  the  development  of  interest  in  discrimina- 
tion, and  of  power  to  discriminate  in  a  more  varied  and  accurate* 
way,  results  in  enlarging  the  content  of  the  sensation-comjilexes 
(the  observed  traits  of  the  object  of  perception)  that  enter  into 
the  presentations  of  sense.  Increase  iii  the  wealth  of  sensxious 
details,  and  higher  ideal  and  intellectual  quality,  hoth  helong  to  tJie 
2)ossihilitics  of  developed  sense-perception. 

§  2.  It  lias  been  customary  to  speak  of  one  class  of  theorists,  in  the  mat- 
ter of  sense-perception,  as  Nativists  and  of  another  class  as  Empiricists. 
By  a  "  nativist  "  we  understand  one  who  assumes  the  cognition  of  the  spa- 
tial attributes  and  relations  of  objects  of  sense  as  a  "  native  "  (unacquired) 
power  of  the  mind  ;  and  who,  therefore,  denies  the  possibility  of  acquiring 
by  experience  the  so-called  "  intuition  of  si)ace."  By  "empiricists,"  on  the 
other  hand,  we  understand  those  who  hold  that  this  peculiar  form  of  cogni- 
tion is  acquired  ;  and  who  are  piqued  by  the  admission  that  we  have  to 
limit  our  scientific  explanations  anywhere  by  an  appeal  to  the  so-called 
native  (unacquired)  power  of  the  mind.  Among  extreme  nativists  we 
might  properly  class  the  entire  Scottish  school,  who,  on  the  basis  of  the 
testimony  of  crude,  unanalyzed,  adult  consciousness,  teach  that  all  kinds  of 
sensations  (those  of  smell,  taste,  and  hearing  included)  are  from  the  first 
intuited  as  external  and  extended  objects  of  sense.  (Iji  the  case  of  some  of 
these  writers,  the  object  thus  immediately  intuited  is  said  to  be  the  "ex- 
cited sensorium  ;  "  as  though  an  immediate  knowledge  of  the  organism  of 
sense,  itself  out  and  spread-out  of  consciousness,  belonged  to  the  most 
IH'imitive  activities  of  all  the  senses — a  position  than  which  nothing  could 
well  be  more  diflicult  of  proof.)  A  modern  and  modified  form  of  nativism 
has  been  advocated  with  great  skill  and  learning  by  Stumpf  in  Germany,  Dr. 
Ward  in  England,  and  Professor  James  in  this  country.  These  writers  agree 
in  attributing  "extensive  magnitude,"  "  voluminousness,"  or  "bigness," 
from  the  very  first  to  some  or  to  all  of  the  sensations.  On  the  other  hand 
(not  to  speak  of  the  loss  modern  views  of  the  Mills,  etc.),  extreme  empiri- 
cists, like  Bain  and  Spencer,  regard  the  space-intuition,  so-called,  as  de- 
rived wholly,  or  chiefly,  from  siiccessive  exi')eriences  of  muscular  movement. 
Every  theory  of  the  formation  and  development  of  presentations  of  sense  is 
obliged  to  define  itself  with  reference  to  these  two  classes  of  extremists. 

In  truth  the  advocates  of  neither  of  these  extreme  views  succeed  in  over- 
throwing the  fundamental  positions  of  the  other  side,  so  far  as  the  positions 

I  On  this  subject,  see  Herbart,  Psychologic  als  Wissenschaft,  n.,  p  368  f. 


326  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

are  constructive  and  jiositive.  The  nativist  cannot  well  deny  the  evidence 
•which  observation  and  experiment,  accompanied  by  analysis,  bring  to  bear 
upon  the  history  of  the  development  of  sense-perception.  These  must  cer- 
tainly be  trusted  as  to  the /acts,  so  far  as  we  can  get  at  them  ;  and  the  a^)- 
i:)eal  from  science  to  the  testimony  of  "  common-sense,"  of  crude,  unana- 
lyzed,  adult  consciousness,  for  the  decision  of  questions  which  concern  the 
very  nature  of  the  development  of  the  aforesaid  consciousness,  is  quite 
unwarrantable.  This — as  it  appears  to  us — is  what  not  only  the  old-fash- 
ioned Scottish  common-sense  realism,  but  the  nativism  of  writers  like  Dr. 
Ward  and  Professor  James  is  constantly  doing.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
empiricist  cannot  well  deny  that  whenever,  and  however,  successive  experi- 
ences of  sensation-complexes  (regarded  as  subjective  occurrences  in  the 
time-flow  of  consciousness)  are  ai^prehended  as  external  and  extended 
objects,  some  wholly  7iew  aspect,  or  set  of  attributes,  is  at  once  assumed  as 
belonging  to  the  aforesaid  sensation-comi^lexes.  In  other  words,  viere  com- 
binations of  unextended  and  internal  sensations,  regarded  as  such,  can  nevet' 
explain  the  arising  in  conscioitsness  of  objects  cognized  as  extended  and  external. 
Thus  it  may  be  said  that  writers  like  Bain  and  Spencer  are  constantly  smug- 
gling in  the  very  thing  which  they  set  themselves  the  task  of  explaining. 

So  far,  then,  as  the  construction  of  a  theory  of  jjerception  by  the  senses 
is  concerned,  the  claims  of  both  nativists  and  empiricists,  as  made  against 
each  other,  must  largely  be  admitted  to  be  true.  In  brief,  we  must  hold 
with  the  latter  against  the  former,  that  to  limit  the  explanations  of  psychol- 
ogy with  respect  to  the  stages  by  which,  the  time  at  whicli,  and  the  senses 
by  which  the  construction  of  space-intuitions  takes  place,  and  resort  to 
so-called  "  common-sense,"  or  "every  man's  consciousness,"  is  to  abandon 
the  attempt  at  science.  But  we  must  also  hold  with  the  nativists  against  the 
empiricists  that  all  description  and  explanation  with  reference  to  times  and 
stages  and  methods  of  acquiring  space-intuitions  cannot  dispense  with  the 
assumption  of  a  peculiar  and  unique  activity  of  mind.  So  far,  however,  as 
facts  are  concerned,  both  extreme  nativists  and  extreme  empiricists  are  often 
plainly  in  the  wrong.  One  party  is  apt  to  be  warped  in  one  way,  the  other  in 
the  opi^osite  way,  by  the  exigencies  of  theory.  Thus  when  Dr.  Ward,  in  the 
name  of  common-sense,  or  of  adult  consciousness,  attributes  "  extensity  "  to 
the  most  primitive  sensation-complexes  of  other  senses  than  sight  and 
touch,  he  is  raising  a  question  of  fact.  The  claim  of  extensity  for  primitive 
sensations  of  smell  and  taste,  as  such,  seems  to  be  disjiroved  both  by  exjier- 
imental  science  and  by  the  language  of  ordinary  experience.  But  when 
Bain  and  Spencer  claim  that  all  consciousness  of  objects  as  having  external- 
ity and  extensity,  by  sight,  is  indirect  only  and  meaningless  except  as  trans- 
lated into  terms  of  successive  tactual  and  muscular  sensations,  they,  in  their 
turn,  come  face  to  face  with  certain  facts  that  contravene  their  theory. 
Wlien,  again.  Professor  James  '  holds  that  movement  is  not  necessary  to 
space-consciousness,  but  only  renders  it  more  distinct,  regarded  as  already 
acquired,  he,  too,  is  raising  a  question  of  fact ;  and  on  this  question  of  fact 
the  experimental  evidence  seems  to  be  adverse  to  his  view. 

But,  once  more,  certain  questions  of  fact  in  dispute  between  the  nativists 
audthc  empiricists — and  among  them  the  most  fundamental  and  necessary  to 

'  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  11.,  p.  173  f. 


PEliCEPTIONS   OF   SMELL   AND   TASTE  327 

a  thoroughly  sati.sfactoiy  theory — are— alas !  probably  incapable  of  beiug 
answered  with  much  confidence.  For  exami^le  :  How  do  things  look  and 
feel  to  a  baby  before  it  really  has  the  power  to  perceive  any  visual  or  tactual 
thing?  Or — perhaps  better  :  llow  shall  we  conceive  of  the  beginnings  of  that 
exi)erieuce,  in  terms  of  which,  only  after  it  is  highly  developed,  we  are 
obliged  to  construct  all  our  concejjtions  ?  For  their  dealing  with  such 
questions  as  these  Sully  '  appears  to  be  quite  justified  in  accusing  Dr.  Ward 
and  Professor  James  of  assuming  "  a  psychological  impossibility,  A'iz.,  a  con- 
sciousness of  abstract  space  or  room  without  any  rudimentary  discrimination 
of  jiarticular  parts  or  regions,  directions  or  distances  "  ("general  extensity, "  or 
"  bigness,"  that  is  no  particular  extensity  or  bigness — like  a  "buzzing  sound 
in  the  ear  "  that  is  really  not  a  "  buzzing  "  and  not  known  as  "in  the  ear  "). 

Among  the  problems  of  fact  that  are  in  debate  between  the  nativist  and 
the  empiricist,  but  are  capable  of  only  a  doubtful  answer,  we  note  the  fol- 
lowing three  :  (1)  Do  sensation-complexes  which  include  no  motor  ele- 
ments— either  in  the  form  of  so-called  sensations  of  motion,  or  of  sensations 
of  position  resulting  from  previously  excited  sensations  of  motion — ever 
possess  primarily  the  attribute  of  extensity  ?  This  inquiry  we  incline  to 
answer  negatively,  for  reasons  already  given  in  part,  and  for  others  soon 
to  be  brought  forward.  At  any  rate,  on  this  point  the  affirmative  jjositiou 
of  the  nativist  can  adduce  no  clearly  proveu  facts.  (2)  Have  the  most  prim- 
itive sensations  of  light  and  color  the  attribute  of  extensity,  or  do  they 
acquire  this  attribute  through  experience  in  the  use  of  an  exploring  point 
of  regard  with  a  moving  eye  ?  To  this  question  of  fact,  also,  only  a  doubt- 
ful answer  can  be  given.  It  is  true  that  motion  is  actually  furnished  as  an 
accompaniment  from  the  first,  of  the  excitement  of  the  local  signs  of  the 
retina ;  and  we  shall  find  that  a  moving  point  of  regard  is  exceedingly  in- 
fluential in  delimiting  by  the  eye  all  spatial  qualities  and  relations  for  adult 
consciousness.  On  the  whole,  then,  we  are  inclined  to  affirm  that  discrimi- 
nating consciousness  and  practice  with  a  moving  eye  are  necessaiy  in  order 
that  light-  and  color-sensations  may  acquire  extensity.-  (3)  Is  the  percep- 
tion of  the  extension  and  contours  of  motionless  objects  by  the  skin  depend- 
ent upon  revived  and  associated  images  of-  past  sensations,  originally  partly 
muscular  and  occasioned  by  active  touch  with  moving  organs?  The  reply 
to  this  question  falls  partly  iinder  the  reply  to  the  first  question.  Passive- 
ly and  actively  induced  sensations  of  muscles  and  skin — and  even  these  only 
after  repetition,  association  and  discrimination — acquire  extensity  in  the 
process  of  the  development  of  mental  life. 

In  fine,  we  agree  with  Sully'  in  holding  that  "whatever  the  precise  nat- 
ure of  this  primitive  '  massiveness '  "  (attributed  unwarrantably  by  the  ex- 
treme nativists  to  the  most  primitive  sensation-complexes  of  every  sense)  "  it 
seems  reasonable  to  conclude  that  it  requires  the  incorporation  of  motor 
ideas  before  it  becomes  spatial  as  we  understand  the  term." 

Perceptions  of  Smell  and  Taste,  as  such,  have  no  extensity  or 
externality  whatever.    They  differ  only  in  qualit}',  intensit}',  dura- 

'  The  Human  Mind.  I.,  p.  227. 

2  Readers  of  the  author's  Elements  of  Physiological  Psycho'ogy  will  notice  that  th:8  position  Is 
less  n.ati\istic  than  that  taken  there,  p.  425  f. 

3  Ibid.,  I.,  p.  221. 


328  PERCEPTIOJf   BY   THE   SENSES 

tion,  and  accompanying  tone  of  feeling  ;  tliey  are  localized  only 
indirectly  on  account  of  their  connection  with  tactual  and  mus- 
cular sensation-complexes  ;  and  they  are  attributed  as  qualities 
to  objects  only  by  a  system  of  secondary  and  doubtful  infer- 
ences. The  series  of  sensations  which  originate  on  repeated 
stimulation  of  the  organs  of  smell  and  taste — that  is,  the  purely 
olfactory  and  gustatory  sensations  as  distinguished  from  the 
accompanying  sensations  of  other  kinds  with  which  they  fuse — 
are  "  non-spatial."  They  are  lacking  in  a  system  of  local 
signs  ;  they  do  not  admit  of  easy,  rapid,  and  frequent  repetition 
in  a  graded  order ;  they  are  not  comparable  and  associable  with 
each  other  or  with  spatial  series  of  other  senses.  Hence  they  are 
unfit  for  use  in  acquiring  an  immediate  awareness  of  extended 
and  external  objects.  They  have  also  in  general  a  peculiarly 
flickering  and  vibratory  tone.  Their  principal  office  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  mental  life  is  due  to  their  reproductive  energy 
— this  being  especially  true  of  perceptions  of  smell.  In  many 
of  the  lower  animals  they  possess  a  great  biological  value  on 
account  of  their  connection  with  the  preservation  of  the  life  of 
the  individual  and  the  propagation  of  the  species.  But  in  the 
case  of  civilized  man  their  value  is  chiefly  semi-assthetical. 
Hence  the  knowledge  gained  by  these  perceptions  is,  in  a  meas- 
ure, of  the  nature  of  a  superfluity.  But  when  cultivated  by  dis- 
criminating attention  upon  a  basis  of  a  rich  organic  and  sen- 
suous development,  much  curious  information  regarding  the 
properties  of  things  may  be  indirectly  gained  by  perceptions 
of  smell  and  taste. 

^  3.  Percei^tioa  by  the  nose  as  the  organ  of  smell  is  indirect,  olfactory 
sensations  being  localized  there  and  acquiring  their  organic  volumiuons- 
ness  through  the  accompanying  muscular  and  tactual  sensations.  This 
is  easily  accomplished  as  an  intellectual  act,  since  we  sniff  in  the  air 
through  the  nostrils  and  note  its  effect  in  producing  both  non-sjiatial 
olfactory,  and  spatial  muscular  ancl  tactual  sensations.  Two  qualitatively 
and  quantitatively  discernible  olfactory  sensation-comjilexes  do  not  appear 
capable  of  being  placed  "  side  by  side,"  as  it  were,  in  the  field  of  con- 
sciousness. In  case  of  the  simultaneous  influence  of  two  smells  (as  Val- 
entin showed),  the  stronger  overwhelms  the  weaker.  Perceptions  of  smell 
have  then  to  be  compared  "  in  time  "  and  not  "  in  space,"  as  successive  and 
not  as  contiguous.  Such  perceptions  give  us  no  immediate  awareness  of 
the  qualities  of  objects  as  external  and  extended.  The  direction  and  char- 
acter of  smellable  objects  is  judged  or  inferred,  in  a  secondary  way,  by  the 
intensity  and  quality  of  the  sensations,  as  we  turn  the  head,  approach  to  or 
recede  from  the  objoct,  etc. 

How  different  objects  smell  (the  percojition  of  objects  by  smell)  is  a  kind 
of  knowledge  which  admits  of  a  high  degree  of  cultivation  on  the  basis  of  a 


I 


PEliOEPTIONS   OF   SMELL   AND   TASTE  329 

great  variety  of  natural  gifts,  so  called.  Here  the  degree  of  discrimination 
and  the  fcsthetical  value  of  the  sensations  vary  often  in  inverse  ratio.  The 
lower  animals  and  lower  races  of  men  obtain  information  through  the  nose, 
of  which  most  civilized  men  are  incapable.  Thus  Haller  states  that  the 
negroes  of  the  Antilles  can  distinguish  by  smell  the  footstejis  of  a  negro 
from  those  of  a  Frenchman ;  and  Humboldt  affirms  that  the  Peruvian  Ind- 
ians distinguish  in  the  same  way  the  race  to  which  an  approaching  stranger 
belongs.  We  have  already  (p.  13G)  called  attention  to  the  S2:)ecial  acuteness 
of  olfactory  perceptions — amounting  sometimes  to  an  astonishing  idiosyn- 
crasy— possessed  by  some  hypnotic  subjects,  or  by  individuals  who  have  had 
a  highly  specialized  development  in  this  direction.  It  is  said  that  the 
mysterious  Caspar  Hauser  could  perceive  the  leaves  of  different  fruit-trees 
by  smell ;  and  persons  blind  and  deaf-mute  have  been  known  to  acquire  re- 
markable faculty  in  discrimination  along  the  line  of  this  sense. 

g  4.  Perceptions  of  taste,  if  we  disregard  the  ceaselessly  accompanying 
perceptions  of  passive  and  active  touch,  with  a  tongue  that  moves  and 
over  which  iho  tastable  substance  is  moved,  are  of  an  order  similar  to  those 
of  smell.  If  we  lay  two  tastable  substances,  a  sour  mass  and  a  bitter  mass, 
on  two  different  areas  of  the  tongue,  as  objects  of  tactile  perception,  they 
may  be  discriminated  in  space  as  two.  But  as  tastable,  the  two  will  either 
have  to  neutralize  each  other,  or  become  compared  in  time  as  one  taste  pre- 
dominates over  the  other.  Tastes,  like  smells,  cannot  be  made  to  lie  side  by 
side  in  the  field  of  consciousness.  On  account  of  the  constant  accompani- 
ment of  tactual  and  muscular  sensations,  tastable  substances  are  necessarily 
perceived  as  "in  the  mouth  ;  "  we  do  not  need  to  exjjlore  siirrounding  space 
to  find  out  where  or  what  they  are.  But  the  character  of  that  intellectual 
activity  by  which,  on  a  basis  of  repeated  exi^eriences,  we  perceive  the  qual- 
ities of  things  by  taste,  is  in  principle  the  same  as  that  which  applies  to 
the  more  subtile  and  evanescent  sense  of  smell.  No  immediate  awareness  of 
an  extended  and  external  object  comes  through  the  gustatory  sensations 
alone  ;  their  series  is  "  non-spatial." 

The  develoi^ment  of  perceijtions  of  taste  differs,  however,  from  that  of 
smell,  in  some  important  particulars.  The  sesthetical  value  which  tastes 
have,  in  the  culture  of  the  individual  and  of  the  race,  is  far  more  universally 
influential.  Among  highly  civilized  people  relatively  few  get  any  training 
in  nice  perception  of  delicate  perfumes  ;  and  even  odorous  flowers  are  cus- 
tomarily prized  more  for  their  looks  than  for  their  smell.  But  the  great 
body  of  civilized  men  become  "  particular"  with  respect  to  the  discriminated 
character  of  their  gustatory  sensations  ;  and  how  things  edible  and  drinkable 
taste  is  for  every  individual  an  important  practical  question.  As  good  dining 
becomes  more  closely  connected  with  sanitary  considerations,  as  well  as  with 
the  pleasure-pains  of  gustatory  sensations,  a  large  general  development  and 
an  astonishing  special  acuteness  of  perception  are  the  imjiortant  results. 
And  if  o\iY  modern  epicures  cannot  equal  the  Roman  epicures,  who  professed 
to  know,  by  taste,  where  the  fish  was  caught  and  on  which  leg  a  i^artridge 
had  slept ;  our  tea-tasters  and  wine-merchants,  etc.,  as  well  as  the  multitude 
of  the  peojile,  are  jierhaps  becoming  sufficiently  "intellectnal,"  as  well  as 
festhetical,  on  the  side  of  development  ministered  to  by  this  sense. ^ 

'  On  the  entire  eubjcct,  see  Brillat-Savarin :  Physiologic  du  Gout,  translated  into  German  by 
Carl  Vogt,  and  into  English  by  Anderson. 


330  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

Perceptions  of  Hearing  are,  in  some  respects,  confessedh' 
more  difficult  to  deal  with  in  terms  of  a  tlieory  wliicli  denies 
original  extensity  or  voluminousness  to  auditory  sensations. 
There  is,  however,  sufficient  ground  for  maintaining  that  ob- 
jects are  perceived  as  external  and  extended,  by  the  ear,  only 
through  a  complicated  system  of  indirect  references.  These 
references  are  dependent  upon  associated  spatial  series  of  a 
tactual  and  muscular  sort.  In  other  words,  objects  perceived 
as  sonorous  have,  in  so  far  as  they  are  sonorous  simply,  no 
spatial  qualities  or  relations.  But  sensations  of  sound  are 
localized  in  the  bodily  organ  as  more  or  less  "  acute  "  or  "  mas- 
sive," or  else  they  are  projected  into  space  as  more  or  less  dis- 
tant ;  and  they  are  attributed  to  extended  and  external  objects 
as  belonging  to  them — in  complete  dependence  on  the  space- 
constituting  activity  of  eye,  skin,  and  muscles.  We  acquire  the 
perception  of  sounds,  as  "  in  the  ear,"  only  after  we  have  arrived 
at  the  perception  of  this  bodily  member  in  terms  of  touch. 
Even  then  we  localize  sounds,  as  in  the  ear,  or  as  external  to  our 
bodies,  by  means  of  their  tactual  accompaniments,  or  by  our 
acquired  knowledge  of  the  intensity  and  quality  appropriate 
to  so-called  "entotic"or  to  external  sounds.  The  voluminous- 
ness which  sounds  have,  considered  as  apart  from  variations  in 
complex  quality  and  intensity,  depends  upon  associated  tactual 
and  muscular  sensations  with  their  affective  accompaniments. 
While  it  is  true  that  in  adult  experience  we  orient  ourselves  in 
space  and  perceive  the  direction  of  sounds  with  great  speed  and 
considerable  precision,  yet  this,  too,  is  as  an  acquired  art  differ- 
ing in  different  persons  and  dependent  upon  attention  to,  and 
previous  experience  of,  the  tactual  and  muscular  accompani- 
ments. The  complete  set  of  data  in  the  form  of  sensation- 
complexes,  upon  the  basis  of  which  this  acquired  art  of  inter- 
pretation takes  place,  is  not,  however,  as  yet  experimentally 
determined. 

?  5.  In  answer  to  the  question,  How  do  we  localize  sounds  witli  respect  to 
our  own  bodily  organism  ?  the  character  of  so-called  "entotic  sounds  "  has 
an  important  bearing.  Such  sounds  are  caused  by  some  form  of  stimulus 
arising  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  organ,  within  the  body  (the  vibration  of 
adjoining  muscles,  the  whirring  of  blood  in  the  blood-vessels,  the  singing 
in  the  cars  due  to  cerebral  excitement,  etc.)  ;  but  whether  we  localize  them 
in  the  ear,  or  external  to  the  body,  depends  upon  difficult  and  compli- 
cated judgments.  Few  persons,  of  the  many  troubled  in  this  way,  have  not 
been  puzzled  to  know  whether  their  morning  dose  of  quinine  or  a  cricket  in 
the  window  was  accountable  for  a  tormenting  and  persistent  Inizzing  in 
the  ears.  In  certain  pathological  cases  the  i^owcr  to  distinguish  between 
entotic  and  external  sounds  is  wholly  lost.     On  the  other  hand,  persons 


PERCEPTIONS   OF   HEARING  331 

who  Lave  good  powers  of  abstraction  and  a  liigh  sDstlietical  interest  in  mu- 
sical sounds  can,  so  to  speak,  call  them,  as  sounds,  almost  or  quite  entirely 
from  "  without  "  (in  any  sense  of  the  word)  into  the  veiy  purest  life  of  the 
soul.  Then  one  is  for  tiie  moment  wholly  unconscious  of  the  objective  as- 
pect of  these  sensations ;  one's  life  becomes  subjective,  a  succession  of 
states  in  time,  each  of  which  is  characterized  by  a  sort  of  being  in  the  sweet 
sounds.  Experience  is  then  better  described,  not  by  saying,  I  hear  such 
and  such  sounds  with  or  in  the  ear  ;  but  I  live,  in  time,  in  the  succession  of 
sounds.  There  is  here  no  awareness,  either  immediate  or  indirect,  of  the 
qualities  of  acoustic  objects  ;  but  a  self -being,  determined  in  time,  as  a 
succession  of  sensation-states.  Hence  it  is  customary  to  speak  of  music  as 
the  most  "  interior  "  of  all  the  arts.  But  to  look  at  the  musicians,  or  to  con- 
verse with  a  friend  about  the  music,  involves  a  totally  difiterent  and  a  truly 
objective  process  of  ijerception. 

Again,  the  terms  "  acute  "  (or  "  piercing,"  and  the  like)  and  "massive  " 
or  "  voluminous  "  (like  the  notes  of  the  base  clef),  refer  to  tactual  and  mus- 
cular accompaniments  of  auditory  sensation-complexes.  This  becomes  per- 
fectly plain  when  we  select  extreme  instances.  When,  for  example,  I  stand 
near  a  door  which  is  violently  slammed,  or  a  cannon  which  is  fired,  the.  most 
impressive  part  of  the  total  experience  is  that  the  side  of  my  head  seems  to 
be  struck  a  blow,  or  that  my  entire  body  (and  especially  the  internal  organs) 
is  set  vibrating.  It  is  obvio;;s  that  the  very  words  acute  and  piercing  are 
taken  from  our  experience  with  touch.  In  this  connection  it  should  be 
remembered  that  the  ear,  as  an  organ  of  touch,  unlike  the  eye,  has  no  means 
of  protecting  itself  against  the  assaults  made  upon  it,  by  the  stimulus.  It 
cannot  escape  by  motion  or  cover  itself  uj? ;  it  must  stand  and  take  what 
comes.  Thus  it  is  not  only  excited  as  the  end-organ  of  auditoiy  sensations, 
but  also  more  or  less  shaken  as  an  end-organ  of  other  sensations. 

As  to  the  data  for  localization  of  sounds,  as  respects  direction  and  dis- 
tance in  surrounding  space,  two  things  appear  indisputable.  The  "sur- 
rounding space  "  is  not  a  construction,  either  immediate  or  indirect,  of  the 
ear.  Furthermore,  our  inferences  as  to  distance  and  direction  of  sounds  are 
particularly  liable  to  mistake.  This  latter  fact  is  due  to  the  complication  of 
data  by  use  of  which  such  speedy  and  seemingly  immediate  consciousness  is 
gained.  For  example,  Miinsterberg,'  experimenting  with  three  clicks  of  a 
stem-winding  watch,  found  (1)  that  the  maximum  of  accuracy  in  the  hori- 
zontal circle  was  in  front,  where  a  change  of  less  than  1°  Avas  frequently 
recognized  ;  but  the  accuracy  declined  continuously  to  just  behind,  where 
nearly  6'  variation  might  be  unrecognized.  (2)  In  the  frontal  vertical  cir- 
cle accuracy  was  greatest  directly  opposite  each  ear,  and  directly  above  and 
below  the  central  points  of  the  head.  (3)  In  the  median  circle  the  maximum 
accuracy  was  45°  below  the  horizon.  His  general  conclusion  was  that  our 
perception  is  influenced  by  the  character  of  the  disturbances  in  the  semi- 

'  RauniMnn  des  Ohrcs.  Beitrlige,  etc..  Heft  2,  1889.  Dr.  Gelle  (L'Encephale.  1SS7,  No.  1)  tells  of 
a  subject  of  Charcot,  afllicted  with  general  anaesthesia  of  the  skin,  extending  to  the  external 
meatus  and  the  tympani  of  both  ears,  so  as  to  be  absolutely  insensitive  to  contact  and  pain,  who 
could  hfar  perfectly  well  the  tick  of  a  walch.  but  with  closed  eyes  could  not  tell  on  ichich  side  of  the 
ear  it  icas.  Hence,  he  argues,  that  the  sensibility  of  the  skin,  as  stimulated  by  the  vibrating  current, 
gives  the  sense  not  only  of  direction,  but  of  exteriority,  to  sound.  This  patient  could  not  locate 
even  in  which  ear.    Other  similar  cases  have  existed. 


332  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

circular  canals,  as  reflexly  connected  with  the  memory-images  of  the  move- 
ments necessary  to  bring  the  point  whence  the  sound  comes  into  the  median 
plane  of  the  head  where  hearing  is  most  distinct.  Another  experimenter 
(Preyer)  found  that  right  and  left  were  rarely  confused,  and  location  in  the 
median  plane  quite  accurately  determined.  The  greatest  errors,  amounting 
sometimes  to  180°,  occurred  in  the  front  and  back  positions.  He  was  led  to 
conclude  that  the  means  of  locating  sounds  are  chiefly  to  be  found  in  the 
relative  intensities  of  the  stimulations  given  to  the  nerves  of  the  different 
ampullae  and  semicircular  canals. 

It  is  a  general  principle  that  sound  is  located  ujjon  the  side  on  which  it 
is  most  intensely  heard  ;  and  if  both  sides  are  equally  intense,  then  in  the 
median  plane.  K.  L.  Schafer '  found  that  with  beats  of  equal  intensity  in 
both  ears  the  sound  may  even  be  located  in  the  middle  of  the  head.  When 
using  both  ears,  and  at  the  same  time  moving  the  head  freely  in  space,  the 
direction  of  sound  appears  to  be  determined  by  differences  in  the  intensity 
of  the  sensations  as  dependent  upon  changes  in  the  relative  positions  of  the 
ears.  Eayleigh  found  that  the  perception  of  the  direction  of  a  word  was 
more  accurate  than  that  of  a  musical  sound  ;  this  is  j)robably  due  to  the 
greater  amount  of  discriminable  change  that  can  be  produced  in  the  sensa- 
tion-complexes. It  is  sometimes  found  that  on  conducting  an  intermittent 
current  from  a  telephone  through  both  ears  the  i^erception  of  tone  may  be 
localized  in  the  median  plane  of  the  head. 

On  the  whole,  then,  experiment  with  localization  of  the  direction  of 
sounds  in  surrounding  space,  while  there  is  still  something  obsciire  about  the 
complete  data  for  such  localization,  tends  to  show  the  determining  effect  of 
tactual  and  muscular  rather  than  auditory  sensations.  It  is  by  tactual  and 
muscular  exercises,  and  j)ractice  gained  by  such  exercises,  that  our  auditory  sen- 
sation-coviplexes  are  localized  in  a  space  already  constructed  by  activity  of  eye, 
muscles,  and  skin. 

"  Space-intuitions "  of  Touch  (including-  in  this  word  the 
activity  of  skin,  muscles,  and  joints)  result  from  the  prog-ressive 
solution  of  two  closely  connected  classes  of  problems.  The  first 
of  these  concerns  the  perception  of  one's  own  body — of  the  "  lo- 
cality "  to  which  any  i:»articular  series  of  sensuous  modifications 
of  consciousness  shall  be  referred  In  adult  life  we  find  our- 
selves immediately  aware  of  the  places,  in  a  general  system  of 
localized  sense-experiences,  to  which  our  tactual  sensations  are 
to  be  assigned.  Grown-up  people  do  not  have  unlocalized  sen- 
sations of  pressure,  of  temperature,  and  of  the  muscular  or  joint 
order.  They  rather  perceive  some  definite  extent  of  the  skin  to 
be  pressed  upon  ;  or,  that  it  is  the  back,  arms,  or  legs,  which  are 
cold  or  warm  ;  or,  that  tliis  or  the  other  particular  limb  is  mov- 
ing so  far  in  a  definite  direction,  or  has  reached  such  a  position 
of  rest,  and  no  other.  We  can  tell  quite  prompth^  and  positively 
just  where  Ave  are  pricked,  pinched,  cut,  burned,  etc.     Further 

>  Zcitschrift  t.  Psychologic  u.  Physiologic  d.  Slnnesorgane,  i.,  Heft  2,  1890. 


I 


PERCEPTIONS   OF   TOUCH  333 

more,  we  can  more  or  less  definitely  localize  and  iDerceivo  the 
character  of  the  changes  that  go  on  in  some  of  the  internal  cav- 
ities of  our  body.  Everything-,  however,  which  we  know  about 
the  beginnings  and  development  of  sense-experience  convinces 
us  that  this  immediate  awareness  of  locality  did  not  always  exist. 
Indeed  we  have  already  adopted  the  view  that  not  only  is  the 
entire  field  of  touch  the  result  of  a  constructive  development,  but 
also  that  without  discriminating  consciousness  attendant  upon 
those  local  signs  which  vary  with  active  and  passive  movement, 
the  sensatiou-comi^lexes  of  the  skin  would  acquire  no  extensity. 
It  is  necessary,  then,  to  show  briefly  how,  on  the  basis  of  data  and 
activities  already  described,  the  "localization"  (in  the  Avidest 
meaning  of  this  word)  of  our  bodily  surfaces  and  members  is 
developed  by  this  sense. 

But  another  class  of  perceptions  by  the  skin,  muscles,  and 
joints  demands  an  account  of  their  development  at  the  hands  of 
the  student  of  psychology.  These  perceptions  constitute  much 
of  our  complex  knowledge  of  the  qualities  and  spatial  relations 
of  other  bodies  than  our  own,  of  things  outside  of  us.  Bodies 
that  can  be  laid,  or  pressed,  against  our  skin  become  known  as 
extended,  with  a  rather  vague  delimitation,  to  touch.  But  if  we 
can  trace  out  their  outlines  with  a  slowly  moving  finger  or  hand, 
and  with  careful  attention,  the  delimitation  becomes  much  more 
clear  and  accurate.  By  pulling  at  or  piishing  against  things 
we  perceive  them  as  external,  as  solid,  heavy,  and  as  fixed  or 
movable.  Again,  it  is  by  touch  and  its  accompaniment  of  vary- 
ing muscular  and  joint  sensations  that  we  determine  the  texture 
and  constitution  of  other  bodies  —  whether  they  are  soft  or  hard, 
smooth  or  rough,  fluid  or  viscous,  or  firm  at  the  surface,  warm  or 
cold,  moist  or  dry,  etc. 

Now,  neither  with  respect  to  their  habitual  activity,  nor  with 
respect  to  the  resulting  perceptions  of  tangible  qualities  and 
relations,  can  these  two  classes  of  touch-experience  be  consid- 
ered as  independent.  By  the  active  exercise  of  any  member  of 
our  own  body,  as  an  organ  of  touch,  upon  some  other  part  of 
the  same  body  (notably  of  the  hand  upon  any  of  the  surfaces 
within  its  reach),  we  gain  the  perception  of  the  diftercnt  areas  of 
this  body,  as  rough  or  smooth,  moist  or  dry,  hard  or  soft,  and  as 
external  to  each  other,  and,  in  some  sort,  to  the  stream  of  our  con- 
scious life.  By  touch  the  body  thus  becomes  a  system  of  things, 
external  and  extended,  to  itself  :  one  part  is  given  to  another, 
as  "  out "  and  "  spread-out,"  in  the  same  manner  as  that  in  which 
other  bodies  than  our  oaaii  are  perceived.  On  the  other  hand, 
really  external  things  that  are  closely  connected  with  the  sur- 


334  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

faces  of  the  skin  (like  our  liair  or  our  clothing),  or  with  the 
movements  of  muscles  and  joints  (like  our  fork  or  walking-stick), 
may  themselves  serve  to  expand  the  limits  of  our  own  bodies,  on 
whose  surface  the  different  i^ressures,  and  in  whose  members  the 
different  movements  and  positions,  are  "  localized."  Thus  things 
become  perceived  as  parts  of  our  own  body ;  and  instead  of  ap- 
pearing as  out  and  spread-out  to  us,  they  serve  as  organs  by 
which  we  perceive  the  being  out  and  spread-out  of  other  things. 

It  will  be  convenient,  however,  for  purposes  of  analysis  and  de- 
scription, to  consider  each  of  these  two  interdependent  classes  of 
perceptions  somewhat  se^oarately.  The  "  unnaturalness  "  of  this 
treatment  is  like  that  which  accompanies  all  scientific  attempts 
to  explain  in  detail  the  manifold  cotemporaneous  forms  of  the 
procedure  of  mind.  One  other  truth  which  follows  from  the 
preceding  should  also  not  be  forgotten.  The  develo]3ment  of 
perception  by  touch  proceeds,  like  all  other  mental  development, 
from  the  relatively  simple,  and  yet  vague  and  obscure,  to  the 
relatively  complex,  definite,  and  clear.  Perception,  as  distin- 
guished from  any  of  the  elementary  processes  which  it  involves, 
results  whenever,  by  combination  of  two  or  more  spatial  series 
of  sensation-complexes,  with  their  accompaniment  of  associ- 
ated images,  feelings,  and  conative  reactions,  objects  extended 
and  external  are  presented — however  simply,  vaguely,  and  ob- 
scurely— in  consciousness.  By  practice  with  such  combinations 
and  their  ideational,  affective,  and  conative  accompaniments,  the 
definite  and  clear  construction  of  complex  objects  is  developed. 
Some  of  the  more  important  points  won  in  this  process  of  "local- 
ization "  by  touch  will  now  be  briefly  discussed. 

\  6.  The  earliest  knowledge  of  our  own  bodies  by  toucli  is  probably  a 
vague  percei^tiou  ("  vague,"  that  is,  because  its  delimitation  is  not  fixed  but 
fluctuating,  and  not  marked  out  in  details  by  analytic  attention  but  "  in  the 
mass,"  as  it  were)  of  those  members  that  move  most  frequently,  in  the  most 
varied  manner,  and  with  the  most  marked  tone  of  accompanying  feeling. 
As  rivals  of  these  for  early  recognition  are  those  portions  of  the  body  most 
frequently  pressed  upon  or  moved  over,  with  a  marked  tone  of  accompany- 
ing feeling.  Such  members  of  the  body  as  have  both  these  advantages 
would  surely  emerge  first  "  in  the  struggle  for  existence,"  as  perceived  parts 
of  the  body.  Thus,  crude  perceptions  of  the  arms  and  legs,  of  the  abdo- 
men and  back  and  face  (especially  about  the  mouth)  probably  constitute  the 
total  touch-  and  muscle-percept  of  its  own  body,  for  the  child.  The  near- 
est representation  of  this,  which  is  possible  for  our  developed  conscious- 
ness of  body,  may  be  obtained  as  follows  :  Lot  one  close  one's  eyes  and 
abstract  attention  from  all  knowledge  of  one's  body  in  terms  of  sight.  And 
now  let  one  inquire,  What  is  my  body  as  a  whole,  and  what  are  its  different 
members,  to  me,  in  terms  of  skin,  muscle,  and  joints  ?    The  answer  which 


b 


TACTUAL   PICTURE   OF   THE  BODY  335 

our  "immediate  awareness  "  gives  to  the  first  jiart  of  this  question  is  sur- 
prisingly meagre.  Except  as  I  am  able  to  visualize  my  body,  it  is  largely 
gone  out  of  cousciousuess,  as  a  totality  of  members.  I  can,  however,  by  di- 
recting attention  to  its  better  known  areas  perceive  them  as  extended  and 
solid.  Thus  "  perceived,"  the  right  leg,  for  example,  is  a  somewhat  massive 
system  of  sensation-complexes  of  pressure  localized  where  this  member 
comes  in  contact  with  the  chair,  and  with  the  other  leg  (over  which  it  is 
lying),  combined  with  less  vivid  sensations  of  tactual,  joint,  and  muscular 
kind  much  less  perfectly  localized,  together  with  dimly  revived  ideas  of 
similar  sensations,  vague  feelings  of  uneasiness  or  pleasurable  excitement, 
and  a  conscious  tendency  to  innervate  the  muscles,  and  iierhajis  to  mOve  the 
organ,  as  attention  is  directed  thereto.  Excluding  sight  and  all  reference  to 
visual  things  in  surrounding  space,  and  even  to  other  members  of  tlie  body, 
this  is  all  that  the  leg  is  consciously  perceived  by  me  to  be.  SuiDpose, 
however,  it  is  required  to  verify,  clear  iip,  and  complete  my  percejition  of 
this  bodily  member.  Let  it  then  be  moved,  with  attention  directed  to  what 
takes  place.  Still  better,  let  it  be  not  only  moved,  but  also  pressed  or 
struck  against  some  resisting  object.  At  once  my  perception  of  it  changes 
in  the  direction  desired.  It  now  lives  as  a  perceived  ohject  in  every  part  of  its 
length;  it  exists  for  me  as  viy  limb,  u-hich  I  am  conscious  of  in  a  uriy  quite 
impossible  before  motion  begun. 

This  same  process  of  obtaining  a  perception  of  their  tangible  extension 
and  "reality"  may  now  be  applied  to  other  bodily  members — to  arm,  to 
back,  to  abdomen,  etc.  To  secure  vividness,  and  the  utmost  possible  com- 
pleteness for  parts  like  the  last-mentioned  two,  it  will  be  necessary  to  press 
against  some  object  (the  back  against  the  chair),  or  to  induce  some  move- 
ment of,  or  over,  the  bodily  mass  (as  when  one  perceives  the  abdomen  by 
attending  to  it  when  breathing,  or  when  it  is  pressed  by  a  moving  hand). 
But  after  one  has  thus  exhausted  one's  "  immediate  awareness,"  in  terms  of 
touch,  of  the  bodily  members  separately,  the  perception  of  the  entire  body 
in  these  same  terms  requires  a  rapid  transition  of  attention  from  one  mem- 
ber to  another,  with  a  large  amount  of  ideation  and  vague  couative  accom- 
paniment. In  attempting  this  it  is  almost  impossible  not  to  resort  to  trans- 
lation into  terms  of  sight.  How  strange  the  picture  of  "the  body"  which 
would  result  should  an  artist  present  to  the  eye  the  exact  equivalent  of  the 
most  perfect  intuitions  of  only  skin,  muscle,  and  joints  ! 

I  7.  The  explanation  of  the  earlier  acquirement  of  this  class  of  per- 
ceptions is  now  not  difficult,  so  far  as  explanation  is  possible  at  all.  The 
first  movements  of  the  infant's  bodily  members  have  already  been  shown  to 
be  reflex  and  automatic-nervous  ;  tliey  involve  neither  perception  of  them- 
selves nor  of  an  end  to  be  reached  by  the  movement.  They  are  not  by  con- 
sciousness, but  for  consciousness.  On  every  occurrence  of  movement  in 
any  member,  however,  two  or  more  spatial  series  of  sensation-complexes  are 
necessarily  run  through.  These  being  woven  in  and  out,  as  it  were,  fur- 
nish data  of  sense  for  perceptive  consciousness  in  its  progressive  achieve- 
ment of  localization.  Thus  the  arm  cannot  be  moved,  either  reflexly  or 
automatically,  without  producing  changes  in  the  sensation-complexes  of 
skin,  muscle,  and  joint.  As  this  member  [A)  moves  from  Xto  F,  the  three 
spatial  series  (s  —  skin  ;  m  —  muscle ;  j  =  joint)  simultaneously  run  through 


336  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

changes  of  sensation-complexes  that  may  be  indicated  by  (s,  s\  s",  s',  etc.), 
{m,  m\  m\  m\  etc.),  and  [j,  f,  f,  f,  etc.).  By  repetition,  with  its  necessary 
accompaniment  of  association  of  the  ideas  constituting  a  series,  by  condensa- 
tion of  series,  with  affective  accompaniment  in  the  form  of  expectation,  sur- 
prise, etc. primary  intellection  being  always  present— every  position  occu- 

l)ied  in  this  arc  through  which  the  arm  is  moving  becomes  marked  off,  or 
characterized.  Thus  we  have  one  position  =  ^  (s''  +  m-  +/),  fused  with 
primary  images  (of  .s'  and  s  +  "*'  andm  +  j  ^  andj/')  fading  out  of  conscious- 
ness, and  reviving  images,  with  stirring  feeling  of  expectation  con-espond- 
ing  to  (.s'  4-  m^  +  f,  etc.).  What  is  true  of  this  arc  from  A' to  Fis  true  of 
every  other  arc  through  which  the  same  limb  moves.  This  "  mass  "  of  sen- 
sation-complexes, fused  with  ideation-products,  and  accompanied  by  appro- 
priate affective  and  conative  elements,  is  the  arm  of  the  infant  (with  some 
elements  changing  and  some  remaining  similar  for  every  position  and  move- 
ment) as  defined  in  terms  of  touch.  And  as  with  the  arm  so  with  all  the 
other  movable  members.  By  practice  in  discrimination,  and  not  always 
gradually,  but  with  sudden  leaps  that  are  stimulated  by  some  important 
practical  end  or  sharp  excitement  of  feeling,  the  different  movable  members 
of  the  body  assume  their  place  in  a  system.  It  has  already  been  shown  that 
this  system  of  tactile  experiences  is  comparatively  vague  and  broken  for 
adult  consciousness.  How  much  more  so  for  the  dawning  intelligence  of 
the  infant ! 

I  8.  But — as  we  have  already  seen — the  perception  of  the  positions  of 
the  movable  members  of  the  body  develops  in  dependence  upon  our  experi- 
ence with  them  as  in  motion.  Two  important  differences  in  these  two  kinds 
of  perception  should,  however,  be  noticed  here.  (1)  When  any  limb  is  at 
rest  it  must  be  either  held  in  position  by  the  muscles,  or  supported  in  jjosi- 
tion  by  something  else— either  by  some  external  thing  or  by  some  other  por- 
tion of  the  body.  In  either  of  these  three  cases  abundant  data  are  furnished 
for  perceptive  discrimination.  In  the  first  case,  siich  data  consist  chiefly  in 
the  increased  intensity  and  changed  quality  of  the  joint  and  muscular  sensa- 
tions, together  with  that  feeling  of  being  drawn  upon  for  energy,  and 
strained,  which  is,  probably,  partly  of  intra-cerebral  origin.  In  the  second 
case,  the  more  passive  sensations  of  jaressure  take  a  comiiaratively  prominent 
part ;  and  the  position  of  the  limb  is  discriminated  rather  througli  the  lo- 
calization of  these  sensations.  The  third  case  differs  from  the  second  in 
that  here  another  mass  of  sensation-complexes  of  tlie  skin  (due  to  pressure 
upon  some  area  of  our  own  body  by  our  own  limb)  may  aid  in  the  discrimi- 
nation of  the  limb's  position.  This  the  seusalion-elements  for  the  ^'perception 
o/j)osilion  "  are  marked  off  from  those  of  motion. 

But  further,  (2)  in  our  perception  of  the  position  of  the  movable  mem- 
bers of  the  body  we  ordinarily  make  a  much  more  extended  demand  upon 
memory.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  the  ideas  .suggested  by  the  actual  sensations 
now  experienced  which  more  largely  doterniino  our  perception.  This  state- 
ment, too,  is  capable  of  making  an  ai)peal  to  adult  conscioiisness.  Indeed, 
in  all  cases  of  attempted  localization  of  a  limb  at  rest,  it  is  difficult  to  resist 
the  tendency  at  once  to  draw  an  ideal  visual  picture  of  the  limb,  as  suggested 
by  the  present  meagre  data  of  sensations.  If  wo  try  to  perceive  the  posi- 
tion of  one  of  our  own  limbs  while  at  rest,  in  pure  terms  of  touch,  we  find 


FINER   DISCKIMIXATIONS   OF   LOCALITY  337 

ourselves  iraagiuing  how  it  would  "feel"  to  trace  out  tlie  limb  witli  tbo 
Land,  or  to  move  it  from  its  i^resent  position  to  another  in  surround- 
ing space.  That  is  to  say :  otw  hnmcdiale  airareness  of  the  jwsition  of  our 
vwvdhle  members  is  largely  a  system  of  associated  ideas  due  to  previous  viove- 
me)its. 

I  9.  The  finer  discriminations  of  locality  upon  the  surface  of  the  skin  are 
the  subsoipient  achievement  of  discriminating  consciousness  operating  with 
data  already  recognized  and  described.  For  the  upper  and  lower  arm,  for 
the  hand,  and  for  each  of  the  fingers  and  phalanges  of  each  finger,  considered 
as  movable  members  of  the  body,  the  same  general  principles  apply.  But 
the  most  highly  developed  form  of  localization  by  touch  results  in  the  pos- 
sible discrimination,  by  what  appears  to  be  an  "immediate  awareness,"  of 
minute  areas  of  the  skin — their  extent  and  relative  place  in  the  superficial 
system  of  pressure-sensations.  This  development,  just  because  it  is  "  high," 
is  a  late  and  supreme  achievement  of  tactile  consciousness.  If  it  is  true  that 
the  infant  cannot  for  some  time  locate  his  pain  in  his  toe  (or,  to  use  Professor 
James's  expression,  "place  his  toe  in  the  joain"),  a  fortiori  is  it  true  that  he 
cannot  tell  precisely  where,  in  his  toe  or  other  member,  he  is  pricked  with  a 
pin  or  pressed  with  the  nurse's  finger.  Nor  is  this  inability  due  to  the  fact 
that  he  has  not  as  yet  developed  so  detailed  a  geography  of  his  own  superfi- 
cial areas.  The  rather  is  this  lack  itself  due  to  the  necessity  that  the  infant 
should  learn  to  make,  and  actually  make,  repeatedly,  the  finer  qualitative  dis- 
tinctions. When,  then,  we  are  pointed  to  the  promptness  and  accuracy  with 
which  adults  can  tell  what  part  of  the  skin  is  hit,  jiricked,  or  pressed,  etc., 
as  a  proof  of  native  power  to  perceive  "extensity"  and  spatial  relation,  the 
index  is  not  directed  toward  the  required  mark.  The  very  thing  to  ask  is, 
how  this  promjit  localization  has  come  about.  The  earlier  perception  of  the 
areas  of  skin  as  under  pressure  is  in  "  gross  mass  "  as  it  were ;  it  is  confined 
to  such  areas  as  are  most  frequently  excited  in  a  massive  way  with  a  strong 
affective  accompaniment.  Its  own  lips,  mouth,  and  cheeks,  as  interested  and 
engaged  in  nursing  and  in  being  fondled ;  its  abdomen  as  pressed  by  its 
clothing  or  by  the  hands  of  the  person  dressing  it ;  its  limbs  as  grasped  and 
held  to  move  it  or  to  restrain  its  movement,  etc. — these  are  the  tactual  body 
of  the  young  child. 

In  breaking  up  this  "gross  mass"  of  sensation-complexes,  mainly  of 
pressure  as  characterized  by  a  strong  tone  of  feeling,  into  finer  and  finer  dis- 
criminated areas,  sensations  of  motion  precede  sensations  of  position  in 
respect  of  effectiveness.  As  Professor  James  has  well  said,'  "in  the  edu- 
cation of  spatial  discrimination  (of  the  areas  of  the  skin)  the  motions  of  im- 
pressions across  sensory  surfaces  must  have  been  the  principal  agent."  The 
smaller  areas  and  spots  of  the  body's  surface,  when  simply  pressed  upon  or 
hit,  are  located  because  the  sensation-complexes  thus  called  forth  are  asso- 
ciated with  ideas  of  sensations  of  motion  previously  excited.  In  general,  it  is 
the  discriminable  difference  beticeen  two  most  nearly  alike  sensation-complexes  de- 
rived by  motion  over  the  skin  n-hich  sets  the  extreme  limit  to  our  tactile  perception. 
In  further  illustration  of  this  fact  is  the  experiment  which  shows  that,  if 
one  of  the  two  points  of  a  pair  of  compasses  be  prepared  so  that  it  can  be 
given  a  rotary  motion,  suddenly  rotating  it  will  almost  always   make  the 

»  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  II.,  p.  1T5. 
22 


33S  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

points  seem  as  two,  when  just  previously  and  at  rest  they  have  been  felt  as 
only  one  impression.'  Here,  of  course,  the  larinciple  is  i^recisely  the  same 
whether  the  object  moves  over  the  surface  of  the  skin,  or  the  skin  moves  un- 
der the  object.  Changes  in  the  sensations  of  pressure,  without  associated 
images  of  motor  sensations,  seem  never  alone  to  afford  the  data  for  locat- 
ing minute  areas  of  the  skin  (comp.  p.  147  f.). 

§  10.  Another  most  important  means  for  locating  the  minuter  sensation- 
areas  of  the  skin  is  customarily  too  much  overlooked.  In  the  case  of  all 
stimulation  of  definite  pressure-spots — esiDccially,  of  course,  where  the  stim- 
ulation is  intense  and  accompanied  by  pleasure  or  pain — there  is  an  immedi- 
ate tendency  toward  definite  and  appropriate  motor  reaction.  If,  for  ex- 
ample, one  is  stung  by  an  insect  on  some  particular  sjjot,  one  immediately 
starts,  withdraws,  if  possible,  the  area  attacked,  and  j^erhaps  reaches  out  a 
hand  to  remove  the  irritation.  Even  in  the  case  of  the  gentlest  stimulation, 
if  we  wish  definitely  to  locate  its  point  of  application  we  are  prone  to  make 
an  inchoate  movement  with  some  movable  member  which  serves,  on  a  basis 
of  past  experience,  as  an  index  to  that  point.  The  opposite  of  this  is  that 
vague  "feeling  about"  for  the  precise  spot  affected,  which  children  exhibit, 
and  in  which  adults  are  often  engaged,  especially  if  the  sjiot  be  one  with 
which  they  are  not  previously  well  acquainted.  Now  instead  of  its  being 
true  that  this  motor  reaction  gives  evidence  of  definite  localization  already 
accomplished  without  it,  the  rather  is  it  true  that  the  conative  impulses  and 
motor  sensations,  with  their  associated  ideas  and  feelings,  are  a  i^rime  means 
in  accomplishing  such  localization.  It  should  again  be  observed  that  all 
ideas  of  whereabouts  our  skin  is  pressed  or  hit  are  ordinarily  given  in 
terms  of  the  visual  picture  of  our  body,  by  a  process  of  translating  sensation- 
complexes  of  skin,  muscle,  etc.,  into  associated  perceptions  of  sight.  If, 
then,  we  remove  all  influence  from  actual  movements,  or  attempts  to  move, 
and  all  assistance  from  associated  visual  percepts,  what  remains  by  way  of 
direct  perception,  in  terms  of  pressure -sensations,  of  the  minute  areas  of  our 
skin,  is  relatively  meagre  and  vague. 

^  11.  The  orienting  of  our  entire  bodies,  and  of  their  grosser  masses  in'th 
reference  to  one  another,  in  "surrounding  space"  requires  a jvevious  construc- 
tion of  space  and  spatial  relations,  ivhich,  in  the  case  of  all  not  horn  blind, 
is  chiejiij  the  work  of  the  eye.  But  how  is  the  direction  of  objects,  and  the 
position  of  our  bodies  with  reference  to  them,  both  wliile  we  are  at  rest  and 
while  in  motion,  obtained  with  the  eyes  closed  ?  Plainly  the  data  for  so- 
called  "static  "  and  those  for  "  dynamic"  perceptions  and  illusions  differ  to  a 
considerable  extent.  Three  sets  of  considerations  are,  however,  of  princijjal 
value  in  both  conditions.  Perception  of  the  position  and  motion  of  our 
bodies  depends  upon  (1)  muscular  and  joint  and  cutaneous  sensations — in- 
cluding general  sensibility  appreciating  the  gravitation  of  fluitis  and  of  inter- 
nal organs  of  the  body  ;  (2)  sensations  coming  from  the  muscles  of  the  closed 
eyes,  es^jecially  when  the  eyes  are  turned  in  their  sockets  from  the  primary 
l)osition,  or  the  head  is  twisted  to  one  side  ;  (3)  sensations  due  to  variations 
in  the  pressure  of  the  endolymj:)!!  in  the  jxassages  of  the  car,  due  to  the  posi- 
tion and  motion  of  the  head  on  its  varying  axes.  [It  will  then  be  observed 
that,  as  a  man's  head  is  ''perceived"  by  himself  to  be  localized,  so,  chiefly, 

'  Sec  James  :  Ibid.,  II.,  p.  170  (,uote). 


I 


QUALITIES   OF   OBJECTS   BY   TOUCH  339 

are  be  and  all  things  else  located  with  reference  to  each  other.    But  with  the 
head  "  turned,"  all  else  gets  awry.] 

Already,  however,  we  have  repeatedly  been  compelled  to 
assume  some  Perception  of  different  pai'ts  of  the  Body,  as  objects 
separable  from  each  other,  or  of  onr  entire  body,  as  one  object 
separable  from  others,  in  space.  This  form  of  percejition  implies 
that  not  only  "  localization  "  bnt  "  projection  "  and  "objective  " 
cognition  is  to  a  certain  extent  advanced.  We  are  really  turning- 
back  in  time,  then,  when  we  consider  how  the  perception  of  the 
spatial  qualities  and  relations  of  bodies  outside  our  own  body  is 
gained  by  exercise  of  the  organs  of  skin,  joint,  and  muscle.  But 
here  again  other  bodies  are,  at  first,  somewhat  vaguely  set  off 
from  pur  own  body  by  combination  of  spatial  series  of  sensa- 
tions, in  which  sensations  of  motion  take  a  most  conspicuous 
pai-t.  These  other  bodies  are  also  primarily  known  "in  the 
mass,"  as  it  were ;  rej)eated  acts  of  discrimination,  on  the  basis 
of  repeated  revivals  of  associated  mental  images,  and  of  affective 
and  conative  accompaniments,  with  increasing  minuteness  of 
analysis  and  power  of  grasp  in  synthesis,  are  necessary  to  com- 
plete such  cognition.  The  ultimate  reasons  for  this  process  of 
setting  off  other  bodies  from  our  own  body  (  "  localizing  "  some 
experiences  and  "  projecting  "  others),  so  far  as  such  reasons  lie 
in  the  realm  of  sensation  at  all,  consist  of  discriminated  differ- 
ences between  different  spatial  series.  But  to  this  statement 
must  be  added  that  (1)  some  spatial  series  combine  as  data  for 
perception  of  an  object  with  a  marked  accompaniment  of  feel- 
ing, are  vividly  colored  with  pleasure-pains,  while  others  are 
comparatively  toneless  as  respects  feeling;  and  that  (2)  some 
spatial  series  are  connected  with  our  conation  and  conscious- 
ness of  self-activity  in  such  a  way  as  to  seem  dependent  upon 
volition,  as  other  spatial  series  are  not.  Thus  are  the  data 
furnished  for  that  process  of  "  diremption  "  (or  the  dividing  of 
all  our  conscious  experiences  into  two  great  classes),  which  cul- 
minates in  the  intellectual  cognition  of  the  bodily  "  self  "  and  of 
a  world  of  "  things  "  as  set  over  against  the  self. 

It  is  manifestly  by  use  of  the  skin,  muscles,  and  joints,  to- 
gether with  vaguer  and  more  interior  sensation-complexes,  that 
we  gain  our  immediate  awareness  of  certain  qualities  of  ex- 
ternal bodies.  In  respect  to  some  of  these  qualities  of  bodies, 
touch  (in  the  broader  meaning  of  the  word)  gives  us  our  leading, 
or  our  only  direct  means  of  perception.  In  respect  to  other 
of  these  qualities,  touch  and  the  other  organs  of  sense  named 
co-operate  with  the  eye,  while  being  led  by  it  with  its  finer  and 


340  PEKCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

p-romptcr  powers  of  discrimination.  Among  the  former  class 
are  the  solidity  (or  sense-realltii)  of  bodies,  their  weight,  inertia, 
impenetrability,  and  the  structure  of  their  surfaces,  as  smooth 
or  rough,  and  of  their  substance,  as  hard  or  soft,  tough  or  fran- 
gible, elastic  or  inelastic,  etc.  To  the  latter  class  belong  the 
extension-qualities  of  external  bodies ;  and  these,  as  including 
their  outline,  form,  size,  and  distance  from  each  other  in  space. 
It  is  not  the  business  of  psychology  to  consider  these  qualities 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  physics  of  masses  or  of  molecules  ; 
but  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  mental  activity  which  con- 
structs them  in  terms  of  space-intuition.  And  even  from  this 
point  of  view  we  can  give  only  a  brief  statement  of  a  few  of  the 
most  important  particulars. 

^  12.  Undoubtedly  the  infant  perceives  external  objects  (tliougii  in  the 
same  vague  and  incomplete  way  as  that  in  which  it  localizes  its  own  body 
ily  areas)  before  it  has  made  any  detailed  conquest,  by  percejstion,  of  its 
own  body.  This  process  of  discrimination  is  made  jTOssible,  and  indeed  com- 
pelled, by  his  exi^erience  with  his  own  sensations,  feelings,  and  conations^ 
given  the  power  of  the  mind  to  form  space-intuitions  at  all.  Such  a  jsrocess 
is  helped  on,  in  special,  every  time  a  moving  member  of  his  own  body 
encounters  resistance  from  some  outside  body ;  every  time  also  any  external 
body  is  moved  over  the  surface  of  his  own  body,  or  so  brought  into  contact 
with  it  as  to  excite  strong  sensations  of  pressure  and  temperature,  and  is 
then  removed.  These  are  the  very  conditions  which  we  have  seen  to  be 
favorable  to  "differentiation "  (p.  297  f.).  For  example,  let  us  suppose  that  the 
arm  is  moving  through  a  certain  arc,  from  X  to  Y.  Then  A  in  motion 
=  (.s,  s\  s\  s%  etc.),  {m,  m\  7)t^  m',  etc.),  {j,f,  f,j,^  etc.),  (compare  p.  335  f.). 
But  now,  let  this  series  be  interrupted  at  a  certain  point  [s^  +  vi^  +  f), 
and  another  wholly  different  series,  tinged  by  strong  feelings  of  effort  and 
pain,  take  its  place.  This  new  series  consists  of  such  skin  sensations  as  are 
produced  by  striking  or  pressing  against  some  external  object,  of  muscles 
brought  to  arrest,  of  joints  compressed,  etc.  Furthermore,  it  is  not  in  the 
nature  of  the  young  animal  thus  to  be  resisted  in  motion  without  reacting 
in  the  form  of  increased  conation.  Pushed  against,  he  pushes  back ;  and 
the  combined  spatial  series  undergoes  further  change  through  feelings  of 
strain  and  effort  having  both  a  peripheral  and  a  central  origin.  It  will 
finally  appear  that  all  our  so-called  immediate  knowledge  of  things  depends 
largely  upon  the  vivid  aroiisement  of  our  feelings  with  their  pleasi(7'e-pains, 
and  upon  our  oivn  forth-pidti)igs  of  will.  All  those  classes  of  elements  are 
involved  in  the  most  primitive  differentiation  of  my  body  from  other  bodies. 
For  (1)  spatial  series  of  sensation-complexes  and  systems  of  spatial  scries, 
which  are  habitually  accompanied  by  feelings  of  pleasure  or  pain,  are  local- 
ized as  parts  of  our  body ;  and  other  series  and  systems,  not  thus  ac- 
companied by  feeling,  are  i^rojected  as  external  objects.  (2)  Spatial  series, 
and  systems  of  spatial  series  that  are  dependently  connected  with  our  voli- 
tions are  perceived  as  movable  members  of  our  body  ;  and  other  series  and 


I 


QUALITIES    OF    OBJECTS   BY   TOUCH  341 

systems,  not  thus  dependent,  arc  perceived  as  bodies  sei)arato  from  our  own, 
and  as  opposed  to  the  movement  of  our  body  aud  its  members. 

Moreover,  when  the  child  is  grijiped  by  the  mother  or  nurse,  and  the 
motion  of  its  limbs  iu  necessary  reaction  ujjon  this  stimulus  is  impeded  ; 
when  it  is  thrust  into  the  bath  or  hold'down  by  its  own  weight  against  the 
bed ;  when  it  is  bound  tight  in  swaddling  bands  and  then  these  bands  are 
removed  ;  even  when  a  fly  or  a  droj)  of  water  lights  upon  some  area  of  its 
skin,  and  then,  after  failing  to  disappear  in  answer  to  its  unguided  move- 
ments to  remove  it,  finally  goes  away  "  of  itself;  "  in  all  such  experiences, 
similar  data  for  making  the  necessary  distinction  between  "  my  body  "  and 
"other  bodies"  are  furnished.  In  the  same  direction  does  its  taking  of 
food  with  the  bulk  of  appliances  in  the  mouth  and  the  movable  bolus,  or 
swallow,  ojjerate.  While  it  is  constantly  giving  itself  lessons  in  making 
the  distinction  between  its  body  and  other  things,  by  striking  itself  with 
its  own  fists,  kicking  itself  with  its  own  legs,  etc.  Thus  it  is  at  one  time 
hit  in  two  places  (two  separable  aud  painful  sensation-complexes  arise  si- 
multaneously, as  when  it  strikes  its  own  forehead  with  its  own  hand)  ;  it  is 
thus  induced  to  distinguish  two  parts  of  its  own  body,  one  of  which  may  be 
an  external  object  to  the  other.  At  another  time,  however,  similar  vivid 
sensations  arise  from  a  blow  given  by  some  external  object,  and  only  one 
impression  lingers  in  consciousness ;  thus  the  removal  of  the  object  giving 
the  blow  is  now  no  longer  connected  with  the  same  motor  consciousness. 

§  13.  Such  vague  differentiation,  chiefly  by  means  of  affective  and  cona- 
tive  accompaniments,  is  made  far  more  clear  and  jsrecise  by  the  detailed 
exploration  of  active  touch.  And  here  the  hand  and  fingers  are  the  chief 
organs  of  perception.  As  they  move,  even  when  unguided  by  definite  pur- 
pose, over  the  other  surfaces  of  the  body,  two  distinguishable  series  of 
tactual  and  muscular  sensations  result.  One  of  these  series  represents 
"touching"  something  "with  the  hand;"  the  other  represents  "being 
touched "  by  something  ;  together,  they  represent  "  touching  myself  with 
my  own  hand."  But  when  the  object  explored  by  active  touch  is  another 
body  than  my  own,  only  one  of  these  series  is  jn-esent  as  referable  to  any 
bodily  area.  This  series,  now  present,  is  also  changed  in  character  and  de- 
limited by  an  object  ready  to  resist  my  active  touch,  but  without  the  passive 
sensations  of  being  elsewhere  touched.  [Let  anyone  bring  out  this  differ- 
ence in  sense-experience  by  iixnning  his  finger  slowly  over  any  area  of  his 
own  body,  and  then  comparing  his  sensations  thus  derived  with  those  that 
are  produced  by  exploring  the  smooth  surface  of  the  table  with  the  same 
finger.]  Here  again  the  great  influence,  and  the  imperative  necessity,  of 
evoking  sensations  of  motion  in  order  to  nice  discrimination  of  extended 
areas,  becomes  apparent.  One  authority  '  has  rightly  argued  that  little  or 
no  perception  of  the  extended  surface  of  objects  can  be  gained  by  pressing 
them  against  the  skin  :  the  blind,  he  claims,  never  proceed  to  measure  sur- 
faces this  way,  but  only  by  running  the  finger  along  the  boundary  lines.  It 
is  true  that  by  such  sensation-complexes  as  are  evoked  merely  by  pressure, 
an  adult  is  capable,  as  Weber  showed,  of  distinguishing  the  circular  form  of 
a  tube  li  Parisian  line  in  diameter  on  the  tongue,  and  3|  inches  on  the  skin 
of  the  abdomen.     Granting  that  this  is  to  be  spoken  of  as  proof  that  an  im- 

»  M.  Ch.  Dnnan  :  Revne  PhDosophique,  188S. 


342  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

mediate  awareness  of  the  form  of  objects  may  be  gained  by  pressing  tliem 
against  the  skin,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  our  perceiition  is,  in  fact,  ordi- 
narily not  so  gained.  It  is  by  "  handling  "  itself  and  other  objects,  under 
influence  from  changing  affective  and  motor  accompaniments,  that  the  child 
actually  develops  the  perception  of  the  spatial  differences  and  of  the  limits  in 
the  extension  of  things.  In  these  cases,  as  in  all  others,  the  ultimate  limits 
of  discrimination  are  set  by  the  discriminable  sensation-complexes ;  and 
among  them  all,  chiefly  by  those  of  motion  implying  perceptive  use  of  hand 
and  Angers.  And  to  those  who  have  exiDerience  of  sight  the  merely  tactual 
extension  of  an  external  object  is  but  a  fragmentary  and  sorry  space-intu- 
ition of  that  object. 

§  14.  The  truthfulness,  in  the  main,  of  the  foregoing  representations  may 
be  partially  demonstrated  by  appeals  to  developed  experience.  To  illustrate 
how  the  stream  of  consciousness  may  be  changed  all  the  way  from  a  delicate 
perception,  by  means  of  pressure  sensations,  to  an  intense  and  massive  "  real- 
ization "  of  the  existence  of  an  external  object,  let  the  following  simple 
experiments  be  performed.  First  :  repeat  the  experiment  already  referred 
to  (p.  116  f. )  by  closing  the  eyes,  placing  the  tip  of  the  finger  lightly  against 
some  solid  object,  and  considering  alternately  the  localized  sensation  of 
pressure  as  such,  and  the  perception  of  the  external  thing  as  something 
pressed  against.  Then  gradually  increase  the  pressure  until  your  whole  being 
seems  to  be  engaged  in  exertion  resisted  by  this  thing.  At  every  stage  it 
will  be  possible,  either  to  regard  chiefly  the  localized  series  of  sensation- 
complexes  belonging  to  your  own  bodily  members,  or  the  objectified  series 
of  sensation-complexes  constituting  the  thing  at  the  end  of  your  finger.  But, 
as  feeling  and  active  motor  consciousness  become  more  and  more  intense, 
the  i^erception  of  body  other  than  your  own  will  become  more  difficult. 
Second,  draw  your  finger  gently  over  a  knife-blade  or  j^ress  it  lightly  against 
the  knife's  point.  You  may  thus  either  perceive  the  quality  of  the  edge  or 
point,  as  sharp  or  dull,  sharp  or  blunt,  etc.  ;  or  you  may  perceive  the  afifec- 
tion  of  your  own  finger  as  being  rubbed  or  isricked,  with  an  accompaniment 
of  slightly  painful  feeling.  Let  now,  however,  the  pressure  be  increased, 
and  the  finger  cut  or  pricked,  and  perceptive  attention  is  quite  compelled  to 
neglect  the  other  body,  and  to  concentrate  itself  ujion  the  jiainful  sensations 
localized  in  your  body.  Again,  contrast  the  "cool"  mental  condition,  the 
nicely  discriminating  "objective"  consciousness,  which  maintains  itself  as — 
with  eyes  closed — we  carefully  feel  out  the  details  and  mentally  construct 
the  touch-picture  of  some  comi)lex  tangible  thing,  with  that  state  of  pleasur- 
able or  painful  awareness  of  the  depths  of  our  own  bodily  being,  as  it  were, 
and  that  warm  conviction  of  the  envisaged  reality  of  other  bodily  being, 
which  wrestlers  or  contestants  in  a  game  of  foot-ball  have. 

^  15.  The  su2)erficial  qualities  of  other  bodies  are  al.so  perceived  l)y  toucli, 
chiefly  through  the  activity  of  the  movable  members  of  our  own  body.  Thus 
bodies  are  known  as  "rough  "or  "  smooth  "  by  the  successive  sensation- 
complexes  ]iroduced  as  the  hand  moves  over  them.  In  the  one  case  (percep- 
tion of  roughness)  muscular  sensations,  etc.,  indicative  of  motion  of  the  hand, 
are  successively  fused  with  disagreeable  and  dissimilar  pressure-sensations  ; 
in  tlie  other  case  (pcn-cejition  of  smoothness)  witli  those  which  are  agree- 
able and  similar,  as  respects  intensity  and  compound  quality.     The  percep- 


QUALITIES   OF   OBJECTS   BY    TOUCH  343 

tion  of  "  hardness  "  aud  "softness"  requires  the  empbasis  of  muscular  and 
tactual  sensations  that  are  develoijed  as  the  moving  member  is  more  or  less 
resisted,  and  brought  to  a  standstill,  in  its  attempt  to  move.  If  this  percep- 
tion is  extended  far  enough  to  determine  the  moldableness,  lander  active 
touch,  of  the  entire  mass  of  the  body  perceived,  the  body,  rather  than  sim- 
ply its  surface,  is  said  to  be  hard  or  soft.  Thus  the  series  of  sensation-com- 
plexes, and  of  fused  images,  with  their  aft'octive  andconative  accompaniments, 
are  markedly  diil'erent  when  we  are  handling  a  piece  of  metal  and  a  mass  of 
putty.  Temperature-sensations  in  such  cases  often  play  an  important  part.' 
They  assist,  for  example,  in  forming  our  perception  of  surfaces  as  moist  or 
dry  ;  aud  even,  it  seems  i^robable,  in  all  cases  where  different  degrees  of 
"  friction  "  and  "  sticktion  "  are  involved.  We  can  scarcely  move  the  skin 
over  roughish  surfaces  without  producing  slight  excitations  of  the  tempera- 
ture spots.  Wunderli  showed  that  the  sensations  produced  by  lightly  touch- 
ing the  skin  with  cotton,  and  slightly  warming  it  by  approaching  a  heated 
surface,  through  a  square  oi^ening  in  a  iiiece  of  pajier,  may  be  mistaken  for 
each  other.  And  if  Weber  observed  that  cold  bodies  resting  on  the  skin 
often  appear  heavier,  and  warm,  lighter,  than  they  really  are  ;  and  another 
experimenter  (Szabadfoldi)  showed  that  small  wooden  disks  heated  to  122° 
Fahr.,  often  feel  heavier  than  larger  ones  not  so  warm,  the  contradictory  re- 
sults combine  in  demonstrating  the  influence  of  temperature-sensations  on 
the  formation  of  perceptions  of  touch.  The  exceeding  smoothness  of  pol- 
ished marble  appears  also  to  be  somewhat  dependent  upon  its  being  felt  cold 
to  touch. 

When  we  are  not  able  actively  to  combine  and  unlock  the  different  spa- 
tial series  (tactual,  muscular,  and  temj^erature)  by  moving  the  more  deli- 
cately perceptive  organs  of  touch  over  the  surfaces  of  other  bodies,  we  get 
only  a  relatively  incomplete  and  inaccurate  jjeVception  of  the  qualities  of 
these  bodies  by  having  them  moved  over  the  siirfaces  of  our  own  body.  Here 
the  variations  in  the  sensation-complexes  i^roduced  are  exceedingly  delicate 
and  promptly  ap])reciated,  but  they  excite  an  interest,  not  in  that  other  body, 
but  in  our  ovn  body  as  being  touched.  Hence  such  sensations  of  motion 
serve  the  purposes  of  localization  rather  than  of  perception  of  an  external 
and  extended  object.  It  is  extremely  unnatural  and  correspondingly  diffi- 
cult to  perceive  the  surfaces  of  things  by  having  them  moved  over  the  sur- 
faces of  the  skin.  Yet  in  this  way  j^crception  of  the  smooth  aud  the  rough, 
the  moist  and  the  sticky,  the  dry  and  the  superficially  hard,  etc.,  may  be 
obtained.  In  all  such  cases,  however,  the  data  of  sensations  and  representa- 
tive images,  and  the  nature  of  the  psychical  activities  involved,  have  already 
been  sufficiently  explained. 

I  16.  In  the  perception  of  those  qualities  which  chiefly  make  things 
"solid  "and  "  real "  to  us,  the  massive  muscular  and  joint  sensations  are 
particularly  emphasized.  But  these  are  habitually  called  out  only  as  we 
exert  ourselves  against  external  bodies,  with  a  view  either  to  move  them 
or  to  prevent  ourselves  from  being  moved  by  them.  In  this  exertion  of 
ourselves — and  the  more,  the  greater  such  exertion  is — the  so-called  "  feel- 
ing of  effort,"  or  "feeling  of  innervation,"  or  "active  motor  consciousness," 
is  involved.      Moreover,  such  exertion  is  accompanied  by  a  condition  of  the 

'  Compare  Funke,  in  Hennann's  Handbuch  d.  Physiologie,  IH.,  2,  p.  320  f. 


344  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

organs  of  toucli  (the  muscles  and  joints  especially,  but  also  the  skin)  which 
results  in  throwing  in  upon  the  brain  a  great  variety  of  the  most  volumi- 
nous sensation-complexes  arising  in  these  organs.  When  we  are  exerting  our- 
selves, the  muscles  are  contracted  strongly  ;  the  joints  are  set  together ;  the 
skin  is  stretched  tense  over  the  muscles  "  bellied  out."  Other  less  definitely 
localizable  muscular  and  tactual  sensations  are  occasioned  by  the  changed 
character  of  the  respiration  and  circulation,  by  the  condition  of  epiglottis,  of 
the  jaws,  and  even  of  the  facial  muscles,  etc.  Such  changes  in  the  periph- 
eral organs  of  sense  cannot  take  place,  however,  without  the  production  of 
more  or  less  of  that  "chaotic  overplus"  (see  -p.  175  f.)  of  cerebral  excite- 
ment in  which  the  physiological  basis  of  our  bodily  feelings  consists.  It 
follows,  then,  that  our  perception  of  bodies  as  solid  and  externally  real  is 
laro-ely  dependent  upon  the  affective  and  conative  coloring  of  the  stream  of 
consciousness  which  accompanies  certain  of  our  muscular,  joint,  and  tactual 
series  of  sensation-complexes.  Anticipating  what  is  progressively  becom- 
ing clearer  :  we  know  bodies  really  to  he,  and  to  be  really  "out"  of  us,  only  as 
xoefeel  strongly  and  tvill  intensely.  In  other  words— to  return  to  our  present 
point  of  view — we  perceive  other  bodies  as  having  weight,  inertia,  etc.,  by  com- 
paring together  spatial  series  of  sensation-complexes  that  are,  chiefly,  wide-spread- 
ing and  strong  muscular  and  joint  sensations,  fused  with  intense  consciousness  of 
effort  {or  conative  activity)  and  affective  modifications  due  to  superinduced  strain 
of  the  organs  of  touch. 

The  experiences  of  the  infant,  already  referred  to,  constitute  its  early 
training  in  perception  of  the  solidity  of  other  bodies  than  its  own.  Refer- 
ence has  also  been  made  to  adult  experiences  illustrating  the  same  considera- 
tions. In  understanding  further  the  origin  and  development  of  such  imme- 
diate awareness  of  the  qualities  of  other  bodies,  the  following  three  points 
must  be  considered : 

(1)  The p)erception  of  the  solidity  of  external  objects  cannot  be  gained  without 
experience  of  motion  actual  and  resisted  by  means  of  the  solid  masses  of  our  own 
body.  For,  this  perception  involves  a  combination  of  pei'cei^tion  of  extension 
in  the  third  dimension  with  perception  of  weight  and  inertia.  But  exten- 
sion in  the  third  dimension  cannot  be  given  in  terms  of  touch — simply  by 
moving  other  bodies  over  the  surfaces  of  our  own  body.  It  implies  move- 
ment of  the  movable  members  of  our  body  in  a  way  to  call  out  spatial  series 
of  sensations  which  differ  from  those  called  out  by  motion  in  the  other  two 
dimensions.  Of  the  marked  difference  which  exists  among  the  sensation- 
complexes  belonging  to  the  three  dimensions,  anyone  may  convince  himself 
who  will  compare  his  experience,  in  terms  of  touch,  when  moving  a  leg  or 
arm  forward  and  backward  with  that  had  when  moving  the  same  limb  side- 
ways. All  this,  doubtless,  is  at  first  exceedingly  vague  ;  and,  indeed,  it  re- 
mains very  vague,  because  of  our  irresistible  tendency  to  translate  move- 
ments in  the  third  dimension  into  terms  of  sight.  The  possibility  of  making 
this  discrimination  is  implied  in  the  i)ercoption,  by  touch,  of  the  extension 
in  three  directions  of  other  bodies.  But  this  third  dimension,  like  the  other 
two,  would  not  be  "  filled  up  "  with  an  external  body  unless  we  had  percep- 
tion of  weight  and  inertia.  This  perception  is  gained  by  having  our  move- 
ments raoi-e  or  less  resisted,  with  all  the  experience  which  such  resistance 
involves.     Thus,  if  we  find  that  our  attempts  to  move  in  all  possible  combi- 


QUALITIES   OF   OBJECTS   BY   TOUCH  345 

nations  of  the  throe  dimensions  of  extension  are  resisted,  we  i)erceive  an 
extended  and  solid  body  other  than  our  own.  And  this  body  may  be  soft  or 
hard,  fluid  or  viscous  or  solid  (in  the  narrower  meaning)  according  to  the 
way  that  it  (especially  at  its  surfaces)  resists  our  attempted  movements. 

(2)  The  compardtive  perception  of  solid  bodies  depends  upon  our  estimate  of 
the  various  factors  which  enter  into  our  perception,  in  general,  of  the  solidity  of 
bodies.  And  here  emphasis  may  be  laid  upon  that  one  of  these  several 
classes  of  factors  which,  for  any  reason,  attracts  attentive  discriminating  con- 
sciousness to  itself.  But,  ordinarily,  bodies  are  perceived  as  more  or  less 
extended  in  all  directions  by  a  tactful  interpretation  of  the  combined  re- 
sultant of  several  series  of  these  factors.  Those  psychologists  are  wrong, 
then,  who  deny  the  influence  and  value  of  any  of  these  several  series  of  useful 
factors.  By  muscles,  joints,  skin,  feelings  of  efibrt,  and  affective  results,  all 
taken  together,  we  perceive  the  extended  being  of  other  bodies  than  our  own. 
And,  as  we  shall  subsequently  see,  errors  and  illusions  of  sense  arise  when 
the  attention  is  actually  caught  by  one  set  of  considerations  and  induced  to 
give  it  undue  influence.  On  the  other  hand,  we  can  get  along  fairly  well  if 
we  have  to  dispense,  wholly  or  partially,  with  some  of  our  customary  data  of 
perception.  The  primary  question,  however,  is  not  W'hat  we  can  do,  when  we 
are  compelled  by  being  put  in  artificial  conditions ;  but  what  we  do  actually 
accomplish  in  perception,  with  all  the  means  ordinarily  at  our  disposal.  Thus 
Goldscheider  and  James  are  right  enough  in  emi3hasizing  the  value  of  joint- 
sensations  (the  latest  "  fad  "  in  experimental  i^sychology  on  this  subject)  ; 
since  with  anfesthetic  skin,  or  susjiended,  or  fixed  in  a  i)laster  cast,  the 
joints  of  leg  and  finger  can  appreciate  motion.  But  they  are  wrong  in 
minimizing  or  denying  altogether  the  value  of  those  sensations  of  skin  and 
muscle,  on  which  other  investigators  show  by  experiment  that  i^art  of  the 
burden  of  discriminating  consciousness  should  be  laid. 

Especially  important  in  comparative  perception  of  the  weight  of  bodies 
is  the  way  in  which  our  previous  estimate  of  the  amount  of  resistance  to  be 
expected  is  met  by  the  amount  of  resistance  actually  ofi'ered  when  the  at- 
tempt at  movement  begins.  Bodies  that  move  easier  than  we  expected  ap- 
pear lighter  than  they  are  ;  bodies  that  move  only  after  more  than  the  ex- 
pected resistance  appear  heavier  than  they  are.'  Our  mental  image  of  the 
speed  with  which  bodies  yield  to  our  resistance  also  determines  the  percep- . 
tion  of  their  inertia  and  weight.  Moreover,  phenomena  similar  to  those  of 
complementary  color-sensations  are  to  be  observed  in  the  case  of  our  i^ercep- 
tion  of  weight.  Lotze  remarked  that,  after  standing  for  a  long  time  with 
weights  in  both  hands  and  then  laying  them  down,  we  seem  to  be  rising  or 
drawing  our  arms  uji  toward  our  breasts.  This  jihenomenon,  like  those  of 
contrast  generally,  is  probably  of  central  origin.  In  fine,  all  our  experience 
illustrates  the  fact  that  every  individual  case  of  perception  of  this  order  is 
the  solution  of  a  complex  problem  in  the  interpretation,  on  the  basis  of  past 
experiences,  of  a  great  variety  of  data  having  both  a  peripheral  and  a  central 
origin.  According  as,  not  only  the  data  of  series  of  spatial  sensations  vary, 
but  also  of  associated  ideas,  and  affective  and  conative  accompaniments,  will 
perception  in  its  various  forms  take  place. 

(3)  Our  perceptions  of  the  different  properties  of  bodies,  in  terms  of  touch, 

1  See  article  by  Miiller  and  Schumann,  Pfliiger's  Archiv,  slv.,  p.  3T  f. 


346  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

dejyends  solely  on  the  differences  in  the  mode  of  the  fusion,  and  extension  in 
series,  of  the  different  ps>/chicnl  factors  tvhich  enter  into  our  x>ercei-)tion  of  exter- 
nal body  in  general.  Thus  the  differences  in  the  weight  and  the  inertia 
of  bodies,  as  directly  perceived,  depend  upon  the  differences  in  the  complex 
states  of  consciousness  called  forth  when  we  attemjit  to  move  them,  either 
away  from  the  earth  (lift  them)  or  before,  or  behind  our  own  body  (that 
is,  jmsh  or  pull  them).  Their  differences  in  shaj^e  depend  upon  the  suc- 
cession of  conscious  states,  in  terms  of  touch,  which  we  get  when  we 
move  over  their  surfaces,  and  yet  find  ourselves  constantly  resisted  in  the 
effort  to  move  in  directions  other  than  those  not  "  occupied  "  by  the  body. 
"Shape"  and  "solidity,"  then,  imply  each  other  to  touch;  but  one  jirop- 
erty  lays  emphasis  on  certain  phases,  the  other  on  different  jDhases,  of  the 
complex  experience  of  active  touch.  So,  all  the  way  along  the  development 
of  perceiDtion  by  touch,  discrimination  and  iuteri^retation  of  the  elements 
compounded  in  the  stream  of  consciousness  is  necessary. 

I  17.  The  so-called  perception  which  we  have  of  the  properties  and  re- 
lations of  bodies  that  are  not  immediately  in  contact  with  our  organs  of 
touch  is  indirect ;  it  is  of  the  nature  of  knowledge  by  inference  and  asso- 
ciation rather  than  an  immediate  awareness  of  these  properties.  Here, 
knowledge  is  first  gained  by  the  eye  (in  ways  to  be  explained  in  the  next 
chapter),  and  is  then  translated  into  terms  of  touch  on  the  basis  of  previous- 
ly associated  and  inferred  ideas.  Thus  our  perceptive  consciousness,  when 
we  are  looking  at  a  mountain  we  are  about  to  climb,  at  an  object  marking 
the  distance  to  which  we  wish  to  throw  a  stone  or  a  ball,  at  the  height  of 
the  wall  or  fence  over  which  we  wish  to  jiimp,  at  the  size  of  some  weight 
of  known  substance  which  we  projpose  to  lift,  etc.,  is  strongly  tinged  with 
faint  tactual,  muscular,  and  joint  sensations,  feelings  of  strain  and  effort, 
and  revived  images  of  similar  sensations.  These  are  all  stimulated,  as 
it  were,  by  the  localized  sensations  of  color  and  light.  In  fact,  it  is  difficult 
for  us  to  j)crceive  any  distinct  object,  as  having  spatial  qualities  and  relations 
that  are  known  immediately  to  active  touch  and  to  muscular  effort,  without 
responding  to  the  challenge  which  it  affords  to  conceive  of  it  as  being 
brought  into  the  sphere  of  our  motor  consciousness.  Thus  the  eye,  if  we 
would  vividly  realize  the  world  of  space-intuitions  which  it  presents,  fur- 
nishes invitations  that  rarely  or  never  fail  to  meet  response.  Vision  invites 
us  to  rehearse  how  we  should  feel,  if  we  went  "  there,"  and  handled  "  those  " 
objects,  and  mastered  the  now  merely  seen,  in  terms  of  our  own  bodily  ac- 
tion. In  this  living  "motor  consciousness,"  which  nevrt-  forsakes  us,  the 
whole  world  of  external  objects  has  its  life.  "\Vo  can  scarcely  see  the  stars  "as 
distant"  without  conceiving  of  ourselves  as  flying  thither  on  wings  ;  that  is, 
we  translate  the  visual  stars  into  terms  of  motor  consciousness.  The  "bulk" 
of  those  worlds  and  the  mighty  "  forces  "  of  nature  are  no  reality — are  mere 
pale  abstractions — unless  we  think  of  the  immense  sensations  of  strain  and 
feelings  of  effort  that  would  be  called  forth  in  the  consciousness  of  one  who 
should  attemi^t  to  lift  or  to  push  them,  to  hold  them  back  or  to  make  a 
stand  against  their  motion.  It  is  the  more  necessary  to  insist  upon  this 
leadership  of  motor  consciousness  in  our  knowledge  of  external  objects  as 
solid  and  real,  because  we  are  about  to  insist,  equally  strenuously,  upon  the 
leadership  of  the  eye  in  many  forms  of  space-intuition. 


RELATIONS   OF   SIGHT   AND   TOUCH  347 

In  marking-  tlie  transition  between  the  two  g-eometrical  senses 
we  may  again  observe  :  How  meagre  and  fragmentary  is  tlie 
picture  which  we  can  frame,  whetlier  of  our  own  body  or  of 
other  bodies,  in  terms  of  skin,  muscles,  and  joints,  etc. !  Our 
more  distinctively  motor  consciousness  of  extended  and  external 
objects  is  indeed  Avarm  and  life-like  ;  it  is  always  able  to  appeal 
to  our  ati'ections  and  to  o\ir  will,  in  a  very  direct  way.  But  con- 
sidered as  independent  of  sight  it  is,  for  those  who  have  sight, 
almost  inconceivably  narrow  and  incomplete.  For  the  blind, 
the  larger  i^art  of  our  world  of  external  and  extended  objects  is 
a  "  solemn  silence  ;  "  and  most  of  the  rest  of  their  world  is  a 
"wandering  of  noises."  Even  the  pictures  they  form  of  their 
own  bodies,  and  of  other  bodies  in  contact  with  theirs,  are,  as 
respects  their  spatial  properties  and  relations,  almost  totally 
diiierent  from  ours. 

[Besides  the  references  already  made  in  the  notes,  the  particnlar  sections  of  the  larger 
and  more  modern  treatises  on  psychology  (respecting  perception  in  general  and  perception 
'•  by  toncli  ")  should  he  consulted.  Of  all  in  English,  that  of  Frofesst)r  James  (The  Prin- 
ciples of  Psychology,  II.,  pp.  70-0-4)  is  by  far  the  best.  For  emphasis,  however,  on  cer- 
tain points  he  has  relatively  neglected,  see  Bain  :  The  Senses  and  the  Intellect,  pp.  59-100, 
1.59-190,  3(50-488.  Wundt :  Grundziige  d.  Physiolog.  Psychologic,  II.,  pp.  1— Jl.  Spencer: 
Principles  of  Psychology,  II.,  vi.,  chap.  13;  and  Sully:  The  Human  Mind,  I.,  pp.  204- 
23.5.  Monographs  containing  much  of  interest  are  those  of  Max  Dessoir  :  Ueber  d.  Haut- 
sinn.  Ferii :  Sensation  et  Mouvement.  Stumpf :  Raumvorstellung.  Hoppe :  Schein- 
Bewegungen.  Abbott :  Sight  and  Touch.  Drossbach :  Objecte  d.  sinnlichen  Wahrneh- 
mung.     Stout:  Miad,  xv,,  p.  o3  f.     Uphues:  Wahrnehmung  u.  Empfindung.] 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

PEECEPTION  BY  THE  SENSES  {Continued) 

The  world  of  external  and  extended  objects,  wliicli  stands 
(apparently  "  ready-made  ")  before  our  open  and  attentive  eyes, 
is  a  most  marvellous  achievement  of  the  perceptive  faculties. 
With  such  obvious  instantaneousness  and  clearness  of  outline 
and  of  relations  do  these  objects  often  appear,  that  it  is  natural 
to  regard  vision  as  resembling-  the  impression  passively  received 
by  a  photog-rapher's  plate  rather  than  as  the  result  of  mental 
activity.  Even  in  those  cases  where  vision  is  attained  only  after 
purposeful  effort  and  an  appreciable  time,  it  is  ordinarily  the 
objects  in  which  we  are  interested  rather  than  in  the  i^art  we 
take  in  perceiving-  them.  But  psycholog-y,  true  to  its  scientific 
work  of  explaining  states  of  consciousness  as  such,  requires  an 
account  of  the  genesis  and  development  of  this  marvellous  men- 
tal faculty.  For  Perceptions  of  Sight  are  undoubtedly  the  re- 
sults of  development.  It  is  a  "far  cry,"  indeed,  from  having 
sensations  of  color  and  light,  vaguely  big  or  voluminous,  to  per- 
ceiving the  spatial  qualities  and  relations  of  things  with  a  prac- 
tically instantaneous  activity  of  the  eye ;  and  the  question,  By 
what  means,  stages,  processes,  and  mental  activity  does  the  con- 
struction and  elaboration  of  a  "  field  of  vision  "  take  place  1  is 
one  of  the  most  difficult  and  profound  of  all  the  questions  which 
psychology  undertakes  to  investigate. 

Many  of  the  subordinate  questions  concerned  in  our  theory  of 
the  Development  of  Vision  never  have  been,  and  probably  never 
can  be,  satisfactorily  answered.  So  far,  however',  as  the  brief , 
answer  which  will  now  be  given  is  concerned,  most  of  its  data 
have  already  been  considered  in  detail.  A  brief  enumeration  of 
them  is  in  jilace  here.  (1)  There  are  several  "  spatial  series  "  of 
sensations  belonging  to  the  activity  of  the  organs  of  vision  which, 
liy  their  fusion  in  manifold  ways,  furnish  an  exceedingly  complex 
and  delicate  system  of  discriminable  "  local  signs."  (2)  There 
are  representative  images  of  these  sensation-complexes  which 
become  associated  with  one  another  and  with  the  sensations,  or 
by  the  process  of  "  condensation "  of  series  become  indistin- 


THE    "data"    of    visual  PERCEPTION  349 

guishably  fused  iu  the  total  psycliosis.  (3)  There  is  a  con- 
stantly developing-  power  of  disciiniiuating  consciousness,  con- 
sidered as  involving-  assimilation,  diti'erentiation,  and  all  the 
processes  of  i^rimary  intellection.  (4)  There  is  ever-present  at- 
tention, in  its  most  jirimary  and  then  more  developed  forms, 
with  its  constant  changes  of  focus  and  process  of  redistribution 
— hnally  becoming  a  consciously  selective,  purposeful,  and  ex- 
j)loring  director  of  the  activity  of  the  eye.  (5)  There  are  faint 
accompaniments  of  affective  and  conative  origin — far  fainter, 
however,  as  a  rule,  than  those  belonging  to  perceptions  of  touch 
— which  tinge  these  visual  jjsychoses  and  g-ive  to  them  "  life  " 
and  "  reality."  (6)  There  is  constant  association  with  the  syn- 
chronously developing  field  of  touch,  with  its  perception  of 
spatial  properties  and  relations  by  skin,  muscles,  and  joints  ; 
and  there  is  a  subtile  process  of  "  interpretation  "  of  one  in 
terms  of  the  other  constantly  taking  place. 

It  is  only  by  constant  reference  to  the  foregoing  truths  (al- 
ready established)  that  we  can  explain — so  far  as  explanation 
is  possible  at  all — the  development  of  visual  perception.  In 
the  case  of  vision — even  more,  if  possible,  than  in  the  case  of 
the  other  geometrical  sense — genuine  explanation  comes  to  an 
end  in  the  presence  of  the  admission  that  somehow,  and  at  some 
time,  the  fused  sensation-complexes  and  representative  images 
produced  by  activity  of  the  eye  appear  as  "  presentations  of 
sense."  The  resultant  of  sensations  and  of  other  mental  factors 
appears  as  "objects"  endowed  (we  are  forced  to  say,  by  the 
native  power,  or  according  to  the  natural  laws,  of  mental  life) 
with  spatial  properties,  standing  in  spatial  relations. 

I  1.  The  "data"  of  visual  perception  in  the  form  of  discriminable  varia- 
tions belonging  to  the  sensational  elements  are  at  least  as  nnmerous  as  the 
following :  (a)  Sensation-complexes  of  light  and  color,  of  vaiying  qualities  and 
intensities,  due  to  simultaneous  excitement  of  contiguous  nervous  elements 
of  the  retina  ;  (b)  sensation-complexes  of  tactual  and  muscular  order,  due  to 
movement  of  the  eyeball  in  its  socket  ;  (c)  other  sensation-complexes  due 
to  accommodation  of  the  eye  for  near  distances.  As  already  said,  these 
combine  with  {d)  associated  images  of  past  sensations  of  all  three  kinds- 
suggesting  each  other  and  suggested  by  the  sensations  themselves;  and 
with  (e)  faint  accompaniments  of  conative  and  affective  consciousness, 
making  the  visual  object  to  be  presented  as  the  resultant,  in  part,  of  feeling 
and  will.  But  (a)  and  [b)  may  be  regarded  as  the  chief  sensation-elements 
determinative  of  the  extensity  of  the  visual  object  in  its  most  primary  pre- 
sentative  form. 

I  2.  The  more  developed  perception,  by  vision,  of  the  spatial  properties 
of  bodies  as  extended  iu  three  dimensions,  and  of  their  relations  in  the 
third   dimension,    involves  a  variety   of  secondary   factors  which  will  be 


350  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

noticed  in  their  proiiev  place.  In  all  vision  the  fact  that  we  have  two  eyes, 
which,  however,  act  as  one  organ,  is  most  important.  An  account  of  the 
construction  of  the  field  of  vision  involves  three  stages,  which,  for  pur- 
poses of  convenient  presentation  of  theory  may  be  successively  considered. 
These  are  (1)  the  conditions  which  determine  the  formation  of  a  retinal 
image  with  the  eyes  at  rest ;  (2)  the  single  eye  in  motion  and  the  influence 
of  its  movement ;  (3)  the  conditions  furnished  by  the  existence  and  relations 
of  the  two  eyes  exercising  their  functions  in  common.  It  should  be  borne 
in  mind,  however,  that  this  order  does  not  follow  the  natural  development. 
Prom  the  first  both  eyes  are  actually  exercising  their  functions  in  common. 
And  the  vision  of  objects,  extended  and  external,  with  one  eye  at  rest,  in- 
stead of  being  the  simplest,  easiest,  and  earliest  form  of  vision,  is  its  latest, 
most  difficult,  and — considering  the  amount  of  associated  ideation  and  so- 
called  *•  instinctive  inference"  necessary — most  complex  form. 

A  yet  more  highly  developed  knowledge  of  things,  by  vision,  involves 
the  use  of  the  eyes  with  movements  of  the  head  around  its  axis,  and  of 
the  entire  body.  For  much  of  what  we  call  "seeing"  things  is  actually 
accomplished  by  interpretation  of  muscular  sensations,  localizable  in  the 
neck  and  upper  part  of  the  trunk.  Here  also  assistance  is  derived  from  the 
fluids  in  the  semicircular  canals,  which  we  have  found  to  influence  the 
orienting  of  ourselves  in  space,  and  of  all  other  objects  as  related  to  our- 
selves. Indeed,  we  see  all  things  in  surrounding  space  according  to  our 
perception  of  our  own  position  with  reference  to  the  earth  ;  and  this  percep- 
tion is  primarily  a  matter,  not  so  much  of  sight  as  of  skin,  muscles, 
joints,  and  interorganic  sensibility.  Hence  everything  "  looks  "  very  differ- 
ent when  we  stand  on  our  heads ;  or  when  we  regard  the  field  of  vision  with 
our  head  between  our  legs,  or  even  with  our  head  twisted  to  one  side. 

Moreover,  perceptions  of  sight  proper  are  constantly  interpreted  in  terms 
of  touch  ;  they  even  have  elements  from  perception  by  touch  inextricably 
fused  with  the  truly  \'isual  elements.  Certain  properties  of  bodies— such 
as  their  smoothness  or  roughness,  softness  or  hardness,  etc. — are  known 
to  sight,  only  as  inferred  from  previous  association  with  touch.  It  will 
appear,  however,  that  vision  of  the  third  dimension  by  the  eye  is  possible ; 
and  that  we  develop  an  ' '  immediate  perceptive  consciousness "  of  the  ex- 
tension and  relation  of  bodies  in  this  third  dimension.  Here,  again,  visual 
perception  of  this  dimension  is  a  quite  different  consciousness  from  tactual 
l^erception  of  the  same  dimension.  But  a  translation  of  one  into  terms  of 
the  other  is  constantly  taking  place  ;  and  this  makes  possible  a  more  com- 
plete and  useful  knowledge  of  the  spatial  properties  and  spatial  relations  of 
visual  objects. 

Sight  differs  markedly  from  touch  in  that  the  knowledge  of  our  own 
body  by  sight  comes  in  precisely  the  same  way  as  the  knowledge  of  other 
bodies.  That  is,  by  skin,  muscles,  and  joints,  I  become  immediately  aware  of 
my  body  as  being  "  locally  "  affected  ;  but  the  expanses  of  the  active  retina  or 
the  sockets  of  the  eyeball  are  not  perceived  by  sight.  By  sight,  on  the 
contrary,  I  know  the  different  areas  of  the  body  which  can  be  brought  into 
the  field  of  vision,  in  precisely  the  same  way  as  that  in  which  I  know  all  other 
objects  in  that  field.  My  body  is  externally  perceived  by  sight  ;  interiorly 
so,  as  my  sentient  organism  (as  myself),  by  touch.     This  fact  taken  in  con- 


I 


rEUCEPTIOX   BY   SIGHT   AN   ACTIVITY  351 

nection  with  the  faint  character  of  the  conative  and  afl'ective  accompani- 
ments of  vision,  gives  to  sight  its  more  purely  intellectual  and  cool  objective 
character.  This  fact  also  makes  it  impossible  to  draw,  in  the  case  of  sight, 
the  same  distinction  between  "  localization  "  of  the  bodily  areas  and  "  jiro- 
jectiou,"  so  called,  of  the  external  and  extended  object.  From  the  first,  and 
continuously,  the  extended  visual  object  {quoad  object)  is  projected  as  exter- 
nal to  the  organ  of  sense. 

Even  in  the  simplest  and  most  naive  possible  form  of  adult 
vision,  the  object  appears  to  arise  immediately  in  consciousness 
as  an  extended  and  external  mass  of  light-  and  color-sensations. 
In  other  words,  all  bodies  are  perceived  by  the  eyes  as  colored 
surfaces  in  three  dimensions.  In  this  perceptive  process  we  are 
customarily  unconscious  of  the  passage  of  time  while  the  presen- 
tation of  sense  is  being-  constructed;  unconscious  also  of  activity 
either  in  the  wa}^  of  controlling  the  focusing  and  distribution  of 
attention,  with  motionless  eyes,  or  of  moving  the  eyes  over  the 
object  in  exploration  of  its  different  minuter  areas.  We  seem  to 
ourselves  to  be  passive,  like  an  extremely  sensitive  photographic 
jdate  on  which  a  comj^lete  impression  of  the  object  is  made  by 
instantaneous  exposure  to  the  object.  More  analytic  observa- 
tion shows  us,  however,  that  the  accuracy  and  range  of  our 
visual  perception  of  objects  does  depend  upon  time  ;  and  that,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  we  cannot  see  an  object — especially  if  it  is  at 
all  complex — without  constructing  it  with  a  wandering  point  of 
regard  and  a  moving  organ  of  vision.  Visual  j)ercep(iG?i  is,  then, 
lihe  every  form  ofmentcd  life,  a  2)rocess  in  time  and  requiring  men- 
tal activity.  This  complex  process  involves  all  the  elementary 
forms  of  mental  life ;  it  includes,  of  course,  attention,  ideation, 
and  motor  consciousness  as  dependent  upon  conation. 

Suppose,  however,  we  make  the  eflfort  to  exclude  all  influence 
from  present  motion,  and  from  past  experience  ;  and  thus  reduce 
the  field  of  vision  to  its  lowest  terms.  We  open  one  eye,  and  try 
to  keep  this  perfectly  fixed.  Yet  even  now,  with  a  practical  instan- 
taneousness,  we  behold  the  objects  set — themselves  extended  in 
three  dimensions — in  spatial  relations  to  us  and  to  each  other. 
This  monocular  field  of  vision  is  reduced  in  area  however  ;  the 
images  in  it  are  perhaps  less  clear  and  stereoscopic.  This  prac- 
tical loss  of  area,  clearness,  and  apparent  solidity,  is  duo  to  the 
inactivity  of  the  other  and  closed  eye.  "What  it  is  which  this 
other  eye  still  contributes  to  the  total  field  of  vision  we  can 
partially  discover  by  directing  attention  to  its  side  of  the  field. 
There  we  shall  find  a  dim  color-mass,  located  beyond  the  nose, 
and  perhaps  blending  with  its  rather  obscure  outline  into  the 
more  "  objective  "  field  of  the  open  eye.     Now,  however  extreme 


352  PEECEPTIO]!^   BY   THE   SENSES 

our  "  nativism,"  we  cannot  appeal  to  consciousness  in  proof  that 
this  motionless  monocular  Held  is  independent  of  preceding 
experience  with  two  moving-  eyes.  For  what  we  see,  even  in 
this  way,  is  not  mere  extensit}'^  or  voluminousness  of  color- 
masses  ;  it  is  familiar  objects,  like  trees,  hills,  men,  horses,  build- 
ings, with  all  the  spatial  qualities  and  relations — only  somewhat 
less  clear  and  stereoscopic — that  belong  to  vision  with  two  mov- 
ing eyes.  Such  seeing  of  objects  is  undoubtedly  the  achieve- 
ment of  mind  in  a  course  of  development ;  it  implies  volition, 
memory,  imagination,  and  intellection,  practised  upon  these  same 
objects  over  and  over  again.  Therefore  we  cannot  understand 
this  motionless  monocular  field,  except  by  reference  to  what  has 
been  previously  gained  of  perceptive  faculty  by  the  use  of  two 
eyes  in  motion. 

Once  more  let  us  try  to  exclude  from  our  problem  all  that  is 
confessedly  the  result  of  experience.  We  now  close  both  eyes 
and  keep  them  motionless ;  again  the  vagiie  light-  and  color- 
mass  with  its  three-dimensioned  extension  and  indefinite  out- 
line appears  in  the  guise  of  an  external  visual  object.  Or — in 
obedience  to  the  request  of  some  ardent  nativist — we  "  lie  on 
our  back  on  a  hill "  and  let  "  the  empty  abyss  of  blue  fill  the 
whole  visual  field,"  or  look  from  its  top  with  "  inverted  head  " 
at  the  uttermost  horizon  and  notice  the  "  startling  increase  in 
the  perspective."  We  then  raise  anew  our  question  :  Whence 
comes  this  "  immediate  awareness  "  of  the  "  voluminousness,"  in 
all  three  dimensions,  of  our  sensation-complexes  of  light  and 
color?  To  this  question,  so  far  as  an  answer  seems  possible, 
the  following  must  be  replied :  All  visital  jyercepfion,  even  the 
most  primitive,  requires  the  fusion  of  sensation-complexes  of  light 
and  color,  which  are  discriminahle  as  "  local  signs  of  the  retina,'' 
with  other  sensations  and  images  ofsensatio7is,  of  a  tactual  and  i7ius- 
cular  ordtr,  due  to  motion  of  the  eye. 

\  3.  In  support  of  the  foregoing  conclusion  reference  should  be  made  to 
what  has  aheady  been  said  of  the  primary  nature  of  seiisations  of  motion, 
and  the  derivative  character  of  sensations  of  position,  as  implying  previous 
experience  with  sensations  of  motion.  The  existence  of  both  a  system  of 
retinal  signs,  which  makes  possible  a  nicety  of  local  discrimination  by  vision 
surpassing  the  finest  tactual  and  muscular  work,  and  ahn  of  constant  aid  in 
the  construction  of  the  visual  object  by  use  of  the  motor  apparatus  of  the 
eye,  must  be  again  admitted  (see  p.  153  f.). 

On  the  one  hand,  wo  have  seen  that  the  structiire  and  use  of  the  retinal 

areas  show  such  a  system  of  local  signs  to  exist.     But,  on  the  other  hand. 

the  use  and  development  of  this  system  is  from  the  first  accomi)anied  with 

motion  of  the  visual  organs.     Preyer '  and  others  have  observed  infants 

'  The  Mind  of  the  Child,  Part  I.,  p.  43. 


i 


INFLUENCE   OF   SENSATIONS   OF   MOTION  353 

moving  tlie  eyes  so  as  better  to  fixate  an  object  ■whicli  was  first  seen  indi- 
rectly, as  early  as  within  a  fortnight  (eleventh  day)  after  birth.  It  cannot 
properly  be  said  either  that  the  primitive  bigness  of  the  object  belongs 
wholly  to  the  muscular  sensations  and  then  gets  associated  with  the  retinal 
signs  (so  Miinsterberg  and  others)  ;  or  that  this  bigness  belongs  wholly 
to  the  retinal  image,  regardless  of  muscular  sensations,  and  then  is  only 
"measured  otf  "  by  changes  in  the  intensity  of  muscular  sensations  (so  James). 
We  must  rather  say  that,  from  the  first  appearance  of  a  visual  object,  its  exten- 
sion is  perceived  in  dependence  upon  both  the  characte?'  of  the  retinal  signs  excited 
and  the  sensations  of  motion,  or  images  of  jjast  movements,  fused  icith  these 
retinal  signs. 

g  4.  In  spite  of  our  best  efforts  it  is  difficult  to  hold  the  organs  of  vision 
motionless.  Some  slight,  inchoate  but  largely  inhibited  movement  gener- 
ally accompanies  all  direction  of  the  attention  to  any  particular  part  of  the 
field  of  vision.  This  is  so  when  we  attempt  to  fixate  any  particular  area,  or 
single  sjjeck  of  color  or  light  in  the  retinal  field,  with  both  eyes  closed. 
When  only  one  eye  is  closed,  the  attention  cannot  be  fixed  upon  the  color- 
mass  which  represents  the  field  of  the  closed  eye,  without  turning  thither- 
ward the  open  eye.  Where  sensations  of  motion  arising  from  actual  move- 
ment are  suppressed,  sensations  of  strain  or  tension  may  take  their  place. 
Thus — to  recur  to  facts  already  treated — Holmgren's '  exi^eriments  showed 
that  in  looking  fixedly  at  very  faint  and  fine  points  of  light,  the  image  seems 
to  move  constantly  upward,  if  the  eyes  are  somewhat  elevated.  That  is,  the 
sensation  of  continued  tension  expresses  itself  as  a  sensation  of  continued 
motion,  in  the  direction  of  the  muscular  exertion.  Moreover,  there  appears 
to  be  a  pretty  constant  relation  between  the  special  sensibility  of  the  eye  as 
the  organ  of  vision  and  the  general  sensibility  of  its  integuments.  Troubles 
in  the  latter,  due  to  cerebral  lesion,  are  accompanied  by  troubles  of  vision, 
such  as  (not  simply  achromatopsy)  concentric  or  lateral  retrenchments  of 
the  visual  field.  The  condition  of  the  cornea  and  of  the  conjunctiva  is  also 
sometimes  found  to  be  concerned  in  hysterical  hemiansosthesia.  All  this 
shows  that  space-intidtion  by  the  eye  is  profoundly  influenced  by  the  tactual 
sensations  connected  with  its  motion. 

What  would  become  of  the  "bigness"  of  visual  objects  if  either  the 
system  of  local  signs  and  the  spatial  series  of  sensations  connected  there- 
with, or  the  movement  of  the  whole  organ  and  the  spatial  series  of  muscular 
and  also  of  tactual  sensations  connected  therewith,  were  removed?  To 
this  question  we  reply:  Such  "bigness"  would  never  appear.  In  other 
words,  the  most  primitive  construction  of  a  visual  object  requires  experi- 
ence with  all  these  sense-data. 

As  soon  as  we  admit  the  Influence  of  Sensations  of  Motion 
upon  Visual  Perception  of  the  relative  magnitudes  and  distances 
of  objects — these  objects  being-  already  perceived  as  extended 
and  external — the  problems  connected  with  the  development  of 
vision  become  comparatively  easy  of  solution.  The  entire  struct- 
ure of  the  organ  of  vision  designs  it  for  motion.     Indeed,  with- 

1  Comp.  Am.  Jounial  of  Psychology,  iii.,  p.  206. 
23 


I' 


354  PERCEPTIO?^   BY   THE   SENSES 

out  motion  the  eye  is  not  an  organ  oi  perception,  in  any  intelli- 
gible meaning  of  tliis  word.  On  only  one  small  portion  of  the 
retina  is  it  possible  to  form  a  clear  and  distinct  image  of  any 
external  object.  But  diiierent  objects  actually  stand  in  different 
relations  to  this  central  portion  of  the  retina  ;  and  these  relations 
vary,  as  the  objects  move  or  as  the  organ  moves.  Only  by 
motion  of  the  eye,  then,  can  the  organ  be  applied  to  the  object. 
Only  in  the  same  way,  if  the  object  is  at  all  complex  and  "  vo- 
luminous," can  the  different  parts  of  the  perceptive  process  so 
be  united  in  one  field  of  consciousness  as  to  constitute  a  single 
joerceived  object.  If  the  eye  could  not  move  with  great  rapid- 
itj"  and  be  accompanied  by  discriminating,  ideating,  and  s^^n- 
thesizing  activity  of  consciousness,  there  could  be  no  field  of 
vision  corresponding  in  extent  to  the  number  of  objects,  or 
parts  of  objects,  perceived  as  a  related  totality.  Moreover,  it  is 
only  in  terms  of  the  magnitude  and  duration  of  the  sensations 
evoked  by  motion  that  objects  of  any  considerable  size  can  be 
compared  with  each  other,  and  thus  their  relative  size  and  their 
relations  in  space  be  determined.  Distances,  in  all  of  the  three 
dimensions,  are  measured  with  a  moving  eye. 

In  this  measuring  activity  by  motion  of  the  eye  two  classes 
of  movement  are  possible.  These  are  (1)  movements  of  the  eye- 
ball, under  the  pull  of  one  or  more  of  its  three  pairs  of  muscles  : 
and  (2)  movements  of  the  lens  and  connected  structures  in  ac- 
commodation, or  in  focusing  for  near  distances.  The  former  of 
these  movements  result  in  changing  the  series  of  both  mus- 
cular and  connected  tactual  sensations  ;  the  latter  (although  the 
mechanism  of  accommodation  is  still  somewhat  obscure)  jn-ob- 
ably  have  the  same  result.  In  all  this  Y)avi  of  the  perceptive 
process  it  is  the  course  of  the  wandering  of  the  point  of  regard 
over  the  outline  of  the  object  which  determines  the  character  of 
the  result.  And  here  the  general  principle  (namely,  that  which 
controls  in  visual  perception  as  dependent  upon  motion  of  the 
eye)  may  be  stated  as  follows :  Every  field  of  vision,  and  everi/ 
object  seen  in  that  field,  depends  for  its  spatial  qualities  upon  the 
changes  jyroduced  in  the  muscidar  and  tactual  sensation-comptlexes 
hy  successive  changes  in  the  "point  of  regard." 

1 5.  "When  the  image  of  any  object  falls  upon  a  small  spot  in  the  physi- 
ological center  of  the  retina  (the /or^a  centmlis)  it  is  clear;  but  objects 
seen  in  "indirect  vision,"  or  whose  images  fall  ontsido  of  this  spot,  are  not 
so  clearly  perceived.  Hence  we  have  a  natural  and  almost  in-esistible  ten- 
dency to  bring  the  image  of  any  object  wliich  we  wish  to  see  clearly,  to  this 
]ioint  and  to  fixate  it  there.  Without  conscious  desire  or  volition  this  ten- 
dency operates  in  the  case  of  any  bright  object  whose  image  falls  upon  the 


INFLUENCE   OF   SENSATIONS   OF   MOTION  355 

retina,  even  of  the  very  young  child.  That  point  in  the  object  to  which  the 
center  of  the  retinal  area  of  clearest  vision  corresponds  is  called  "  the  jwint 
of  regard  "  (sometimes,  "fixation-point").  The  movement  and  fixation  of 
the  point  of  regard  is  accomplished  by  three  pairs  of  muscles  for  each  eye- 
ball ;  and  thus  this  point  may  be  moved  on  different  axes  of  rotation  about 
a  "  center  of  rotation  "  (really  an  iuteraxial  space  located  some  13  to  14  mm. 
behind  the  cornea).  Thus,  also,  the  "  line  of  vision  "  (a  line  drawn  from  the 
center  of  rotation  to  the  point  of  regard)  can  be  changed  for  each  eye ;  and 
the  "i^lane  of  vision"  (or  plane  passing  through  the  lines  of  vision  of  both 
eyes)  can  be  shifted  in  various  ways,  starting  from  the  "primary  iiosition" 
— head  erect  and  line  of  regard  directed  toward  the  distant  horizon.  A  va- 
riety of  movements  may  be  accomplished,  and  sets  of  positions  successively 
assumed,  by  rotating  the  eye  upon  its  axis,  with  or  without  combination  of 
lateral  and  vertical  displacements.  In  this  way  the  practice  of  the  moving 
eye,  begun  in  the  automatic  effort  to  fixate  the  point  of  regard,  results  in 
establishing  systems  of  sensations  of  motion  and  sensations  of  position, 
which  serve  to  orient  it,  for  every  possible  line  of  regard,  by  reference  to 
a  constant  standard. 

It  is  by  comparison  of  sensations  of  motion. and  sensations  of  strain  with 
one  another,  for  all  varieties  of  motions  and  positions  and  as  fused  with 
varying  sensation-complexes  of  color  and  light,  that  we  "size"  the  outlines 
of  our  various  objects  of  visual  i^erception.'  Here  again,  however,  we  must 
recall  the  fact  that  the  eye,  like  the  skin,  is  especially  sensitive  to  sensations 
of  motion.  By  movement  over  the  stationary  retina  the  variously  colored 
local  signs  are  played  upon.  Hence,  part  of  the  data  by  which  a  moving 
eye  appreciates  a  linear  magnitude  more  exactly  than  does  a  fixated  eye  (as 
Miinsterberg  and  others  have  shown,  in  fact),  may  be  due  to  the  service 
which  movement  renders  in  bringing  into  greater  distinctness  in  conscious- 
ness these  same  variously  colored  local  signs.  Nor  is  it  strange  that  the 
more  practised  the  eye  has  grown,  the  less  able  is  it  to  separate  data  which 
have  become  so  inextricably  fused  into  forms  of  objective  knowledge. 

^  6.  Only  those  objects  which  are  seen  by  direct  vision— that  is,  whose 
images  lie  in  the  line  of  regard  when  the  eye  is  in  its  primary  position- 
appear  in  their  actual  place.  All  other  objects  and  their  outlines  appear 
out  of  their  actual  place.  To  test  this,  take  a  sheet  of  white  jiaper  with  a 
black  dot  in  its  center,  fixate  this  dot  steadily  with  one  eye  only ;  and  then 
straight  slits  of  paper  lying  outside  of  the  two  meridians  will  appear  bent. 
Both  arms  of  a  rectangular  cross  will,  under  the  same  circumstances  as  the 
straight  slits,  appear  distorted.  And  in  general  all  lines  lying  outside  the 
vertical  and  horizontal  meridians  of  the  retina,  in  order  to  be  seen  straight, 
must  be  really  bent ;  and  all  really  straight  lines  in  such  positions  are  seen 
bent.  /;;  is;  bj/  a  mental  tranapoaition,  based  upon  our  experience  with  movhig 
eyes  and  thus  enabling  us  to  use  the  sense-data  as  corrected  by  associated  images 
of  previous  sensations,  that  the  spatial  relations  outside  of  the  images  on  the 
meridians  of  the  primary  position  are  seen  at  all. 

?  7.  "  There  can  be  no  doubt,"  says  Helmholtz,"  "  that  anyone  who  has 
much  observed  his  own  changes  of  accommodation  and  knows  the  muscular 

1  Here  compare  Miinsterberg :  BeitrSge,  etc.,  Heft,  2  ;  and  Professor  James's  note  and  admis- 
sions. The  Principles  of  Psychology,  11.,  p.  200  f. 
"  Physiologische  Optik,  p.  633. 


356  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

feeling  of  the  effort  belonging  to  them,  is  in  a  condition  to  tell  whether, 
when  he  lixates  an  object  or  an  optical  image,  he  is  accommodating  for  a 
great  or  a  small  distance."  Donders  showed  that  si:)ectacles  of  moderate 
convexity  magnify  not  chiefly  because  they  enlarge  the  retinal  image,  but 
because  they  relax  the  muscle  of  accommodation.  This  produces  muscular 
sensations  which  compel  us  to  place  the  object  further  off,  and  since  its 
retinal  image  is  not  diminished,  its  perceived  size  is  much  increased. 
When  the  muscles  of  accommodation  are  j^aralyzed  by  atropine,  we  have  to 
make  the  same  strain  to  accommodate  which  would  be  necessary,  in  the 
normal  condition  of  these  muscles,  for  a  much  nearer  object.  Hence  the 
size  of  the  retinal  image  not  being  enlarged  in  proportion  to  the  nearness  of 
the  muscular  exertion,  the  object  may  seem  much  diminished  in  size. 

Wuudt,  while  experimenting  to  determine  the  value  of  muscular  sensa- 
tions of  accommodation  on  the  perception  of  visual  distance  (with  which,  of 
course,  is  connected  the  size  of  the  object)  found  that  relative  position  could 
be  determined  in  this  way  with  considerable  accuracy — especially  if  the 
strain  of  accommodation  was  increased  by  approaching  the  object  quite  near 
to  the  eye.  Helraholtz  found  the  value  of  this  datum  for  clear  visual  per- 
ception somewhat  different  for  different  colors.  It  may  be  said  with  confi- 
dence, then,  that  changes  in  the  sensation-complexes  produced  by  movement 
in  accommodating  for  nearer  distances  have  a  considerable,  but  a  somewhat 
fluctuating  and  uncertain  influence,  upon  the  perception  of  the  spatial  quali- 
ties and  spatial  relations  of  visual  objects. 

The  fact  that  tivo  eyes,  with  their  two  sets  of  motions  and  of 
changes  in  the  resulting-  series  of  retinal  images,  are  orclinaril}" 
concerned  in  the  visual  perception  of  objects,  must  now  be  con- 
sidered. Each  eye  is  a  complete  optical  instrument,  with  its  own 
point,  line,  and  plane  of  regard,  and  its  movements  of  rotation, 
torsion,  and  accommodation.  The  two  eyes  are  then  never  mere 
optical  duplicates.  Psychologically  expressed,  this  means  that 
two  systems  of  spatial  series — fusing,  uncoupling,  fusing  again 
— enter  into  the  determination  of  the  object  of  visual  perception. 
And,  yet  again,  the  two  eyes  are,  in  some  important  sort,  one 
organ.  The  main  result  of  this  twofold  nature  of  the  one  organ 
is  to  emphasize  the  third  dimension  of  our  visual  space-intui- 
tions. It  is  chiefly  by  data  thus  afforded  that  we  become  imme- 
diately aware  of  objects  which,  to  sight,  are  both  single  ami 
solid ;  and  of  a  field  of  vision  in  which  such  objects  are  set  at 
different  distances  from  each  other.  In  other  words,  the  data 
afforded  by  two  eyes  in  motion  are  the  chief  mot  if x  for  stereosco- 
pic vision.  Such  data  of  Binocular  Vision,  in  order  to  account 
for  their  origin  and  influence,  require  two  sets  of  considerations  : 
(1)  "Wlien  both  eyes  are  motionless,  the  images  formed  upon  their 
retinas  are  symmetrical,  or  capable  of  exact-superposition,  only 
under  very  limited  conditions  as  respects  the  jiosition  of  the 
eyes.    (2)  When  both  eyes,  are  in  movement,  changes  i:i  the  rela- 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   STEKEOSCOPIC   VISION  357 

tions  of  their  imuo-cs  constantly  t.-iko  place,  which  corresi^ond  to 
all  the  positions  reached  alon^-  the  arc  of  motion.  Of  course, 
also,  sensations  of  position  and  sensations  of  motion,  of  a  muscu- 
lar and  tactual  kind,  as  well  as  suggested  images  of  such  sensa- 
tions, belong  to  every  i^ossible  combination,  in  use,  of  the  two 
eyes. 

We  see,  therefore,  that  very  complicated  motifs — or  systems 
of  changing  sensation-complexes  fused  with  and  suggesting 
mental  images — are  at  the  disposal  of  discriminating  conscious- 
ness in  every  case  of  perception  with  two  eyes.  Hence  the  deli- 
cacy and  accuracy  of  the  tact  which  it  is  possible  to  acquire  in 
this  way.  Hence  also  the  difticulties,  the  errors,  and  illusions  of 
various  kinds  which  belong  to  visual  percejition.  In  fine  :  stereo- 
scopic vision  is  developed ,  principally  on  a  basis  of  variations  in  the 
sensation-complexes,  concomitant  and  closely  successive,  due  to  the 
stimxdation  of  the  different  retinal  areas  of  the  two  eyes  C  local 
signs"  of  the  retinas),  comhined  with  variations  in  inuscidar  and 
tactual  sensations  due  to  their  simultaneous  movement — each  with 
its  own  axes  of  rotation,  point  of  regard,  etc.  The  very  use  of  the 
two  eyes,  in  ceaseless  motion,  as  one  organ,  provides  for  the 
necessary  repetition  of  the  requisite  spatial  series  of  sensations, 
in  every  possible  order,  for  their  fusion  into  connected  systems 
of  sensations,  and  for  the  revival  of  appropriate  representative 
images,  under  all  possible  conditions  of  motion  and  position. 

1 8.  Those  authorities  are  plainly  in  the  wrong  who  (the  prevalent  theory 
in  Great  Britain  since  Berkeley)  maintain  the  impossibility  of  "seeing"  the 
third  dimension  of  bodies,  and  therefore  the  necessity  of  translating  all 
visual  signs  of  this  dimension  into  terms  of  touch.  We  just  as  truly  be- 
come immediately  aware  of  the  solidity  of  bodies,  and  of  their  relations  of 
distance,  by  the  eyes,  as  by  the  skin,  muscles,  and  joints.  In  other  words, 
stereoscopic  vision  is  vision,  uud  is  7iot  mere  i7iterprekition  of  visual  symbols  in 
terms  of  touch.  It  has  already  T)een  shown  that,  if  we  wish  vividly  to  realize 
any  visual  object  as  solid  or  distant  in  space,  wo  are  apt  to  resort  to  the  help 
of  touch  ;  we  think  into  it  how  it  would  feel  in  case  Ave  could  grasp  it  or 
push  against  it,  or  what  our  muscular  and  tactual  exjierience  would  have  to 
be  in  order  to  make  what  is  over  "  there"  to  be  "  here,"  or  "  nearer  "  here, 
etc.  Thus  the  "bigness"  of  the  visualized  tree  is  perceived  more  vividly 
through  images  of  sensations  connected  with  the  purposed  effort  to  throw 
the  arms  around  it.  The  distance  of  the  house  or  hill  is  realized  better 
when  I  mingle  with  the  activity  of  the  eyes  the  revival  of  certain  muscular 
sensations  connected  with  walking,  climbing,  throwing  a  stone,  etc.  Nor 
would  wo  deny  that  Inchoate  motor  consciousness,  belonging  properly  to 
touch,  and  faint  suggestions  of  previous  tactile  and  muscular  experiences, 
blend  with  most  of  our  jierceptive  knowledge  of  things  through  our  eyes. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  translation  of  touch-experience  into  terms  of  sight, 
with  respect  to  all  three  of  the  so-called  dimensions  of  space,  is  a  more  con- 


358  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

stant  habit,  a  more  imperative  necessity.  Various  proofs  of  this  might  be 
added  to  those  already  given  in  the  last  chapter.  For  example,  if  we  with 
the  eyes  closed,  sufler  our  limbs  or  our  entire  body  jjassively  to  be  moved, 
and  then  attempt  to  i^erccive  the  i^osition  in  which  we  are  thus  i^laced, 
the  almost  irresistible  tendency  is  to  imagine  how  we  should  "look"  to 
ourselves,  if  we  were  only  to  open  our  eyes.  Again,  in  moving  about  in  a 
dark  room  with  which,  and  its  objects,  we  are  familiar,  we  guide  ourselves 
.chiefly  by  memory  of  sjiace-pictures  in  terms  of  sight ;  that  is,  we  recall  and 
imagine  how  the  objects  have  already  been  seen  to  stand  related.  The  pru- 
dent man,  who  is  mindful  of  a  possible  fire  in  the  night,  does  not  put  out 
the  gas  in  the  room  of  his  hotel  until  he  has  impressed  upon  himself  the 
visual  relations  of  all  the  principal  objects  (furniture,  gas-jet,  windows,  door, 
staircase,  or  fire-escape)  to  his  position  in  bed. 

The  theory  of  those  who  pvxsh  their  "touch-philosophy"  of  perception  to 
such  an  extreme  is  not  more  untenable  than  it  is  unnecessary.  "We  know' 
that  we  do,  by  use  of  the  eyes  with  their  develoijed  activity,  become  im- 
mediately aware  of  all  the  spatial  properties  and  relations  of  bodies.  And 
scientific  study  of  visual  development  itself  reveals  the  fact  that  the  means 
of  such  perceptive  knowledge  are  very  abundant.  Indeed,  it  is  just  this 
possession  of  delicately  shaded  local  signs,  connected  with  the  comj^lex  ner- 
vous structure  of  the  organ  of  vision,  and  its  rapid  and  equally  delicately 
shaded  motor  activity,  which  fits  the  field  of  vision  to  be  pre-eminently  the 
field  which  yields  the  richest  harvest  of  space-intuitions. 

§  9.  We  seem  to  be  prevented,  however,  from  saying  that  stereoscopic 
vision  is  absolutely  dependent,  for  its  very  existence,  on  two  eyes  in  motion. 
A  field  of  vision  lighted  by  an  electric  flash,  too  briefly  for  any  movement  of 
the  eyes,  is  still  seen  stereoscopically  ;  and  the  same  thing  is  true  of  the 
field  seen  with  only  one  eye,  whether  at  rest  or  in  motion.  In  both  these 
cases,  however,  much  of  the  result  is  doubtless  due  to  the  influence  of  sug- 
gestion, operating  to  revive  in  consciousness  the  perceptive  data  which 
were  originally  due  to  the  activity  of  both  eyes  in  motion.  One-eyed  per- 
sons are  still  capable  of  stereoscopic  vision  ;  the  possibilty  of  this  must  be 
ascribed  to  sensations  of  accommodation,  in  a  measure,  but  chiefly  to  certain 
"secondary  helps"  which  will  be  described  later.  In  all  cases,  however, 
stereoscopic  and  perspective  vision  with  one  eye  is  comimratively  obscure, 
imperfect,  and  inaccurate.  And  the  question  being,  not  so  much  how  can 
some  such  vision  arise  in  abnormal  cases,  but  how  does  such  vision  actually 
reach  its  normal  high  development,  we  miist  answer  by  referring  to  the  effect 
upon  consciousness  of  the  activity  of  two  moving  eyeballs,  operating  as  one 
organ  of  vision. 

§  10.  The  wonderful  influence  of  the  two  unlike  images  of  every  object 
seen  in  binocular  vision,  in  producing  stereoscopic  and  perspective  vision  of 
that  object,  can  be  made  apparent  in  manifold  ways.  If  the  two  retinas 
were  exactly  symmetrical,  if  the  physiological  center  of  each  were  its  true 
mathematical  center,  and  if  they  both  stood  in  precisely  the  same  relation  to 

•  Here  we  agree  with  Professor  James  as  against  Lipps  and  others,  who  maintain  that  percep- 
tion of  distance  by  the  eye  is  "  logically  inii)ossible."  "  No  arguments  in  the  world  can  prove  a 
feeling  which  actuully  exists  to  he  lmposKil)lc."  (The  Principles  of  Psycliology,  I.,  p.  221.  note.) 
When,  however,  JnnioH  apiK'nls  to  su(;h  •'  feeling  "  to  decide  a  sc-icntiflc  question  concerning  the 
conditions  and  order  of  development,  the  appeal  loses  all  scieutiflc  value. 


THE   INFLUENCE   OF   TWO   IMAGES  359 

the  object  (as  tliev  would,  for  example,  when  superimposed),  then  for  every 
point  in  the  object  the  corresijouding  point  of  one  retina  would  be  identical 
with  the  corresponding  point  in  the  other  retina.  Neither  of  these  three 
conditions,  however,  is  fulfilled.  What  takes  place  is  as  follows  ;  certain 
points  in  the  two  retinas  become  accustomed  to  act  together ;  the  two  images 
on  these  two  points  correspond  suflScieutly  to  be  seen  as  a  single  image  ;  the 
points  (i)hysio]ogically  speaking)  "  cover  "  each  other,  and  are  referred  to 
one  and  the  same  point  in  the  object.  Psychologically  speaking,  this  means 
that  tlie  sensation-complexes  called  out  by  stimulating  simultaneously  cer- 
tain two  areas  of  the  two  retinas,  whether  in  motion  or  at  rest  (and  so  as  sen- 
sations of  motion  or  sensations  of  position),  are  not  discriminated  ;  they  are 
therefore  not  ditferently  localized  in  consciousness. 

Now,  every  visual  object  may  of  course  be  regarded  as  a  system  of  points 
with  a  system  of  minute  retinal  images  corresjiondiug  to  them.  When  the 
system  of  minute  retinal  images  of  any  object,  which  is  formed  on  one 
retina,  corresponds  sufficiently  nearly  with  the  system  formed  on  the  other 
retina,  that  object  is  seen  single  and  solid.  But  when  tliese  two  systems  do 
not  so  corresjjoud,  the  object  may  be  seen  double.  In  the  well-known  ex- 
lieriment  Avhen  we  hold  a  finger  up  against  the  sky,  and  look  at  the  sky 
beyond  it,  we  see  two  transparent  images  of  a  finger  instead  of  one  solid 
finger.  By  mechanical  pressure  on  one  eyeball,  or  by  an  act  of  will,  we  may 
"uncouple"  the  images  of  any  object;  in  which  case  it  at  once  becomes 
double  and  loses  its  solidity.  W^e  can  even  slip  one  set  of  images  of  an  en- 
tire section  of  some  regular  small  pattern  (as  of  carpet,  or  wall-paper,  or 
wire-grating)  by  its  proper  "  double,"  and  then  unite  it  with  the  double  of 
another  section  into  a  solid  object. 

Moreover,  it  is  obvious  that  the  relations  of  the  two  images  of  any  object 
cannot  remain  unchanged  when  the  eyes  move  out  of  their  primary  position. 
In  any  other  position  than  the  primary  one,  only  a  few  of  the  points  of  the 
object  can  correspond,  on  the  two  retinas,  sufficiently  to  be  customarily  seen 
as  single.  If  the  other  ipoints  were  not  relatively  overlooked  or  interpreted 
in  view  of  knowledge  previously  acquired,  then  the  greater  part  of  every 
object  would  be  seen  double.  The  fact  that  double  perception  does  not  ordina- 
rily take  place,  shows  that  all  vision  involves  the  selection  and  emphasis  of  some 
sensation-elements  ;  the  relative  disregard  or  exclusion  of  other  sensation-data  ; 
and  the  interpretation  of  the  ichole  in  terms  of  previous  experience  as  detei'viined 
hy  habit,  jyractice,  interest  in  the  nature  of  the  object,  expectation,  etc. 

^  11.  Binocular  movement  of  the  eyes  may  be  (1)  parallel,  where  they 
turn  equally  in  the  same  direction  ;  or  (2)  converging,  where  they  rotate  on 
the  axe's  in  opposite  directions.  Now,  since  divergence  of  the  eyes  is  ordi- 
narily imijossible,  there  are  three  conjunctions  of  movement  possible  under 
different  circumstances  ;  these  are  right  and  left  together,  up  and  down  to- 
gether, or  converging  symmetrically  or  asymmetrically.  These  movements 
result  in  imparting  a  great  variety  of  "  local  coloring,"  in  the  form  of  sensa- 
tions of  motion,  of  strain,  and  of  position,  to  the  space-consciousness  when 
both  eyes  are  used.'  Constant  changes  of  accommodation,  and  coupling  and 
uncoupling  of  the  double  images,  accompany  this  motor  activity. 

'  The  sum  of  all  those  points  of  any  object  which  are  seen  single  while  the  point  of  regard  re- 
mains unchanged,  is  called  the  "  horopter.''    A  great  amount  of  experiment,  calculation,  and  dis- 


360  PERCEPTION    BY    THE   SENSES 

That  stereoscopic  and  perspective  vision  actually  results  from  sucli  ac- 
iiviti/,  with  all  the  wealth  of  "data  "  which  it  aflfords,  we  have  abundant  ex- 
perimental proof.  In  our  ordinary  vision  of  objects  of  any  size,  we  may  readily 
become  conscious  of  the  fact  that  we  are  actually  engaged  in  sweeping  over 
the  field  of  vision  with  a  moving  point  of  regard.  Even  when  we  suppose 
ourselves  to  be  looking  at  a  single  point,  with  a  j^erfectly  fixed  regard,  we 
are  really  making  rapid  excursions  in  one  direction  and  another,  around  this 
point.  Now,  since  the  right  eye  always  sees  the  object  a  little  further  around 
on  its  right  side,  and  the  left  eye  on  its  left  side,  every  small  portion  of  a 
solid  object  (provided  it  lies  a  little  way  out  of  the  point  of  regard)  consists 
of  two  sets  of  minute  curves  that  are  partial  images  of  its  lines,  and  are 
different  for  each  eye.  The  act  of  perception  consists,  in  part,  in  distin- 
guishing, uniting,  interpreting,  with  a  moving  organ  of  vision,  these  sys- 
tems of  partial  images. 

How  marvellous  is  the  effect  of  uniting  two  such  systems  of  lines  in  pro- 
ducing stereoscoi^ic  vision,  the  use  of  the  stereoscope  clearly  shows.  By  its 
aid  two  systems  of  lines  on  a  flat  surface  which,  when  uncombined,  suggest 
solidity  and  persj^ective  only  somewhat  doubtfully,  become  immediately  en- 
dowed with  persjiicuous  spatial  properties  and  relations.  All  forms  of  ob- 
jects clearly  i:)erceived  in  these  dimensions — spheres,  cubes,  indescribably 
complex  geometrical  solids — are  created  by  the  eyes  instantly,  in  this  way. 
Thus  we  can  be  made  to  look  into  a  funnel,  or  to  perceive  its  small  end 
turned  toward  us,  or  to  behold  starting  into  reality  lenses  convex,  concave, 
and  concavo-convex.  By  uniting  a  right-eyed  image  of  some  cube  in  out- 
line, which  is  white,  with  a  left-eyed  image  of  the  same  cube  in  black,  we  can 
gaze  into  the  transparent  depths  of  a  crystal,  whose  size  and  shape  the  artist 
has  determined  at  will.  For,  in  perfecting  the  sketchy  "sensation-stuff"" 
for  perspective  vision,  the  artist  has  only  done  in  a  simple  way,  what  nature 
has  constantly  done,  in  more  comiilex  forms,  with  all  things  visual.  In 
either  case,  it  is  not  merely  sensing,  but  also  ideating,  discriminating  mental 
life,  which  synthetically  constructs  the  object  of  perception . 

I  12.  In  all  visual  iDcrceptiou  of  the  size  and  distance  of  objects  with 
two  moving  eyes,  the  influence  of  both  retinal  signs  and  muscular  sensa- 
tions must  therefore  be  admitted.  The  particular  degree  of  acumen  which 
such  perception  can  attain  varies  greatly,  according  to  the  different  positions 
of  the  eyes  and  of  the  object,  the  amount  of  light,  practice,  expectation,  in- 
terest, etc.  Different  experimenters  have  found  the  proportional  difference, 
whicb  was  "  the  least  observable  for  them,"  varying  under  different  circum- 
stances from  iV  to  aV,  and  even  more.  Points  vertically  distant  20  mm.  are 
ordinarily  estimated  as  equally  far  away  with  those  25  mm.  in  the  horizontal 
direction.  Helmholtz  found  that,  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances,  a 
distance  corresponding  to  a  variation  of  0.00-14:  mm.  in  thei^ositiou  of  the  ret- 

cussion,  has  been  directed  toward  determining  the  exact  nature  of  the  horopter.  It  has  been  found 
to  be  a  line,  a  plane,  a  circle,  a  se.-ies  of  disconnected  points.  And  no  wonder.  For  the  horopter  is 
never  an  optical,  matlietnatical,  or  pt/relij  physiological  affair  ;  it  is  alicai/s  and  only  a  psycholog- 
ical affair.  It  therefore  differs  for  di If crent  individuals,  and  for  the  same  individual  under  differ- 
ent conditions  of  habit,  interest,  etc.  In  ocher  words,  there  are  as  many  horopters  as  there  arc 
psycholoirically  different  individuals,  as  respects  structure,  function,  and  actual  practice  indiscrimi- 
nation, etc.  (See  however,  Meissner,  Beitriige  zur  Physiologic  d.  Sehorgaus  ;  and  Archives  des 
Sciences,  III.,  p.  100.  Le  Conte,  Sight,  p.  204.  Mrs.  Ladd-Frauklin,  Am.  Joiirnal  of  Psychology, 
November,  1887. 


SECONDARY   HELPS   TO   VISION  361 

inal  image  could  be  detected  ;  Weber,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  muscular 
sense  of  the  eye  coiikl  recognize  the  displacement  of  the  most  sensitive  spot 
of  the  retina  by  not  more  than  zh  of  a  Parisian  line.  With  power  to  com- 
bine these  two  so  nicely  discrimiuable  sets  of  data,  the  extraordinary  space- 
intuiting  faculty  of  vision  is  developed. 

Besides  the  foresoin,?  "  data "  of  the  more  primary  order, 
others  of  a  more  Secondary  Nature  must  be  considered.  When 
the  amount  of  influence  allowed  to  the  latter  becomes  prominent, 
and  especially  if  doubt  and  delay  accompany  the  perceptive  act, 
the  vision  is  often  said  to  be  a  matter  of  "  judgment  "  rather  than 
of  immediate  perception.  But  "  intellection,"  as  discriminat- 
ing- consciousness,  exercising-  a  certain  psychological  judgment, 
has  been  seen  to  be  necessary  for  all  development  of  perception. 
That  apparent  immediate  awareness  of  the  spatial  properties 
and  relations  of  things  which  is  due  to  their  chang-ing-  aspects, 
is  largely  accomplished  by  use  of  these  secondary  helps.  The 
greater  necessity  for  such  helps,  in  our  perception  of  remote  ob- 
jects by  vision,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  all  the  otlier  data — muscu- 
lar and  tactual  sensations  of  accommodation  and  convergence, 
and  even  difference  of  relations  between  the  images  of  the  two 
retinas — are  here  relatively  weak.  It  is  by  these  helps  that  the 
field  of  vision  acquires  that  varied  artistic  quality  which  belongs 
to  it ;  the  objects  in  it  become  i^arts  of  a  picture,  and  the  whole 
is  capable  of  being-  perceived  as  a  rich,  pictorial  scene.  It  is  by 
appeal  to  these  secondary  helps,  in  large  measure,  that  various 
arts,  such  as  painting-,  frescoing,  and  even,  in  a  more  limited  way, 
etching-  and  engraving-,  are  enabled  to  represent  the  world  of 
stereoscopic  and  perspective  vision.  Thus  the  life  of  vision  be- 
comes, not  simply  one  of  a  practical  sort,  but  also  a  life  of  beauty 
and  of  joy  in  beauty.  Sight  is  the  one  sense  which  is  both  intel- 
lectual and  oesthetical  in  the  highest  degree.  On  the  one  side  its 
rival  is  touch,  which  is,  however,  relatively  lacking  in  all  power 
to  give  refined  and  sustained  enjovment ;  on  the  other  is  hear- 
ing, which,  since  music  and  language  answer  to  it,  is  capable  of 
high  sesthetical  satisfaction,  but  is  relatively  incapable  of  giving- 
a  perceptive  acquaintance  with  the  world  of  objects. 

I  13.  Among  the  more  obvious  secondai-y  helps  to  stereoscopic  and  per- 
spective vision  are  the  following  : 

(1)  The  course  of  the  limiting  lines  of  the  object,  which  determine  its  dis- 
tance and  form  as  lying  in  the  third  dimension.  Here  the  bottom  lines  of 
the  distant  object  are  very  important  ;  if  they  are  covered  or  confused,  its 
distance,  size,  and  shape  become  uncertain  to  the  eye.  Lines  that  cover 
other  lines  are,  of  course,  seen  nearer  ;  to  be  behind  something  else,  and  to 
be  further  away,  is  one  and  the  same.     Hence,  when  the  outlines  of  any  ob- 


:362  pEKCEPTio:?^  by  the  senses 

ject  admit  of  more  than  one  interpretatiou,  the  whole  spatial  structure  of 
the  object  may  be  changed  at  will,  or  according  to  the  way  in  which  it 
catches  the  eye  and  fixates  the  original  point  of  regard.  Thus,  the  well- 
known  example  is  explained  of  the  outline  figure  which  can  be  perceived  as 
a  staircase,  either  when  seen  as  an  ascending  flight  of  steps  or  as  looked  at 
from  underneath.  So  the  same  outline  may  be  perceived,  sometimes  as 
convex  and  sometimes  as  concave,  etc.  [It  is  instructive  in  these  cases  to 
notice  how  the  character  of  the  perception  changes — somewhat  rhythmically 
— in  dependence  on  the  motifs  as  determined  by  the  point  of  the  object  fix- 
ated, by  the  change  of  the  attention  and  of  the  point  of  regard,  etc. J 

(2)  Mathemntical  perspective,  or  the  size  of  the  angle  of  vision  which  is 
covered  by  near  and  far  objects,  respectively,  is  another  important  secon- 
dary help.  In  this  way  objects  of  known  size  are  seen  at  the  distance 
necessary  to  give  them  their  apparent  size.  The  nearer  together  the  rails 
of  the  parallel  track  appear,  the  more  distant  they  appear.  In  general,  ob- 
jects covering  a  large  visual  angle  appear  large,  and  those  having  a  small 
visual  angle  appear  small.  But  the  influence  of  this  principle  is  greatly 
limited.  If  the  table,  when  looked  at  along  its  length,  appeared  to  us  under 
the  influence  chiefly  of  mathematical  perspective,  it  would  have  to  seem 
either  far  narrower  or  far  more  distant  than  it  does.  In  general,  the  ap- 
parent size  of  objects  does  not  decrease  nearly  as  rapidly  as  their  visual 
angles  do.' 

(3)  "Atmosphere,''^  and  (4)  the  size  and  the  direction  of  the  shadou-s  influ- 
ence our  stereoscopic  and  perspective  vision.  Things  are  seen  nearer  in  a 
clear  atmosphere,  more  distant  in  an  atmosphere  less  clear.  Painters  i:)leas- 
antly  deceive  us  in  this  way,  by  use  of  aerial  persijective,  into  i^erceiving 
their  mountains  far  oft'  and  yet  huge  ;  and  travellers  in  Colorado  are  unpleas- 
antly deceived  in  their  perception  of  the  distance  of  the  mountain's  side  on 
which  they  jiurpose  a  luncheon  within  a  few  hours  from  starting  their  climb. 
By  arranging  lights  and  shadows  the  spatial  properties  and  relations  of  ob- 
jects can  be  changed  in  a  startling  way.  Intaglios  can  be  converted  into 
medallions  or  bas-reliefs,  and  the  reverse.  A  medallion  placed  near  a  window, 
but  shielded  from  its  direct  light,  and  lighted  from  the  other  side  by  reflec- 
tion from  a  mirror,  has  its  relief  reversed.  We  all  know  how  far  oft",  and 
changed  every  way,  the  objects  of  the  landscajie  begin  to  look  when  the 
shadows  "begin  to  lengthen."  (5)  'Bwi  environment  o-nd  comparative  vision 
are  often  of  predominating  influence.  It  is  useless  for  us  to  insist  to  our- 
selves upon  our  judgment  that  the  actor  who  comes  down  the  mountain's  side 
as  a  giant,  and  dwindles  so  as  to  look  almost  dwarfish  when  he  approaches 
the  front  of  the  stage,  cannot  really  be  as  he  appears  ;  v,e  see  him  as  he  is 
to  sight,  in  the  changing  environment ;  he  can  be  seen  no  smaller,  as  long  as 
he  covers  so  much  of  such  a  distant  mountain,  etc. 

Tlie  considerations  just  offered  bring-  us  again  face  to  face 
with  the  truth  that  it  is  not  in  sensations  alone  that  developed 
visual  perceiition  consists.  Our  ideas,  feel'nu/s,  and  volitions  tal'e 
part  in  deterniining  Jioio  we  sJiall  see  the  spatial  qualities  and  rela- 

■  See  Martins :  Philosoph.  Studien,  v.,  Heft  4,  p.  601  f. 


INFLUENCE   OF   FEELING   AND    WILL  363 

tions  of  any  (ihject.  lu  the  very  earliest  processes  concerned  in 
the  devehjpment  of  space- intuitions  by  the  eye,  idcatin<^-,  affec- 
tive, and  conative  factors  are  always  present.  Or — to  say  the 
same  truth  in  more  popular  phrase — within  given  limits,  we  see 
what  we  think  or  imagine  ought  to  be  seen ;  what  we  are  expect- 
ing, desiring,  or  fearing  to  see ;  and  what  we  by  an  act  of  will 
determine  to  see.  This  truth,  in  the  more  obvious  forms  of  its 
illustration,  is  virtually  acknowledged  by  every  intelligent  ob- 
server of  human  conduct ;  it  is  consecrated  by  tlie  structure  and 
usages  of  language,  by  the  experience  of  men  in  courts  of  law, 
by  books  of  narrative,  by  common  conversation,  and  in  all  forms 
of  artistic  endeavor.  The  same  i3rincii)le  belongs  to  all  percep- 
tions— but  pre-eminently  to  vision  ;  because  developed  vision  is 
the  pre-eminent  form  of  perception.  Vision,  therefore,  illus- 
trates more  clearly  .and  more  variously  than  any  other  sense  all 
the  psychological  principles  of  perceptive  activity  in  general. 
AVe  all  know  that  he  who  is  bidden  to  hear  a  certain  sound,  to 
search  his  bodily  surfaces  or  internal  organs  for  a  certain  symj)- 
tom,  to  taste  and  find  a  certain  flavor  or  a  certain  smell,  or  to 
look  and  see  a  certain  sight,  is  thus  rendered  far  likelier  actually 
to  perceive  what  he  is  induced  to  seek.  In  highly  wrought  states 
of  feeling  and  imagination,  we  hesitate  about  trusting  the  most 
vivid  deliverances  of  the  senses  as  corresponding  to  objective 
reality.  The  motto  applies  to  visual  perception  as  well  as  to 
internal  vision  :   "  None  are  so  blind  as  those  who  will  not  see." 

That  which  is  popularly  recognized  in  these  inaccurate  ways 
as  distinctive  of  certain  acts  of  perceptive  knowledge— namely, 
that  its  immediate  awareness  is  not  uninfluenced  by  imagi- 
nation, memory,  feeling,  and  will— the  scientific  study  of  its  de- 
velopment illustrates  as  belonging,  in  scores  of  delicate,  un- 
recognized ways,  to  all  visual  perception.  Indeed,  one  of  the 
essential  results  of  this  development  consists  in  the  relative 
increase  of  ideation  and  intellection,  as  compared  with  the  pure- 
ly sensational  elements.  As  one  learns  to  "  mind  "  things  visual, 
one's  vision  becomes  more  "  mindful."  The  attention  of  psychol- 
ogists is  now  engaged  in  investigating  the  amazing  power  of  so- 
called  suggestion  to  induce  or  compel  definite  percej^tions  in 
certain  subjects  of  the  hypnotic  state.  Various  forms  of  men- 
tal alienation  also  are  fovmd  to  be  most  intimately  connected 
with  corresponding  hallucinations  of  sense.  Disorded  imagina- 
tion and  disordered  sensibility,  whether  the  disorder  be  induced 
by  the  word  of  the  experimenter  or  by  cerebral  disease,  alike  re- 
sult in  temporary  or  permanent  change  in  the  character  of  the 
patient's  perceptions.     If  the  disorder  express  itself  chiefly  in 


364  PEECEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

cliaug-es  of  the  perception  of  toiicli,  then  the  consciousness  of 
personality  may  be  affected ;  but  if  the  changes  be  chietiy  in 
the  realm  of  sight,  then  the  objective  world  is  likely  to  become 
an  altered  reality.  In  many  cases  the  only  way  to  reach  the 
hallucination  seems  to  lie  through  the  patient's  will.  In  the 
wider  meaning  of  that  much-abused  word,  all  visual  perception, 
true  or  false,  our  daily  sights  of  the  most  practical  and  ordinary 
kind,  as  well  as  the  wildest  hallucinations  of  the  hypnotic  dream- 
er or  of  the  inmate  of  the  madhouse — involve  "  suggestion." 
Without  snggestioii  (hronght  about  through  the  effect  of  the  sensa- 
tions in  stirring  up  the  ideas,  as  we  may  figuratively  say)  no  per- 
ception can  take  place. 

\  14.  On  the  one  liand,  within  certain  limits  we  see  ivhat  we  imagine  or 
know  to  be  true  of  the  sjDatial  properties  and  relations  of  visual  objects.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  are  not  infrequently  compelled  to  see  (that  is,  by  filling 
out  the  sense- data  with  representative  images)  what  we  know  (that  is,  infer 
on  grounds  lying  outside  of  the  perceived  object  itself)  cannot  be  true.  It 
has  already  been  shown  how  the  visual  character  of  some  objects  depends 
upon  the  way  in  which  imagination,  starting  from  some  one  of  several  pos- 
sible groups  of  sense-data,  fills  in  the  details.  In  rather  rapid  vision,  even 
of  not  very  complex  objects,  different  persons  see  different  things  ; — and  this, 
not  only  because  they  seize  by  attention  different  i)oints  of  view,  but  also 
because  the  excited  sensations  themselves  arouse  and  fuse  immediately  with 
different  mental  images.  Here  the  physiological  priucijile  involves  the  ex- 
tension of  the  cerebral  excitement  over  a  variety  of  previously  associated 
areas  and  tracts  of  the  organ.  The  psychological  principle  is  that  just 
stated — namely,  all  perception  is  the  resultant  of  mental  suggestion — a  mat- 
ter of  the  reproduction  of  associated  ideation-processes.  In  cases  where  the 
sensuous  data  do  not  promptly  and  strongly  suggest  some  definite  asso- 
ciation of  ideas,  a  struggle  between  two  possible  interi^retations  may  take 
place.  In  such  cases,  for  an  instant,  we  cannot  "  imagine  "  what  we  ought 
to  see.  At  other  times  the  object  constructed  in  the  first  instant  may  bo 
differently  reconstnicted  later,  as  the  analytic  and  synthetic  activity  of  the 
eye  is  further  carried  on.  In  such  cases,  we  find  that  what  we  first  "  imag- 
ined" we  saw  changes  quickly  into  what  we  now  "  know  "  we  see.  The  use 
of  optical  instruments  which  furnish  bewildering  sense-data  (such  as  the 
pseudoscojoe,  lelestereoscojje,  etc.)  causes  an  inability  to  imagine  what  we  ought 
to  see.  Thus  the  spatial  properties  and  relations  of  visual  objects  may  lose 
their  fixed  value ;  because  the  mind  cannot  definitely  fill  in  the  sensuous 
data  with  the  correct  representative  images.  We  then  only  partially,  and  in 
a  vacillating  and  amazed  way,  perceive  the  object. 

In  the  suggested  perceptions  of  hypnotic  subjects  the  influence  of  idea- 
tion, and  its  relation  to  the  peripherally  excited  sensation-complexes,  are 
shown  in  a  very  instructive  waj'.  Such  subjects  seize  on  any  sensuous 
data  in  the  field  of  vision,  and  employ  them  as  a  nucleus  about  which  to 
gather  the  sngg(^stod  ideas.  Thus  a  visual  object  possessed  of  such  reality 
as  to  cover  all  objects  behind  it  so  that  they  cannot  be  seen,  may  be  con- 


THE   EB'FECT   OF   FEELING  365 

structed  out  of  exceedingly  meagre  sensuous  material.  The  sensation- 
stuflf  of  such  an  object  is  indeed  meagre  ;  but  nevertheless  it  sometimes 
exerts  a  controlling  influence  over  the  perception.  Thus  Binet '  tells  of  a 
hypnotic  patient  who,  having  had  suggested  the  hallucination  of  a  jjortrait 
to  be  projected  on  a  sheet  of  paper  on  which  a  hat  had  been  drawn,  per- 
ceived the  suggested  portrait  wearing  the  hat  which  had  really  been  drawn. 
The  same  patient,  however,  could  not  perceive  an  animal  designed  on  a  sheet 
where  the  hallucination  of  a  man  was  to  be  projected.  Thus,  also,  a  suggested 
female  figure,  on  a  ground  where  a  l)attle  scene  had  been  sketched,  was  per- 
ceived with  the  "epaulets"  of  an  officer  converted  into  her  " inoiiticnle."  A 
man  seated  in  a  chair  being  suggested,  the  hallucination  was  perceived  with 
portions  of  a  bird,  W'hich  had  been  drawn  on  the  back  ground,  "synthe- 
sized "  with  it  as  the  required  chair. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  do  more  than  to  refer  to  the  instructive  fact  that 
every  form  of  pictorial  art  operates  to  induce  the  desired  perception,  by  af- 
fording data  of  sense  which  suggest  the  revival  and  fusion  with  such  data  of 
familiar  representative  images.  Art  always  issues  a  call  to  jDercejition  through 
imagination.  And  when  surrounding  sensuous  impressions,  if  left  to  them- 
selves, would  operate  to  bind  and  hinder  the  imagination,  we  withdraw  at- 
tention from  them,  or  we  cut  them  off  by  jihysical  means  (as  when  we  look 
at  a  painting  through  a  tube)  from  their  otherwise  legitimate  influence. 

^  15.  The  effect  of  feeling,  in  its  various  forms,  upun  visual  2ierception  is 
both  direct  and  indirect.  Its  indirect  effect  is  attained  largely  through  the 
relation  which  interest  sustains  to  attention.  Those  sensuous  data  of  an  ob- 
ject which,  for  any  reason,  excite  an  interest— other  things  being  at  all  equal 
— attract  attention  to  themselves.  And,  indeed,  we  can  scarcely  attend  to 
any  visual  object  sufficiently  to  start  an  inchoate  perception  of  its  more 
ob%dous  spatial  properties  and  I'elatious  without  having  some  form  of  interest 
awakened.  Now,  then,  if  we  jiroceed  to  carry  out  further  the  perceptive  proc- 
ess, and  thus  to  develop  a  clear  and  detailed  perception  of  the  object,  these 
particular  sensuous  data  are  likely  to  be  determinative  of  the  activities  of 
ideation  which  are  evoked  to  fuse  with  them.  Thus,  as  we  well  know,  dif- 
ferent persons,  with  a  different  interest  in  the  same  object,  will  i^erceive  it 
diflferently  ;  this  is  because  the  more  jirominent  points  of  regard,  and  the 
order  of  the  wandering  of  the  point  of  regard,  and  so  the  sensation-complexes 
induced,  and  so  the  mental  images  suggested,  are  all  determined  by  the  ef- 
fect of  interest  on  attention.  Hence  the  difficulty  of  getting  uninterested 
and  untrained  observers  to  perceive,  even  in  the  most  rudimentary  sensuous 
way,  certain  aspects  of  an  object ;  they  cannot  complete  perception  because 
the  sensuous  data  suggest  to  them  nothing  connected  with  past  visual  ex- 
perience. 

But  the  influence  of  feeling  upon  perception  is  also  more  direct.  Percep- 
tion, under  the  pressure  of  intense  feeling  is  ordinarily  more  hurried  ;  it  is 
therefore  less  a  matter  of  clearly  discriminated  sensation-complexes  and  more 
a  matter  of  suggested  ideas  which  fuse  with  the  relatively  meagre  sensuous 
factors.  The  character  of  the  suggested  ideas  itself  depends  upon  the  char- 
acter of  the  feeling  with  which  the  perceptive  act  is  accomplished.  Hence 
— as  has  already  been  said— we  tend  to  perceive  what  we  expect  to  perceive, 

1  Revue  Philosophique,  1890,  ii.,  p.  142  f. 


366  PERCEPTIOX   BY   THE   SENSES 

whether  with  a  feeling  of  pleasurable  anticipation,  or  of  dread,  or  of  anger, 
etc.  The  passenger,  while  waiting  at  a  railway  station,  perceives  nearly 
every  sound  as  the  noise  of  the  expected  train  ;  the  angry  man  is  almost  sure 
to  hear  the  expected  insulting  word  from  his  enemy ;  the  lover  does  not  fail 
to  be  "immediately  aware"  of  that  which  he  desires  or  dreads  in  the  voice 
and  gesture  of  his  mistress.  In  spite  of  the  relatively  cool  and  intellectual 
nature  of  vision,  feeling  determines  largely  what  ideas  shall  be  so  suggested 
as  to  fuse  with  the  visual  sensations  and  thus  to  constitute  the  character  of 
the  visual  perception  as  such  and  no  other.  The  objective  and  purely  sen- 
suous resemblance  of  an  approaching  face  need  not  be  great  in  order  to  insure 
its  being  perceived  as  an  exjDected  friend.  Every  inquirer  into  the  origin  of 
visions  of  ghosts  and  of  "materialized  "  spirits  knows  how  scanty  a  sensuous 
framework  is  necessary  when  feeling  spurs  imagination  to  construct  the  fiU- 
ing-in  of  the  framework.  And  often,  when  by  reasoning  we  have  compelled 
ourselves  to  revise  our  perception  and  to  look  again  in  cooler  blood,  we  can 
no  longer  perceive  in  the  object  even  a  remote  resemblance  to  that  at  sight 
of  which  our  blood  was,  but  a  moment  ago,  near  curdling. 

^  16.  Through  selective  attention  does  conative  impulse,  especially  when  it 
develops  into  intelligent  volition,  greatly  influence  visual  perception.  By  an 
act  of  will  the  microscopist  can  exclude  the  influence  of  images  formed  upon 
one  of  his  retinas  and  perceive  only  those  objects  that  are  constructed  by  ac- 
tivity of  the  other  eye.  It  would  seem  that,  in  many  cases,  the  fixation  of 
attention  alone  can  I'ender  the  object  clearer,  and  so  in  a  secondary  way 
change  its  location  and  bring  it  apparently  nearer  to  the  eye  without  change 
of  focus  or  convergence.  By  act  of  will,  under  certain  circumstances,  the 
double  images  can  be  either  perceived  or  not  perceived.  Where  a  conflict  of 
colors  or  of  outlines  arises  in  the  effort  to  unite  two  sets  of  images  stereo- 
scopically,  it  is  sometimes  jwssible  to  decide  the  conflict  by  a  volition.  Thus, 
if  a  card  be  prepared  with  two  right-hand  images  of  blue  and  two  left-hand 
images  of  red,  and  then  the  four  stereoscopically  united,  in  some  cases  the 
volition  of  the  perceiver  decides  which  color  shall  be  perceived  ;  or  whether 
the  two  shall  mix  in  a  binoculai-*image  of  reddish-blue  or  of  violet.' 

In  all  construction  of  the  outlines  and  relative  position  of  a  visual  object 
with  a  moving  point  of  regard,  the  part  which  conation  takes  in  perception 
is  more  obvious.  As  the  primary  forms  of  conation,  or  of  forced  and  "  uni- 
motived  "  impulse,  are  succeeded  by  intelligent  and  selective  acts  of  volition, 
the  part  of  so-called  "will"  in  the  perceptive  jirocess  becomes  increasingly 
prominent.  We  have  seen  that,  in  perceptions  of  touch,  sensations  of  re- 
sistance, and  feelings  of  effort  furnish,  as  it  were,  the  very  kernel  of  our 
immediate  awareness  of  material  bodies  (comp.  p.  340  f.).  This  is  due,  not 
solely  to  the  abrupt  and  involuntary  limitation  of  our  sensations  of  move- 
ment through  space,  when  we  come  into  contact  with  an  external  body,  but 
also  to  the  active  effort  which  we  make  to  overcome  resistance.''  Now  it  is 
the  relative  lack  of  these  sensations  and  feelings  in  their  most  vivid  form,  and 
of  the  connected  "  jileasure-pains,"  which  makes  visual  objects  in  general 
lacking  in  tangible,  irresistible  reality.  But  even  here  the  lack  is  not  com- 
plete.    When  movements  of  the  eyes  are  made  with  tired  or  lamed  miiscles, 

'  Compare  lIoriuK  :  Pliyniolofr.  Ojit.ik,  in  Hermann's  Ilaudb.  d.  Physiologic  III.,  1,  p.  591  f. 
a  Cuiupure  Buuuuiu  :  Lch  JSuui^utionB  iutcrueo,  p.  122. 


VISUAL   PERCEPTION   AS   A   PROBLEM  367 

the  size  of  the  peiceiveil  object  is  increased.  When  the  function  of  one  of 
the  muscles  (for  example,  the  e.itei-nus  rectus)  is  impaired,  objects  seen  by 
the  eye  moving  in  its  shortened  circuit  are  often  located  where  they  would 
have  been  if  the  same  intensity  of  the  sensation  of  resistance  had  been 
necessary  to  bring  them  to  this  position  with  a  normal  function  of  the  mus- 
cles. Thus  a  patient  with  paralysis  which  i)reveuts  turning  the  eye  more 
than  20°,  will  locate  an  object  actually  lying  only  20"  from  the  median  plane 
much  further  to  one  side.  As  to  the  feeling  of  self-activity  (or  of  effort  cen- 
trally initiated)  bearing  any  part  in  the  perception  of  a  visual  body,  there  is 
ground  for  disp;ite;  and  the  question  is  difficult  to  settle  on  purely  experi- 
mental grounds,  so  delicate  and  changeable  are  these  factors  in  all  our  ex- 
perience with  the  eyes.  All  our  ju'evious  investigations  would  lead  us  to 
suppose,  however,  that  in  all  sensations  of  motion  with  the  eye,  conative  con- 
sciousness bears  at  least  an  obscure  part ;  and  hence  that  the  complete  sen- 
sations of  position  involve  traces  of  influence  from  the  inhibited  impulses  of 
will.'  For  the  eye,  as  for  the  skin,  muscles,  and  joints,  the  statement  of 
Naville  is  true:  "  Will  is  the  condition  of  our  idea  of  (i  body." 

In  a  yet  more  general  and  impressive  way  is  it  true  that  our  will  largely 
determines  our  perception.  It  is  the  "  purj^ose  "  of  the  man,  esjiecially  when 
such  purpose  has  become  organized  into  habitual  forms  of  attention  and 
motor  activity,  which  limits  or  expands,  to  a  large  extent,  every  field  of 
vision.  Thus,  as  Schopenhauer  says  :  "The  traveller  in  anxiety  and  haste 
will  see  the  Rhine  and  its  banks  only  as  a  line,  and  the  bridges  over  it  only 
as  lines  cutting  it.  In  the  mind  of  the  man  who  is  filled  with  his  own  aims 
the  whole  world  only  appears  as  does  a  beautiful  landsCcipe  on  the  meagre 
plan  of  a  battle-field." 

Evert/  Act  of  Visual  Perception  nncty  tlierefore  he  considered  as 
a  Prohlem,  ike  solution  of  ichic/t,  is  attained  (with  a  greater  or  less 
degree  of  speed,  amounting  ordinarily  to  a  practical  instantane- 
ousness)  o)i  the  basis  of  certain  data,  hy  a  constructive  and  interpre- 
tative mental  activity  that  has  been  developed  through  experience. 
This  view  accords  witli  all  onr  language,  with  the  facts  of  adult 
self-consciousness,  and  with  all  the  scientific  information  which 
study  and  experiment  can  gather.  It  is  not  without  sig-nificance 
that  we  use  the  Avord  "  j)erception  "  to  indicate  all  kinds  of  "  im- 
mediate awareness  "  of  objects  as  having  a  meaning,  as  embody- 
ing ideas  to  our  minds.  AVhatever  we  can  bring  Avithin  the 
unifying  grasp  of  interpretative  consciousness,  that  we  may  be 
said  "to  perceive."  Undoubtedly  our  ordinary  adult  conscious- 
ness, when  perceiving  objects  by  the  eye,  favors  the  view  that 
a  certain  content  is  being  passively  impressed  upon  conscious- 
ness ;  and  that  memory,  imagination,  feeling,  and  will,  have 
little  or  nothing  to  do  with  the  result.  As  one  writer  has  said  : 
"  The  external  thing  is  our  creation,  but  we  become  its  slaves. 
The  product  of  our  ideation  becomes  the  cause  of  the  ideating 

1  To  this  extent  we  are  inclined  to  modify  the  view  taken  in  the  Elements  of  Physioloprical  Psy- 
chology, and  recognize  the  value  of  the  evidence  brought  forward  by  Wuudt,  Loeb,  and  others. 


868  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

IDrocess  itself."  On  the  other  hand,  we  can  more  or  less  dis- 
tinctly bring-  out  in  adult  consciousness  the  active  side  of  mental 
life  in  constructing-  the  object  of  visual  sense.  We  can  even 
"hark  back"  in  consciousness  and  discover  what  sensations  or 
ideas  have  influenced  us  to  perceive  them  in  this  particular 
rather  than  some  other  waj'.  That  visual  jjerception  is  a  prob- 
lem admitting  and  requiring  solution  in  a  very  variable  way,  is 
a  thesis  which  all  our  past  investigations  tend  to  establish. 

A  Summary  of  the  Principles  which  control  each  particular 
act  of  perception  with  the  eye,  considered  as  the  "  Solution  of  a 
Problem,"  includes  the  following- : 

(1)  The  color  of  the  visual  object  in  binocular  vision  depends 
upon  the  combined  action  of  the  two  retinal  images,  each  of 
which  has  its  color  determined  by  all  the  influences  that  co-oper- 
ate in  the  production  of  the  various  qualities  of  light-  and  color- 
sensations  (see  pp.  122  ff.).  Ordinarily  these  sensuous  factors 
are  so  nearly  alike  for  every  corresponding  part  of  the  two 
retinas  that  they  fuse  perfectly,  and  the  object  is  seen  as  one 
colored  and  extended  thing.  If,  however— as  sometimes  happens 
— the  two  color  masses  are  so  unlike  as  not  to  fuse,  color-wise, 
then  either  (a)  the  more  intense  of  the  two  triumphs  and  sup- 
presses the  weaker ;  or  (b)  some  combination  into  a  difierent 
color  takes  place  according  to  the  laws  regulating  color  quality  ; 
or  (c),  in  rare  cases  memory  and  imagination  operate  to  reproduce 
what  experience  suggests  ought  to  be,  or  even  an  act  of  will 
directing  attention  may  decide  between  the  two. 

(2)  The  size,  shape,  and  locality  of  the  visual  object,  whether 
regarded  as  a  whole  with  reference  to  its  parts  or  as  one  object 
among  other  objects  (with  background,  environment,  etc.),  de- 
pends chiefly  (a)  upon  the  variations  in  the  intensity  and  local 
coloring  of  the  sensations  of  motion  and  the  sensations  of  posi- 
tion which  are  evoked  by  moving  the  point  of  regard  rapidly 
over  its  outline,  its  surfaces,  and  its  surroundings.  But  {b)  all 
that  we  intend  by  sensations  of  motion,  to  some  extent,  and  all 
that  we  intend  by  sensations  of  position,  to  a  very  large  extent, 
involves  "  suggestion  "  of  traces  of  past  experience  in  the  form 
of  revived  images  of  motor-consciousness.  But  (r)  the  diversi- 
fying of  the  local  signs  of  the  retina,  which  such  movement  of 
the  point  of  i-egard  accomplishes,  co-operates  witli  the  changes 
in  the  muscular  and  tactual  sensations  to  complete  the  percep- 
tion of  the  extension  of  the  object,  (d)  The  influence  of  environ- 
ment, as  eliciting  the  relating  activity  of  mind,  the  more  purely 
intellectual  factor,  is  very  great  iu  all  cases  of  measuring  and 
constructing  the  visual  object. 


SUMMARY   OF   TRINCIPLES  369 

(3)  In  visual  perception  of  the  spatial  properties  and  rela- 
tions of  near  objects,  some  influence  must  be  allowed  from  (a)  ac- 
commodation as  an  aid  in  solving-  the  comi:)lex  problem.  Bnt 
such  perception  is  largely  due  to  {h)  the  influence  of  the  two 
retinal  images,  of  their  relations  to  each  other,  of  the  sugges- 
tions arising  from  each,  and  to  the  possibility  of  varying  these 
relations  by  motion  of  the  two  eyes  according*  to  the  laws  of  the 
movement  of  each,  respectively. 

(4)  In  visual  perception  of  the  spatial  properties  and  rela- 
tions of  remote  objects  the  various  secondary  helps  become 
more  influential  in  solving  an  increasingly  complex  prolilem. 
Among  such  secondary  helps  that  one  will  lead  in  bringing 
about  the  solution  which  is  most  impressive,  either  (a)  on  ac- 
count of  its  sensuous  intensity  ;  or  {b)  on  account  of  the  tenacity 
and  breadth  of  its  suggestiveness ;  or  (c)  on  account  of  sorne 
emotional  or  other  ground  of  preference. 

(5)  In  all  visual  x^erception  where  sensations  of  motion,  or 
revived  and  suggested  images  of  such  sensations,  are  as  much 
as  possible  excluded,  the  solution  of  the  i^roblem  of  vision  be- 
comes more  vacillating  and  uncertain.  The  truth  of  this  is 
particularly  seen  when  we  remember  that  even  attention  itself 
seems  to  involve  some  modification  of  motor  consciousness  ;  at- 
tention itself  affords  evidence  of  some  inchoate  attempt  to  move, 
with  at  least  a  dim  feeling  of  effort  and  sensations  of  fusion, 
strain,  etc.  On  the  other  hand,  the  perception  of  color-masses 
with  motionless  organs,  and  with  attention  as  much  as  possible 
not  fixated,  is  so  vague  and  "  unobjcctive  "  as  scarcely  to  merit 
the  name  perception.  Whatever  immediate  awareness  of  local- 
ized and  projected  color-masses,  bearing  spatial  relations  to  each 
other,  seems  to  come  through  inattentive  and  motionless  visual 
organs  may  be  assumed  to  be  due  to  the  effect  of  sensation-com- 
plexes, discriminable  by  their  local  signs  of  the  retina,  suggest- 
ing the  images  of  sensaticms  of  motion  and  position  with  which 
they  have  been,  by  frequent  repetition,  habitually  fused.  Act- 
ual fixation  of  attention  and  movement  of  the  point  of  regard 
seems  necessar}"  to  convert  these  related  color-masses  into  a 
clearly  perceived  object,  or  group  of  objects. 

(6)  In  all  forms  of  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  visual  per- 
ception— in  (2)-(5)  as  well  as  in  (1) — not  only  the  purely  sensu- 
ous factors  of  a  peripheral  origin,  but  also  the  so-called  faculties 
of  memory,  imagination,  feeling,  and  volition,  bear  an  important 
part.  If  the  condition  of  the  organism  and  of  "  apperceiving  " 
consciousness  is,  so  to  speak,  normal,  and  if  the  sensations  aris- 
ing from  purely  peripheral  excitement  of  the  organ  are  suffi- 

24 


370  PERCEPTION  BY  THE   SENSES 

cieutlj'  intense  and  multiform  ;  tlien  tlie  percipient  will  construct 
the  visual  object  with  the  same  color  and  spatial  properties  and 
relations  as  those  which  are  attributed  to  the  same  object  by 
other  percipients.  In  other  words,  under  ordinary  circumstances 
the  man  of  normal  org-ans  will  see  things  as  others  see  them. 
But  with  altered  conditions  of  the  org-anism,  or  of  apperceiving 
consciousness,  or  when  the  sensuous  factors  are  few  and  weak  ; 
then  perception  becomes  more  a  matter  of  individual  peculiari- 
ties. That  is  to  say,  under  such  circumstances,  what  every  man 
sees  will  depend  upon  what  sort  of  a  percipient  he  is — upon  his 
memory,  imagination,  feeling,  or  will.  For  every  case  of  percep- 
iion  affords  a  7iew  p>rohlem  to  consciousness ;  and  precisely  how  that 
2mrticular  2')rohhm  ivill  he  solved  depends  iqyon  a  great  variety  of 
co?isiderations.  In  this  meaning  of  the  words — Every  man  must 
see  with  his  own  eyes  ;  no  man  has  the  gift  always  to  see  things 
as  others  see  them. 

Finally,  the  foregoing  theory  offers  the  only  satisfactory^  basis 
for  an  account  of  the  origin  and  character  of  the  different  Il- 
lusions and  Hallucinations  of  Perception.  The  process  of  per- 
ception proceeds  according  to  the  same  principles,  whether  the 
product  of  perception  be  correct  or  illusory  and  false.  To  main- 
tain, then — as  is  so  often  done  —  that  it  is  not  the  senses  but 
the  intellect  which  deceives  us,  implies  a  complete  misunder- 
standing both  of  the  facts  and  of  the  correct  theory.  Except 
as  intellect  enters  into  the  process,  the  senses,  so  called,  give 
us  no  presentation  of  sense,  no  "  object,"  whether  true  or  false. 
For  all  that  work  of  the  senses  which  ends  in  perception  in- 
volves interpretation.  It  would  be  more  correct,  then,  to  say 
with  Lotze :  "  The  whole  of  our  apprehension  of  the  world 
by  the  senses  is  one  great  and  prolonged  deception,"  than  to 
say  with  Professor  James  that  the  fallacy  "  is  not  fallacy  of 
the  senses  proper."  Neither  is  Binet  right  when  he  affirms 
that  what  is  fallaciously  inferred  is  "  always  an  object  of  some 
other  sense  than  the  '  this.  ' "  How  can  such  statements  ap- 
ply, for  example,  to  the  case  when  I  cover  a  red  square  with  a 
square  of  white  tissue-paper  and  then  see  it  green  ;  or  when  I 
la}^  two  cards,  red  and  green,  one  a  little  in  advance  of  the  other 
upon  a  table,  and  then  by  superimposing  the  reflected  image  of 
one  upon  the  other,  see  the  fusion  as  a  grayish  card.  The  gen- 
eral truth  is,  we  repeat :  All  perception  is  inter2yretation ;  and 
from  partial  or  mistaken  interpretation  all  degrees  and  I'inds  of  ilia - 
is-ions  and  Jadlucinations  residt.  Nor  can  any  fixed  line  be  drawn 
between  illusions  and  hallucinations  any  more  than  between  the 
different  degrees  of  both.      For  if  we  define  an  hallucination  as 


ILLUSIONS   AND   IIALLUCHSTATIONS  371 

a  "false  perception  resulting"  from  no  objective  stimulus  at  all," 
we  still  lind  various  degrees  of  vividness  and  objective  reality 
imparted  to  the  object  with  a  minimum  of  traceable  peripheral 
stimulus  ;  and  it  is  ordinaril}^  quite  impossible  to  be  sure  that  no 
peripheral  stimulus  is  involved  in  what  appear  to  be  the  purest 
forms  of  hallucination.  If  further,  we  distinguish  "  objective 
stimulus  "  from  peripheral  stimulus,  then  we  must  say  of  the  for- 
mer that  it  has  absolutely  nothing  to  do  wdth  perception,  whether 
true,  illusor}',  or  hallucinatory.  Between  normal  perception  and 
illusion,  between  illusion  and  the  most  incorrigible  hallucination, 
there  is  no  break  in  principle.  Hence  the  value  of  all  such  cases, 
so  far  as  we  are  able  to  explain  them,  in  the  establishing  of  a 
correct  theory  of  the  nature  of  perception  in  general.  All  the 
foregoing  six  princii^les  admit  of  almost  indefinite  illustration 
by  difierent  cases  of  illusion  and  hallucination — but  especially  of 
the  sense  of  sight. 

1 17.  Our  perception  of  the  color  of  visual  objects,  especially  in  cases  of 
certain  illusory  eflects  when  the  mind  is  called  upon  to  combine  stereoscopi- 
cally  two  differently  colored  images,  is  sometimes  difficult  to  exj^lain  satis- 
factorily. The  explanation  of  certain  phenomena  would  seem  to  require  ref- 
erence to  obscure  processes  in  the  cerebral  centers,  where  the  sensuous 
impressions  from  the  two  eyes  come  together  and  "struggle"  or  "fuse."' 
According  to  some  authorities,  if  a  white  stripe  be  placed  upon  a  black  sur- 
face and  divided  into  two  images,  the  right  image  formed  by  looking  through 
blue  glass  and  the  left  by  looking  through  gray  glass — then  the  right  image 
will  be  seen  blue,  but  the  left  will  be  seen  yellow.  The  exi^criment  with  cards 
just  referred  to  is  said  to  have  been  performed  with  hypnotic  hallucinations. 
If  the  contours  of  the  images  of  two  differently  colored  objects  run  on  the  ret- 
ina so  as  to  cross  only  at  one  place,  then  sometimes  one  color  and  sometimes 
the  other  will  prevail  at  the  jilace  of  crossing.  This  is  called  the  "  strife 
of  contours."  The  peculiar  perception  of  luminosity  is  regularly  due  to  a 
rapid  alternation  between  the  effect  of  the  black  images  of  one  eye's  field  and 
the  white  images  of  the  corresponding  field  of  the  other  eye.  It  is  of  the 
natiare  of  an  illusion  of  sense  ;  it  may  bo  produced  by  stereoscopic  combina- 
tion of  a  white  with  a  black  surface — the  two  having  a  similar  contour. 
When  two  series  of  ontlinos,  projDerly  arranged, — one  series  with  white  and 
the  other  with  black  surfaces— are  stereoscopically  seen,  we  have  the  illusion 
of  a  transparent  solid  (see  p.  360).  In  all  these  and  similar  cases,  the  physi- 
ological explanation,  like  that  for  the  mixture  of  sour  and  sweet  tastes  in 
the  lemonade,  is  cerebral ;  that  is,  the  relations  of  conflict  and  triumph,  or  of 
fusion,  are  established  in  the  brain.  The  psychological  ])rinciples  which  con- 
trol the  solution  of  such  problems  in  the  perception  of  color  are  those  already 
enunciated  in  (1)  ;  either  as  (a)  or  {b)  or  (c)  (p.  368). 

§  18.  (a)  Distance,  whether  known  by  previous  experience  or  assumed  ; 
(b)  apparent  magnitude,  as  determined  by  the  size  of  the  visual  angle  which 
the  retinal  images  cover ;    and  (c)  real  magnitude,  or  the  known  size  of  the 


372  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

object  as  related  to  certain  fixed  standards  of  measurement  based  on  general- 
izations of  both  sight  and  touch — are  all  connected  as  factors  entering  into 
problems  of  the  percejition  of  the  size,  shape,  and  locality  of  visual  objects. 
But  the  least  observable  difference  between  apparent  magnitude  and  real 
ma"-nitude  has  a  different  absolute  value  for  different  distances  and  different 
real  magnitudes.  It  increases  with  the  distance  somewhat  constantly,  but 
verv  slowly.  It  increases  with  the  real  magnitude,  but  not  always  in  a  per- 
fectly calculable  way.  Hence  arise  many  of  the  illusions  of  sense.  The  size, 
for  example,  of  the  sun  or  moon  is  jDerceived  very  differently  by  different 
persons,  according  to  where  {hese  bodies  are  located  in  distance  ;  to  some 
these  bodies  are  no  larger  than  an  orange,  to  others  larger  than  a  cart-wheel. 
The  height  of  a  building  or  of  distant  mountains  is  perceived  illusorily  in 
dependence  upon  our  assumption  that  the  figure  standing  on  its  top  is  a 
man,  when  it  really  is  a  child,  or  a  child  when  it  really  is  a  man,  etc.  When 
we  are  compelled  to  locate  the  setting  sun  or  rising  moon  far  back  of  the 
distant  trees,  its  perceived  size  may  be  greatly  enlarged. 

Since  intensity  of  sensation  is  a  measure  of  extensity  of  superficies  or  of 
distance,  many  illusions  arise  from  misinterpretation  of  the  import  of  felt 
intensity.  Keference  has  already  been  made  (p.  366  f.)  to  the  false  localiza- 
tion due  to  tired  or  lamed  muscles  of  the  eye.  Illusions  like  the  following 
owe  their  origin — in  part,  at  least — to  this  principle.  Vertical  distances  are 
usually  perceived  as  larger  than  equal  horizontal  distances.  Thus,  when 
trying  to  draw  a  cross  with  equal  limbs  we  are  apt  to  get  the  vertical  dimen- 
sions too  small.  Exactly  equal  squares  apjiear  higher  than  their  breadth. 
By  inverting  the  forms  S  and  8  the  difference  in  the  two  halves,  which  has 
been  minimized  in  their  ordinary  positions,  now  becomes  magnified.  "When 
the  distance  between  two  points  becomes  measureable  by  a  line  which  the 
eye  sweeps  between  them,  this  distance  is  perceived  larger.  Squares  inter- 
sected with  lines  appear  enlarged  in  the  direction  in  which  they  are  repeat- 
edly intersected  ;  right  angles  that  are  divided  into  a  number  of  smaller 
angles  are  perceived  larger  than  such  angles  enclosing  vacant  space.  Com- 
bining this  principle  with  the  tendency  to  perceive  all  linos  as  extending  in 
the  direction  in  which  we  sweep  them  with  the  greatest  ease  with  continuity 
of  movement,  we  account  for  other  very  startling  optical  illusions.  Among 
these  are  the  illusions  jiroduced  by  drawing  series  of  lines  so  as  to  meet,  or 
to  cross,  at  either  acute  or  obtuse  angles,  a  pair  of  parallel  lines.' 

Another  interesting  class  of  illusions  seems  to  depend  mainly  iipon  the 
principle  that,  in  measuring  magnitudes  and  distances  with  the  eye,  our 
standard  is  regularly  adjusted  to  the  environment.  Thus  the  perceived  .size 
of  any  object  is  relative  to  the  known  or  assumed  size  of  its  background  and 
its  surroundings.  If  attention  be  directed  upon  the  objects  to  be  perceived 
"by  themselves" — as  it  were — the  environment  is  "suggested  ;"  and  then 
the  principle  is:  " The  more  contracted  the  suggested  environment  of  the 
simce-dimension  in  question,  the  smaller  will  the  object  appear ;  and  r/ce 
veTsa."^    Hence  the  limbs  of  an  obtuse  angle  are  perceived  longer  than 

'  Compare  on  this  Bubject  the  author's  Elements  of  Physiological  Psychology,  p.  456  f,  Wuiuli  : 
Physiolog.  Psychologic  11.,  p.  124  f. ;  and  James  :  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  II.,  p.  247 

'  Compare  an  article  by  Mtiller-Lyer  :  Optische  Urtheils-tauschungeu.  Du  Bois-ReymoiuVs 
Archiv,  Supplement,  1889. 


SEEING   SINGLE   AND   DOUBLE  373 

those  of  an  acute  angle  of  equal  length.  Again,  if  we  draw  a  pair  of  obtuse 
angles  and  connect  their  apexes  by  a  straight  line,  the  line  connecting  the  ob- 
tuse angles  will  bo  perceived  longer  than  an  ecjual  line  connecting  two  acute 
angles,  iirovidcd  the  angles  are  directed  toward  the  connecting  line  ;  but  if 
they  are  directed  air<t>//rom  the  line  then  the  reverse  is  true  ;  and  the  con- 
trast is  strongest  when  both  considerations  are  combined.  [Here  it  seems 
probable  that  the  tendency  of  the  eye  to  sweci)  onward,  unless  checked,  and 
to  measure  its  sweep,  is  of  great  influence  over  the  resulting  pcrceijtion.] 
Thus  also  the  sides  of  a  triangle  seem  smaller  than  the  equal  sides  of  a 
square  ;  the  sides  of  a  square  than  the  equal  sides  of  a  pentagon,  hexagon, 
etc.  Further ;  in  jjerceiving  the  contours  of  somewhat  comidex  figures,  the 
different  parts  are  perceived  relative  to  each  other.  If  then  a  section  of  the 
contour  of  any  figure  is  left  out,  the  whole  contour  may  aj^pear  changed ; 
and  if  the  small  side  of  one  of  two  equal  figures  is  placed  oi^i^osite  the  large 
side  of  the  other,  the  entire  first  figure  is  i^erceived  smaller. 

^  19.  The  question  is  often  raised  as  to  how  vision  of  a  aingle  object  is 
explicable  when  it  is  performed  with  two  eyes,  each  having  its  own  system 
of  retinal  images,  etc.  It  should  by  this  time  appear  that  such  a  question 
involves  the  most  profound  ignorance  concerning  the  fundamental  principles 
of  the  psychology  of  perception.  For  it  is  just  this  habitual  fusion  of  the 
two  systems  of  sensation-complexes,  with  their  corresponding  revived  mental 
images,  in  which  complete  stereoscopic  and  perspective  vision  of  all  objects, 
as  single,  chiefly  consists.  And  when  illusions  and  hallucinations  of  this  kind 
occur,  and  objects  really  single  are  seen  double,  or  objects  really  double  are 
seen  single,  the  psychological  data  and  the  principles  of  mental  activity  are  in 
no  respects  changed.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  acquired  fidelity  of  conscious- 
ness to  fact  and  to  law  which  produces  these  illusions  ;  since  the  object  is  always  a 
moital  construction,  the  solution  by  discriminating  and  interj)retive  conscious)iess 
of  a  problem  projiosed  in  terms  of  sensation  and  representative  images.  When, 
then,  the  two  systems  of  sensation-complexes  are  so  different  that  the  motifs 
(whether  of  memory  and  imagination,  working  on  a  basis  of  past  exi:)erience, 
or  even  of  volition)  are  inadequate  to  make  them  fuse,  two  objects  rather 
than  one  m.ust  be  perceived.  This  is,  of  course,  the  explanation  of  the 
instance  taken  from  touch — as  old  as  Aristotle.  Cross  two  fingers  and  roll 
a  pea  or  other  small  object  between  them  ;  and  it  will  appear  double.  Thus 
in  the  case  of  the  eye,  if  the  indicice  requiring  two  objects  differently  local- 
ized are  presented,  and  cannot  be  overcome,  then  two  objects  will  be  per- 
ceived. But  here,  as  already  shown,  some  variation  of  result  is  admissible, 
for  which  imagination  and  volition,  rather  than  mere  sensations,  are  re- 
sponsible. 

I  20.  No  class  of  optical  illusions  is  more  instructive,  as  respects  the  theory 
of  perception,  than  illusions  of  motion.  The  number  of  such  illusions  is 
legion.  If  the  proper  oscillations  of  the  sensory  impulses — from  rolling 
eyeballs,  swaying  of  the  tiny  currents  in  the  semicircular  canals,  or  more 
massive  but  not  less  obscure  and  unlocalizable  sensations  due  to  changes  in 
the  fluids  and  solids  of  the  body — are  produced,  then  the  whole  world  of  ob- 
jects must  be  perceived  as  in  movement.  Hence  the  illusions  which  giddi- 
ness and  whirling  produce.  Professor  James  alleges  that  in  deaf  mutes 
(whose  semicircular  canals  must  often  be  disorganized)    "  there  very  fre- 


374  PERCEPTION   BY   THE   SENSES 

quently  exists  uo  snsceistibility  to  giddiness  or  wliirliug."  Optical  vertigo, 
from  cerebral  disease  or  intoxication,  produces  these  illusions.  Similar 
illusions  occur  through  the  temporary  continuance  of  the  sensation-com- 
plexes, signifying  movement,  after  the  moving  object  is  no  longer  in  the 
field  of  vision  ;  and  this  may  result  in  the  illusory  perception  of  movement 
in  the  opjiosite  direction.  The  diminished  size  of  objects  when  seen  from 
the  windows  of  a  rapidly  moving  train  has  been  explained  by  Helmholtz, '  as 
follows  :  In  ordinary  perception,  when  we  are  moving  forward,  all  objects 
appear  gliding  backward ;  and  the  nearer  they  are,  the  more  rapid  is  their 
flight.  But  in  this  case,  the  extraordinarily  rapid  flight  is  interpreted  as 
significant  of  nearness.  Now,  again,  the  nearer  an  object  is,  with  a  given 
size  of  retinal  image,  the  smaller  is  its  size  perceived  to  be.  In  this  com- 
plex way,  on  the  basis  of  a  vast  amount  of  experience,  do  we  present  our- 
selves, at  once  and  irresistibly,  with  a  field  of  objects  of  diminished  size  as 
seen  from  the  windows  of  a  swiftly  moving  train. 

§  21.  It  is  customary  to  speak  of  the  illusory  character  of  those  represen- 
tations of  things  which  Art  furnishes  to  the  eye  ;  and  even  to  complain  of  the 
senses  for  being  "  deceived  "  in  so  cheap  and  easy  a  fashion.  There  is  a  cer- 
tain truth  in  this  manner  of  speaking.  The  more  important  and  fundamen- 
tal truth  for  jisychology  is,  however,  of  quite  another  sort.  It  is  mathemat- 
ical optics  and  mathematical  perspective  which,  while  it  has  an  abstract  and 
intellectual  truthfulness,  is  to  actual  perceptive  knowledge  quite  false  and 
misleading.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  art  lohicli  presents  to  the  eye  the  objects  as 
they  really  are ;  and  hence  all  its  jaleasant  and  truthful  illusions.  It  is  matJi- 
emathics  which  is  unreal  and  deceitful  when  brought  to  the  test  of  actual  per- 
ception. For  the  mind,  in  ordinary  perception,  is  an  artist  and  not  a  math- 
ematician ;  its  optics  and  perspective  are  not  mathematical  but  belong  to  the 
constructive  realm  of  imagination,  operating  uj^on  and  interiJreting  sensuous 
data.  To  perception,  things  are,  not  what  they  are  figured  out  to  be,  but  what 
they  apjiear  to  be.  The  instantaneous  photograph  of  a  running  horse,  for 
example,  is  a  disagreeable  travesty  of  what  actually  takes  place  when  we 
perceive  the  horse  in  motion.  This  is  just  because  the  jjliotograph  leaves 
out  so  much  of  what  recognition  and  imagination  put  into  every  perceptive 
reality.  It  is  scarcely  more  like  an  actually  perceived  horse  in  motion  than 
is  the  man  seen,  when  by  looking  through  a  telescope  we  place  him  on  his 
head  with  his  legs  going  through  a  series  of  ungainly,  jerky,  and  widely  ex- 
tended movements  in  space,  like  the  actual  man. 

Nor  is  it  with  reference  to  the  comparatively  rare  perception  of  art-objects 
that  the  value  of  suggestion  and  imagination  is  greatest.  Without  sugges- 
tion and  imagination  no  perception  of  objects  could  be  correct — outside  of 
the  fixated  point  of  regard  and  its  most  immediate  neighborhood.  Without 
imagination,  constructive  and  corrective,  no  symmetrical  ligures  could  be 
l^erceived  ;  no  solid  visual  objects  could  be  seen  ;  no  field  of  vision  could  be- 
come a  field  of  consciousness.  For  the  paradox  is  true  :  if  mental  activity  in 
the  perception  of  objects  were  required  to  be  mathematically  correct,  then  no 
such  thing  as  correct  i)orccption  of  objects  could  take  i^lace  at  all.  Thus,  in- 
stead of  all  objects  in  indirect  vision  being  perceived  distorted,  as  mathe- 
matical optics  must  consider  them,  they  regularly  appear  in  the  place  which 

'  Physiologische  Optik  (let  ed.).  p.  365. 


PERCEPTION   OF   ART-OBJECTS  375 

they  woukl  assiimo  if  their  retinal  images  wore  transijosed  to  the  point  of  re- 
gard and  to  its  surrounding  i)oiuts.  And  when  the  head  and  body  move  with 
the  eyes,  we  have  in  ordinary  circumstances  so  correct  a  knowledge  of  the 
value  of  the  resulting  muscular  and  tactual  sensations  (sensations  of  the 
position  of  the  head  and  trunk)  that  we  can  still  solve  the  problem  of  visual 
perception  without  great  embarrassment,  and  with  a  fair  amount  of  correct- 
ness. But  here  again,  the  illusions  of  sense  which  arise  when  we  misreckon 
the  general  relation  of  the  field  of  vision  to  surrounding  space  only  further 
illustrate  the  same  psychological  principles. 

The  foregoing  brief  account  of  the  Development  of  the  differ- 
ent chxsses  of  Perception  by  no  means  gives  a  full  exi^lanation 
of  how  we  come  to  the  knowledge  of  things — not  even  of  their 
spatial  properties  and  spatial  relations.  It  could  not  do  this, 
were  it  indetinitely  extended  in  the  same  directions.  In  order  to 
understand  "  knowledge  "  as  of  things,  and  "  things  "  as  known 
both  by  perceiDtion  and  by  inference  from  perception,  other  im- 
portant mental  processes  and  aspects  of  mental  processes  must 
be  taken  into  the  account.  We  shall,  therefore,  return  to  this 
subject  at  a  later  stage  in  our  discussion  of  the  development  of 
mental  life. 

[Besides  the  treatment  given  to  visual  perception  in  works  discussing  the  general 
theory  of  perception — already  referred  to — the  number  of  monographs  dwelling  wholly,  or 
chiefly,  on  "  vision  "  is  very  great.  Among  such  monographs  the  following  may  be  men- 
tioned :  Cornelius  :  Die  Theorie  des  Sehens.  Panum  :  Physiolog.  Untersuchungen  iiber  d. 
Sehen  mit  zwei  Augen.  Visclier  :  Ueber  d.  optische  Formgcf  iihl.  Xagel  :  Das  Sehen  mit 
zwei  Augen  ;  and  Der  Farbensinn.  Ueberhorst  :  Die  Entsiehung  d.  Gesichtswahr- 
nehmung.  Bohmer  :  Sinneswahmehmung.  Stumpf  :  Raumvorstelhingen.  A.  N.  Volk- 
mann  :  Untersuchungen  im  Gebiet  d.  Optik.  T.  K.  Abbott :  Sight  and  Touch.  Le 
Conte:  Sight.  Aubert :  Grundziiged.  physiolog.  Optik;  but,  above  all,  Helmlioltz  ;  Phys- 
iolog. Optik  (a  new  edition  of  which  is  slowly  appearing).  In  Engli.sh,  the  discussion 
has  been  general  rather  than  minutely  scientific,  and,  of  course,  connected  usually  with 
the  attack  or  defense  of  Berkeley's  Essay  towards  a  New  Theory  of  Vision.  Of  those 
who  have  taken  part  in  this  discussion  during  the  last  fifty  years,  the  following  names  de- 
serve special  mention  :  Bailey,  J.  S.  ilill.  Bain,  Spencer,  Eraser,  Sully,  and  Ward.  For 
the  most  recent  information,  resort  must  be  had  to  the  later  articles  in  magazines — far 
too  numerous  for  our  meagre  bibliography  to  mention  in  detail.  ] 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

MEMORY 

From  tlie  primary  reproductive  process,  with  its  general  re- 
sult of  bringing-  into  consciousness  associated  mental  images,  a 
number  of  so-called  "  faculties  "  have  their  development.  The 
three  faculties  of  memory,  imagination,  and  thought,  in  so  far  as 
they  are  reproductive  (and  all  are  to  a  large  extent,  reproductive) 
have  thus  a  common  root  in  the  fundamental  life  of  represen- 
tation, as  that  life  has  already  been  explained.  It  remains  now 
to  show  how,  by  combination  in  different  forms  with  the  other 
developing  processes  of  the  same  mental  life,  these  three  allied 
faculties  are  actually  developed.  That  there  can  be  no  imagi- 
nation without  memory,  and  no  thinking  without  remembering 
and  imagining,  is  obvious  enough.  On  the  other  hand,  we  un- 
doubtedly seem  to  ourselves  differently  employed  when  we  are 
trying  to  remember  something,  and  then  again  to  imagine  how 
something  looks  about  which  we  have  heard.  None  the  less 
sure  are  men  generally  that  thinking  differs  in  some  marked  re- 
spects from  both  remembering  and  imagining.  To  be  sure,  one 
might  say  with  almost  equal  appropriateness,  on  trying  to  solve 
some  theoretical  or  practical  problem  ;  I  am  trying  to  think, 
or  I  am  trying  to  imagine,  how  this  is,  or  would  best  be.  And 
yet  the  more  intelligent  use  of  the  word  "  thought  "  in  preference 
to  the  word  "  imagination,"  seems  to  pledge  us  to  the  serious 
pursuit  of  our  end  according  to  logical  laws  or  to  forms  corre- 
sponding with  our  experience  of  i^erceptive  reality.  Once  more 
— and  proceeding-,  as  it  were,  in  the  reverse  order  of  consideration 
— unless  one  imagines  and  thinks,  one  cannot  remember,  with 
a  true  and  full  recognition,  any  complex  event  of  past  experience. 
Now  as  to  what  these  three  interrelated  faculties  have  in  com- 
mon, enough  has  already  been  said.  The  common  factor  is  the 
representative  image,  with  its  different  degrees  of  intensity  and 
life-likeness ;  the  common  processes  are  those  of  the  reproduction, 
under  the  general  laws  of  all  reproduction,  of  the  associated 
ideas.  Hence  all  these  three  faculties  are  distinguished  as  re- 
liresentative ;  they  are  not  faculties  of  jDresentative  psychoses. 


MEMOKY,    IMAGINATION,    AND   THOUGHT  377 

as  are  sense-perception  and  self-consciousness.  That  is  to  say 
they  are  not  mainly  so  ;  for  we  have  jnstseen  that  sense-iiercep- 
tion  itself  involves  memory  and  imagination,  and  even  primary 
intellection.  Memory,  intaf/inah'on,  thought,  as  predoimnatimjly 
representative,  alike  depend  upon  the  fundamental  faculty  of 
ideation — in  the  wider  meaning  of  the  latter  word.  In  this  sense 
they  are  dijferent  developments  of  one  and  the  same  form  of  mental 
life. 

It  is  by  no  means  easy  to  tell  what  fixed  characteristic 
differences  separate  these  three  representative  faculties  from 
one  another.  Indeed,  separate  exhibitions  of  any  one  of  our 
faculties  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  actual  life  of  adult  con- 
sciousness. AYe  must  be  content  to  show  how,  by  combination 
with  the  higher  develoi^ments  of  other  equally  fundamental  proc- 
esses, these  different  forms  of  reproductive  mental  life  are 
themselves  developed  into  the  three  faculties  of  memory,  imag- 
ination, aiid  thought.  And  here  it  must  be  noted  that  it  is  not 
purposeful  volition  w^hicli  initiates  the  characteristic  differences. 
The  most  elaborate  acts  of  voluntary  remembering-  are  no  more 
like  acts  of  imagination  or  trains  of  thought  than  are  the  forced 
occurrences  of  memory-images.  On  iflie  contrary,  the  more  intel- 
ligent, purposeful,  and  well  controlled  one's  memory  is,  the  more 
are  pure  acts  of  imagination  and  thought  excluded.  Something 
similar  is  true  of  imagination  and  thought.  The  would-be  artist 
or  inventor  cannot,  of  course,  succeed  without  constantly  exer- 
cising his  faculties  of  memory  and  thought.  But  what  he  wishes 
especially  to  have  happen  to  him  is  something  beyond  mere  re- 
membering and  thinking ;  something  which  he  is  powerless  to 
impart  directly  to  imagination  by  willing,  but  .which  comes  to 
imagination  as  its  own  jjeculiar  quickening  and  uplift,  only  if  he 
voluntarily  excludes  an  excess  of  mere  thinking  and  mere  remem- 
bering. The  case  of  the  man  who  is  "  bent  on  thought "  is  not 
different.  The  more  self-controlled  and  purposeful  his  thinking 
becomes,  the  less  is  it  like  mere  remembering  or  imagining.  It 
is  not  by  addition  of  will,  therefore,  that  the  differences  in  these 
faculties  are  emphasized  or  immediately  developed. 

As  a  basis  for  the  more  detailed  treatment  of  memory,  imagi- 
nation, and  thought,  the  following  brief  statement  of  their 
differences  is  helpful :  In  brief,  then,  (1)  "  Memory  "  differs  from 
imagination  and  thought  with  respect  chiefly,  to  the  character- 
istic of  conscious  "  recognition."  In  memory,  the  representative 
object  is  known  as  representative  ;  and  this  knowledge,  as  recog- 
nitive,  developes  almost  ^>«r?!  passu  with  two  cognate  forms  of 
consciousness.     These  are  the  consciousness  of  time  and   the 


378  MEMORY 

consciousness  of  self.  For  truly  speaking-,  every  object  wliicli  is 
remembered,  and  not  merely  imagined  or  tliouglit,  is  recognized 
as  representative  of  a  past  presentative  exiaerience,  and  of  my 
past  experience.  Without  the  development  of  the  consciousness 
of  time  and  the  consciousness  of  self,  no  development  of  memory 
— in  the  full  meaning  of  that  word  as  genuine  mental  faculty — can 
therefore  take  place.  In  (2)  "  Imagination,"  on  the  other  hand, 
just  so  far  as  the  reproductive  activity  is  imaginative,  recognition 
(in  the  above-mentioned  use  of  the  word)  is  suppressed.  The 
representative  object  may  be,  in  fact,  only  the  more  or  less  exact 
reproduction  of  an  actual  presentative  experience  in  my  past ;  but 
if  it  is  to  be  considered  as  an  object  of  imagination  rather  than 
of  memory,  it  must  not  be  consciously  known  as  such  reproduc- 
tion. In  other  words,  the  object  of  imagination  appears  in  con- 
sciousness as  "  freed "'  from  those  bonds  of  recog'nized  relation 
to  my  past  which  the  object  of  memory  always  has.  In  connec- 
tion with  this  characteristic  difference,  another  most  important 
and  suggestive  difference  arises.  All  my  memories,  as  such,  are 
of  what — as  I  am  wont  vaguely  or  more  clearly  to  believe — really 
happened.  "  My  i^ast "  can  never  be  represented  in  any  other 
way,  whether  we  call'  the  precise  form  of  representation  memory, 
imagination,  or  thought,  than  as  consisting  of  real  occurrences  at 
some  time  presentatively  known  to  me.  I  may,  indeed,  imagine 
or  think  it  to  have  been  different  from  what  I  distinctly  remem- 
ber it  to  have  been.  But  doing  this  results  in  my  presenting 
myself  with  a  picture  which,  by  its  very  nature,  is  put  in  contrast 
with  the  actuality  of  my  past.  If  anything  be3"ond  the  liyiits  of 
the  present  field  of  consciousness  attaches  to  itself  the  conviction 
or  belief  of  reality,  it  is  just  this — namely,  my  past  as  given  to 
me  in  fully  developed  recognitive  memory.  On  the  contrary, 
the  objects  of  my  imagination,  whether  this  form  of  reproduc- 
tive activity  be  the  so-called  "  passive  "  or  the  so-called  "  active," 
do  not  have  the  same  conviction  or  belief  (resting  on  the  ground 
that  they  are  recognized  as  belonging  to  my  past)  attaching  it- 
self to  them. 

How  (3)  "Thought"  is  characteristically  different  from  imag- 
ination cannot  be  satisfactorily  explained  in  a  few  sentences. 
Its  close  resemblance  to,  and  dependence  upon,  imagination  is 
recognized  in  all  our  use  of  language.  Indeed,  much  confusion 
has  always  arisen  in  psychological  discussion  on  account  of  the 
very  natural  use  of  the  word  "idea"  for  both  the  concrete  sensu- 
ous image  and  the  concept  or  product  of  thought.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  respects  the  "  reality  "  of  its  objects — assumed,  inferred, 
or  somehow  believed  in— thought  is  more  closely  allied  with, 


MEMORY,    IMAGINATION,    AND   THOUGHT  379 

and  dependent  upon,  memory  than  upon  imagination.  The  follow- 
ing* three  particulars,  however,  summarize  those  most  important 
diti'erences,  which  will  be  more  fully  expLiined  later  on  :  {a)  In 
trains  of  thought,  as  distinguished  from  series  of  associated 
representative  images,  the  individual  factors,  or  "  moments,"  of 
the  train,  are  diiierent.  This  difference  may  be  summed  up  in 
an  indefinite  way  by  saying  that  the  ideas  which  succeed  each 
other,  when  we  are  distinctly  thinkimf  (not  merely  imagining) 
are  more  abstract,  more  "  freed  "  from  their  concrete  manifold- 
ness,  more  schematic  as  it  were  (see  p.  284  f.).  This  difference 
is  indeed  a  matter  of  degrees,  and  no  fixed  line  between  the 
representative  image  and  the  concept  which  will  stand  the  test 
of  actual  psychical  life  can  be  drawn.  For  that  reason  we  can- 
not definitely  say  where  imaging  leaves  off*  and  thinking  and 
conception  begin.  {Jj)  The  relations  between  the  different  con- 
tiguous factors  in  trains  of  thinking,  when  compared  with  series 
of  associated  ideas,  are  seen  to  have  a  different  origin  and  char- 
acter. Here  the  fundamental  distinction  seems  to  be  that, 
whereas  in  mere  imagination  no  consciousness  of  relation 
(whether  of  similarity,  or  difference,  sequence,  simultaneity, 
cause,  etc.)  is  necessary,  in  thinking,  such  consciousness  of  relation 
is  implied,  either  as  actually  accompanying  the  succession  of  psy- 
choses or  as  due  to  previously  formed  habits  of  conscious  activity 
in  relating.  In  a  preliminary  way  we  may  say  that  thinking  is  <t 
process  of  relating,  together  toith  an  im, mediate  aioareness  of  the  rela- 
tion. An  examination  of  the  character  of  the  relations  in  which, 
by  thinking-,  our  psychoses  are  placed  leads  us  to  ascribe  the 
result  to  the  laws  of  a  so-called  faculty.  This  faculty  we  call 
"  intellect."  Intellect  comprises  that  development  of  mental 
life  which  lays  emphasis  on  those  activities  of  assimilation,  dis- 
crimination, etc.,  which  we  have  already  treated.  Thinking,  then, 
although  a  form  of  representative  faculty,  is  also — more  distinc- 
tively— a  development  of  the  relating  consciousness  of  primary 
intellection.  Hence,  in  thinking,  the  laws,  or  fundamental  forms, 
under  which  the  ideas  become  related,  arc  the  laws  and  forms  of 
intellectual  life,  {c)  Important  modifications  and  acquisitions  of 
motor  consciousness  are  necessary  in  order  to  emphasize  and 
develop  the  distinction  between  imagination  and  thinking. 
Here  the  intimate  relation  between  language  and  thought  must 
be  taken  into  account.  But  language,  so  far  as  related  to  the 
thought  of  the  thinker  (in  the  most  general  use  of  the  word) 
always  consists  of  some  form  of  motor  consciousness.  This  is 
true  whether  the  so-called  "  sign "  be  given  in  terms  of  the 
tongue  and  other  vocal  organs,  or  in  terms  of  the  hand  (gestures, 


380  MEMORY 

etc.) ;  aud  whether  it  be  expressed  so  as  to  be  intelligible  to 
others,  or  be  suppressed  aud  yet  employed  as  a  support  and 
guide  to  the  thinker's  own  thought.  In  other  words,  as  the  men- 
tal images  become  more  and  more  abstract,  and  the  laws  of  their 
relation  become  more  intellectual  and  more  consciously  deter- 
mined, the  necessity  and  importance  of  the  language-sign  be- 
comes greater ;  and  such  sign  consists  in  doing  something  with 
the  motor  organism  and  in  experiencing  the  resulting  modifica- 
tion of  motor  consciousness. 

I  1.  The  discussion  whether  memory  is  properly  to  be  called  a  "  faculty  " 
or  not,  scarcely  possesses  the  real  importance  which  is  customarily  attached 
to  it.  If  by  the  word  "  faculty  "  we  intend  an  elementary  mode  or  process  of 
conscious  mental  life,  then  memory  is  not  (but  representative  image-making 
is)  a  faculty.  Then,  however,  i3ercej)tion,  imagination,  thought,  emotion,  de- 
sire, and  will,  are  not  faculties  ;  for  i/^ese  are  all  develojjmeyits  of  complex  result- 
ants arising  from  the  exercise  of  all  tlie  fundamental  faculties.  Neither  can  reten- 
tion, '  considered  as  a  state  or  activity  of  "  the  unconscious,"  be  regarded  as 
mental  faculty  ;  and  the  same  thing  is  true  of  the  merely  psycho-physical  and 
unconscious  conditions  of  suggestion  and  the  association  of  ideas.  But  the 
conscious  (and  especially  the  voluntary)  revival  of  past  presentations  of  sense, 
or  states  of  self-consciousness,  with  the  recognition  of  them — they  really  be- 
ing, of  course,  always  only  my  present  psychoses — as  representative  of  my 
past,  is  as  truly  the  exercise  of  a  faculty  as  is  perception,  thought,  etc.  That 
is  to  say,  true  memory  is  one  of  those  complex  activities  of  mental  life  which 
we  always  find  developing  as  necessary  to  the  very  existence,  in  any  elaborated 
and  highly  organized  form,  of  truly  viental  life  at  all.  Following  a  pardon- 
able and  indeed  inevitable  metaphysical  instinct,  we  ascribe  the  fact  that 
such  form  of  mental  life  exists  to  an  original  power  of  the  being  (the  mind) 
whose  life  we  are  considering.  To  express  the  matter  naively — mind  has  the 
faculty,  or  power,  to  do  what  it  actually  does.  But  in  all  such  cases  it  would 
be  truer  to  the  facts  of  psychological  history  to  say  :  By  exercise  of  the  sim- 
ple and  fundamental  faculties,  the  complex  and  acquired  faculties  of  memory, 
perception,  thought,  etc.,  are  developed.  Whatever  form  of  language  we 
adopt  we  do  not  in  that  way  either  increase  or  diminish  our  knowledge  in 
the  least  degree.  Thus  Ulrici  ^  denies  that  recollection  is  a  special  power  or 
faculty,  but  affirms  that  it  is  a  property  of  consciousness  ;  for  the  ideas  do 
not  simply  move  or  disport  themselves  in  the  soul,  but  it  is  the  soul  which 
turns  itself  from  the  present  to  the  past  conditions,  and  so  from  one  idea  to 
another.  Binet,^  however,  would  reduce  all  the  factors  of  recognitive  and  vol- 
untary memory  to  associated  brain-processes  with  a  mere  "  oinphenomenon" 
of  consciousness.  But  he,  too,  is  forced  to  admit  that  consciousness  of  re- 
semblance is  something  very  diftbreut  from  the  mere  fact  of  the  recurrence  of 

'  On  tlic  iiiii)roi)riety  of  regarding  memory  (retentive)  as  a  mental  faculty.  Dittos  pertinently  re- 
marks :  "  AIho  HenmitionB,  oijinions,  psychical  oppositions,  as  well  as  evcrytliinsj;  that  develops  from 
them.  and.  morcovc^r,  dispositions,  traits  of  character,  feelings  and  passions,  virtues  and  vices,  en- 
dure (are  retained.")— Lehrhuch  d.  Psychologic,  p.  50. 

"  (Jott  and  der  Mensch,  I..  2.  p,  210  f. 

'  La  Psyehologie  du  liaisouuemeut,  p.  115  f. 


THE  TIIKEE   STAGES   OF   MEMOIIY  381 

resembling  brain-statos ;  and  this  being  so,  recognitivo  memory  Las  to  be 
brouglit  under  terms  of  mental  faculty.  Neither  the  spiritualistic  psycholo- 
gist nor  the  physiological  psychologist,  by  affirmation  or  denial  of  the  so- 
called  faculty  of  memory,  adds  to  or  subtracts  from  either  the  data  or  the 
explanations  of  psychological  theory.  As  for  us,  wo  shall  continue  to  use 
the  word  faculty  for  any  of  the  developed  forms  of  mental  life,  in  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  which  has  already  been  sufficiently  explained  (compare 
p;51). 

It  is  customary  to  speak  of  three  Stages  of  Mcraorj^ ;  these 
three  are  Heteutiou,  Keproduction,  and  Recog-iiition.  Ecteutioii 
seems  to  be  implied  in  the  very  fact  that  our  present  psychoses  are 
representative  at  all  of  our  past  experience.  Unless  they  were 
thus  representative  no  memory  could  exist,  and  indeed  the  organ- 
ization of  the  psychoses  into  what  we  have  any  right  to  call  "  ex- 
perience "  would  be  impossible.  Keproduction,  on  the  other 
hand,  expresses  the  fact  of  the  presence  in  consciousness  of  cer- 
tain psychoses  bearing  this  peculiar  representative  character. 
Such  psychoses  actually  appear,  or  are  produced  —  as  we  fig- 
uratively say — by  the  mind  ;  but  since  they  are  recognized  as  rep- 
resentative, they  are  said  to  he  reproduced  ;  and  since  they  occur 
in  relations  similar  to  those  in  which  their  originals  may  be 
remembered  or  inferred  to  have  occurred,  they  are  said  to  repro- 
duce each  other;  and,  again,  since  sometimes  our  volitions  de- 
termine the  fact  and  the  order  of  their  appearance,  vx  may  be 
said  to  reproduce  them.  But,  as  has  already  been  said,  the  very 
essence  of  the  developed  faculty  of  memory  is  Eecognition  ; 
and  this  involves  the  consciousness  of  the  present  psychoses 
as  representative  of  my  past,  and  so  a  reference  to  that  2^((^i 
which  is  my  past.  Therefore  the  cognition  of  memory  is  prop- 
erly called  recognition. 

It  is  evident,  however,  that  by  no  means  all  this  threefold,  or 
triple-stratified,  activity  actually  takes  place  in  every  conscious 
process  of  memory.  Indeed  the  most  elaborate  and  deliberate 
acts  of  memory  give  no  evidence  of  all  this.  The  simple  funda- 
mental fact  is  that  "  we  remember  ;  "  and  that  each  memory  is  of 
some  of  our  experiences  rather  than  of  others.  Some  of  our  ex- 
periences— presumably— we  cannot  remember  or  never  have  re- 
membered. Every  act  of  memory  also  takes  place  in  some  order 
within  the  general  stream  of  consciousness  ;  it  is  more  or  less 
distinctly  and  completely  representative  of  some  past  experience  ; 
and  it  is  distinguished  by  more  or  less  of  conscious  recognition. 
These  three  terms,  then — retention,  reproduction,  and  recogni- 
tion— really  set  forth,  in  different  aspects,  what  it  seems  neces- 
sary to  assume  in  order  to  explain  satisfactorily  the  mysterious 


882  MEMORY 

and  complex  fact  that  we  do  find  ourselves  remembering-  in  a 
self-conscious,  recognitive  way. 

But  here  we  must  take  notice  of  important  differences  with 
respect  to  the  relation  in  which  these  three  assumed  processes 
stand  to  the  undoubted  fact  of  memory.  For,  let  it  not  be  for- 
gotten, all  we  are  sure  of  as  x^sychological  fact  is — "  I  remem- 
ber ; "  and  this  simply  means  that  certain  states  of  present 
consciousness  have  the  peculiarity  of  bearing  in  themselves  the 
md  generis  claim  to  be  a  knowledge  of  past  presentative  states  of 
my  consciousness.  This  is  to  say  over  again  that  I  cannot  even 
conceive  of  the  possibility  of  my  remembering  (as  distinguished 
from  imagining  or  thinking)  anything  which  does  not  belong 
to  my  conscious  past.  It  follows  that  v:hat  is  called  "  recognition" 
is  the  essential  psychological  pecxdiarity  of  memory  as  a  developed 
and  conscious  mentcd  activity.  And  whether  we  can  explain  its 
origin  and  conditions,  or  not,  makes  no  difference  in  the  rela- 
tion which  this  stage  of  memory  bears  to  the  completed  act. 
The  stage  called  recognition  is  in  consciousness  and  i^urely  of 
consciousness — all  of  it — and  it  is  the  one  thing  about  the  faculty 
of  which  we  are  perfectly  certain.  But  the  case  is  not  precisely 
the  same  with  the  stage  called  reproduction.  It  is  sometimes 
said  that  by  reproduction  we  signify  "  the  actual  return  of  the 
image  to  consciousness  ;  "  ^  and  to  this  statement  there  is  no  ob- 
jection. But  we  do  not  have  memory  until  the  reproduced  im- 
age is  recognized. 

Nor  in  fact  does  reproduction,  as  a  factor  of  memory,  take 
place  in  its  completion  before  recognition  is  added,  as  it  were. 
On  the  contrary,  in  memory  recognitive  reproduction  is  the  dis- 
tinguishing form  of  representative  activity  ;  for  we  maj'^  become 
conscious,  in  a  measure,  of  the  reproductive  process ;  we  can 
watch  ourselves,  while  remembering,  and  notice  how  the  ideas 
suggest  each  other  in  the  stream  of  consciousness  ;  we  can 
voluntarily  "  hark  back "  upon  our  most  recent  memories,  and, 
taking  advantage  of  the  laws  of  suggestive  association,  "  round 
out  "  the  revived  images  into  a  more  complete  recognitive  act  of 
memory.  In  this  way  do  we  quicken,  purify,  and  enrich  our 
mental  pictures  of  the  events  belonging  to  our  past  conscious 
experience.  This  process  of  reproduction,  then,  is  itself  in  a 
measure  a  process  in  consciousness.  It  is  also,  in  part,  a  process 
belonging  to  the  "  fringes  "  or  "  borders  "  of  consciousness,  the 
dimly  conscious  or  half-conscious  mental  life.  In  order  to  com- 
plete our  explanation  of  so  much  of  reproduction  as  belongs  to 
conscious  memory,   and   therefore   stands  within   the    field  of 

'  Sec,  for  example,  Baldwin  :  Handbook  of  Psychology,  I.,  p.  151. 


THE   FACT   OF   RETENTION  383 

memory-knowlodq-e,  we  may  indeed  choose  to  speak  of  "uncon- 
scious reprodiiction."  But  in  doin<;'  this  we  are  only  drawing-  in- 
ferences, or  making  conjectures,  as  to  the  antecedent  conditions 
of  memory. 

What  is  partially  true  of  reproduction  is  absolutely  true  of 
retention.  Properly  speaking-,  scientific  psycholog-y  can  know 
nothing-  about  retention  as  a  stage,  or  factor,  or  state  of  memory. 
And  strictly  speaking,  retentioii  is  not  a  word  to  be  applied  to 
any  psychical  act  or  process  whatever,  or  however  concerned 
in  the  iindoubted  fact — I  remember.  This  statement  is  as  true 
of  all  physiological  theories  of  memory  as  it  is  true  of  those 
theories  Avliich  rely  upon  the  existence,  and  mutual  influence 
of  so-called  unconscious  ideas.  Both  forms  of  theory  ex- 
press metaphysical,  and  not  scientific  hypotheses,  in  a  figurative 
and  unwarrantable  way.  The  metaphysics  of  the  physiological 
theory  is  no  better — is,  it  would  seem,  scarcely  so  fruitful  in  ex- 
planation— as  the  metaphysics  of  the  ideation  theory.  Retention, 
like  reproduction,  is  designed  to  explain  the  stf  tes  of  conscious- 
ness, as  such,  only  by  pointing  out  the  conditions  on  which  they, 
as  actual  states  of  consciousness,  seem  to  depend.  So  far  as  re- 
tention does  this  at  all,  it  is  reducible  to  the  well-known  or  im- 
lierfectly  conjectured  laws  of  reproduction  ;  as  J istiiiguished from 
the  laii:s  of  rcproduct'wn,  regarded  as  Dte preconditions  ofrecognitive 
memory,  there  is  no  such  tJiing  hioivn  to  scientifc  psyclioJogy  as  re- 
iention  hi  memory.  Nor  can  we  form  the  faintest  conception  of 
what  is  meant  by  the  unconscious  retention  of  our  past  expe- 
riences, whether  in  the  form  of  brain-states  or  in  the  form  of  ideas 
within  the  mind. 

?  2.  What  is  called  the  "retentive"  power,  or  factor,  of  memory  has 
been  conceived  of  in  two  different  ways — the  psychological  and  the  i^hysio- 
logical.  The  popular  language  runs  as  (hnugh.  the  representative  images 
were  "stored  away"  in  the  mind,  and  then  sprung  forth  or  were  brought 
forth  by  involuntary  or  voluntary  "  recall."  Huch  language  has  been  in  all 
ages  converted  into  a  metaphysical  theory.  Thus  Plato  and  St.  Augustine 
regarded  the  ideas  as  existing,  somehow  retained,  in  the  mind.  But  what- 
ever theory  we  may  defend  as  to  the  mind's  entity,  we  can  neither  conceive 
of  it,  nor  of  the  nature  of  ideas,  so  as  to  justify  any  other  than  a  confessedly 
figurative  i;se  of  such  language.  What  corresponds  in  real  experience  to 
the  figure  of  speech  is  nothing  beyond  the  fact  and  the  laws  of  memory. 
No  more  defensible  than  the  ancient  view  is  that  of  tlie  modern  Herbartian 
school,  or  of  the  psychologist  Bouillier  '  who  declares  :  "No  idea,  at  least  of 
those  which  memory  may  recall,  ever  leaves  the  mind  entirely.  ...  To 
remember  is  to  have  new  consciousness  of  what  has  not  ceased  to  exist  in 

'  See  Le  Principe  vital,  p.  403  f. 


384  MEMORY 

the  soul."  Tmer  to  science,  by  fav,  is  •what  the  poet  Longfellow  makes 
Prince  Henry  say : 

"  Themselves  will  fade, 
But  not  their  memory. 
And  memory  has  tiie  power 
To  recreate  tliem  from  the  dust. " 

The  modern  physiological  theory  has  by  no  means  always  escaped  a  sim- 
ilar unjustifiable  metaphysics.  It  has  spoken  as  though  the  so-called  reten- 
tion of  ideas  were  in  the  brain— in  the  manner  of  "scars,"  as  it  were,  or  of 
nerve-cells  "polarized"  in  the  position  given  them — to  which  the  "  e^Di- 
phenomenon  "  of  consciousness  only  needs  to  be  accidentally  added  in  order 
to  account  for  recognitive  memory. 

The  truth  of  the  physiological  theory  of  memory  is  simply  this,  that  the 
recurrence  of  similar  forms  of  associated  cerebration  is  the  conjectural  physi- 
cal precondition  of  the  reproductive  process;  and  so  of  recognitive  memory. 
This  inferred  fact  of  recurrence  is  properly  held  to  be  indicative  of  molecular 
tendencies,  habits,  dis])osition,  etc,  in  a  manner  which  has  already  been 
sufficiently  explained  (see  p.  242  f.).  But  these  words  when  applied  to  the 
brain,  as  well  as  when  applied  to  the  mind,  express  nothing  intelligible  ex- 
cept as  they  are  interpreted  in  terms  of  consciousness.  They  only  serve  to 
summarize  the  general  fact,  namely — so  we  infer  or  conjecture,  the  brain  re- 
peatedly behaves  in  a  similar  manner  as  a  precondition  of  the  recuri'ence  of 
representative  ideas  in  consciousness. 

§  3.  Little  need  be  added  to  what  has  already  been  said  concerning  the 
physiological  conditions  of  retentive  memory.  They,  as  well  as  the  psychical 
conditions,  are  both  general  and  special.  The  original  constitution  of  the 
brain,  as  implying  sensitiveness  to  various  kinds  of  stimuli,  its  capacity  for 
forming  a  variety  of  habits  of  reaction,  together  with  the  unimpaired  integ- 
rity of  the  nervous  centers  j^rincipally  concerned  in  the  different  forms  of 
perceptive  acquisition,  and  especially  of  the  association-tracts,  are  general 
and  permanent  conditions  of  retention.  The  special  conditions  are  found 
in  the  state  of  the  cerebral  centers  and  association-tracts  when  the  original 
presentations  occur,  and  also  in  the  state  of  the  same  centers  and  tracts 
when  reproduction  takes  place.  In  both  the  original  and  the  reproductive 
activity  continued  soundness  of  brain-tissue  and  a  proper  sujiply  of  well 
aerated  blood  are  the  most  important  conditions.  In  this  way  we  may  give 
a  general  physiological  account  of  why  it  is  that  some  men  have  so  much 
more  capacious  and  retentive  memories  than  others.  Tims  also  may  be  ex- 
plained why  things  acquired  under  some  circumstances  of  health  are  remem- 
bered better  than  others ;  as  well  as  why  the  general  sanitary  condition 
has  such  a  marked  effect  upon  the  memory.  In  fact,  no  other  faculty  is  more 
obviously  dependent  ripon  the  condition  of  the  brain  than  is  memory.  In 
the  different  ages  of  life  this  faculty  is  marked  by  certain  quasi-cerebral 
characteristics.  Indeed,  it  may  perhaps  be  said  that  the  developed  faculty 
is  not  established  until  from  five  to  seven  or  eight  years.  It  is  found  that 
persons  who  become  blind  before  this  age  do  not  retain  visual  images  so  as 
to  dream  or  think  in  terms  of  them  in  after-life.'     It  is  of  the  failure  of 

'  See  Jastrow :  New  Princeton  Review,  Jan.,  18S8. 


PHYSICAL   CONDITIONS   OF   KETENTION  385 

memory  that  persons  growing  old  begin  iirst  to  complain,  and  the  very 
natnre  and  order  of  this  failure  emphasizes  the  i^hysiological  conditions  of 
all  retention.  No  experience  is  more  frequent  than  that  of  failure  in  the 
attempt  to  fix  in  memory  presentations  of  sense  when  the  cerebral  condi- 
tion is  unsuitable,  unless  it  be  the  painful  knowledge  that  we  are  unable 
to  show  we  have  retained  what  wo  try  to  recall  when  in  similar  bad  condition. 
Many  astonishing  phenomena  occur,  however,  which  baffle  all  attempts  to 
give  them  a  satisfactory  physiological  explanation  in  detail.  After  fevers — 
for  example — much  or  all  of  one  kind  of  knowledge  may  be  lost  while  another 
connected  kind  is  retained.  [Forbes  "Winslow  even  tells  of  a  man  who,  after 
a  fever,  lost  all  knowledge  of  the  letter  F.]  Then  again  the  lost  knowl- 
edge, without  any  assignable  reason  in  cerebral  changes,  may  come  rushing 
back,  as  it  were.  In  "  aphasia  of  recollection  "  the  patient  may  retain  the 
memory  of  certain  words  and  yet  be  quite  unable  to  remember  others  closely 
allied.  But  in  general,  as  says  Kussmaul  :  '  "  The  more  concrete  the  idea, 
the  more  readily  the  word  to  designate  it  is  forgotten  when  the  memory 
fails."  And  this  view  accords,  on  the  whole,  with  the  order  in  which  reten- 
tion fails  in  senile  memory.  Sometimes,  in  spite  of  ajiparently  insuperable 
physical  obstacles,  a  wonderful  reproduction  of  the -past  conscious  exi^eri- 
ence  takes  place  ;  and  in  moments  of  disease,  of  danger,  and  even  of  death, 
preceded  by  a  time  of  apparent  unconsciousness,  a  flood  of  unexpected  mem- 
ories often  breaks  in  over  the  field  of  consciousness.  These  phenomena 
are  partly  to  be  explained  by  changes  in  arterial  circulation ;  but  of  their 
complete  cause  we  are  still  largely  in  ignorance.  However,  such  occasional 
experiences  do  not  disprove  the  rule  that  the  constitution  of  the  brain  fixes, 
in  a  general  way,  the  limits  of  every  man's  retentive  powers  ;  and  that  the 
conditions  of  health  for  the  brain-tissue  are  also  the  conditions  of  good 
retentive  memory. 

g  4.  The ijaydiical  conditions  of  retentive  memory  are  to  be  summed  up  chiefly 
with  reference  to  the  relation  which  attention  sustains  to  the  processes  involved 
both  in  presentation  and  in  reproduction.  What  impresses  itself  upon  our 
interest,  in  the  first  instance  ;  what  accords  with  our  permanent  disposition, 
or  with  our  temporary  mood,  at  the  time  of  acquisition  ;  what  is  most  thor- 
oughly wrought  by  repetition  under  various  connections  into  the  texture  of 
mental  life  ;  what  is  apprehended  in  the  direction  of  our  customary  or  more 
particular  final  purposes ;  what  by  prolonged  and  intense  voluntary  effort 
we  impress  upon  ourselves,  especially  if  vie  connect  it  with  a  number  of 
other  associated  ideas  that  are  to  a  high  degree  memorable  ;  what  by  good 
logical  consequence  follows  from  facts  and  premises,  themselves  likely  to  be 
retained  ;  these,  and  such  like  matters,  are  surest  to  survive  the  obliterative 
influence  of  time  and  so  to  be  retained  in  memory.  Or  if  we  regard  the  suc- 
cessive fields  of  consciousness  as  biological  realms,  where  the  "  struggle  for 
existence  "  among  the  memory-images  goes  on,  those  that  have  the  foregoing 
characteristics  are  "  fittest  to  survive."  The  practical  maxims  for  cultivat- 
ing retentive  memory  which  follow  from  these  statements  are  obvious.  But 
they  all,  if  we  include  its  various  kinds  (involuntary  and  voluntary),  degrees, 
and  relations  to  all  fundamental  processes  of  mental  life,  are  seen  to  be  con- 
nected with  attention.     Thus  the  rules  for  a  good  retentive  memory  are 

'  Ziemssen's  Cyclopsedia.  xiv  ,  p  759 


386  MEMORY 

reducible  to  a  judicious  and  economical  expenditure  of  psycliic  energy 
under  the  principles  of  disposition  and  habit — the  psychical  correlate,  as  it 
were,  of  the  physiological  conditions  of  retentive  memory. 

And  vet  here,  as  in  the  case  of  the  physiological  conditions  of  memory, 
not  a  few  unintelligible  facts  have  to  be  taken  into  the  final  account.  For, 
by  no  means  infrequently,  things  which  we  have  most  carefully  "  com- 
mitted" to  memory,  as  in  our  very  j)rofessional  line,  so  to  speak,  and  which 
all  the  reasons  in  disposition,  repetition,  voluntary  purpose,  and  natural  or 
acquired  interests,  would  seem  to  co-operate  in  retaining,  slip  away  from 
memory,  apparently  forever.  Or,  at  the  very  time  when  the  greatest  provo- 
cation to  recall  them  has  arisen,  we  find  they  have  been  only  imperfectly 
retained.  Thus  the  name  of  a  person  whom  we  have  long  known  and  are 
desirous  of  addressing  properly,  is  gone  at  the  moment  when  we  take  him 
by  the  hand  ;  in  which  case  we  are  scarcely  more  vexed  with  ourselves  than 
when,  hours  afterward,  we  find  it  jumping  unbidden,  and  even  unsug- 
gested  (?)  into  our  minds  as  we  are  greeting  quite  another  person  or  quietly 
reading  a  book.  Contrariwise,  no  little  rubbish  which  we  never  took  pains 
to  know,  or  even  knew  that  we  did  know,  clings  with  a  fatal  tenacity  to 
memory.  Such  "  parasites "  of  memory  often  attach  themselves  to  our 
"  standard "  memory-images  in  the  most  grotesque  and  offensive  manner. 
Sometimes  we  are  not  even  sure  whether  the  representative  image  should  be 
assigned  to  memory  at  all,  or  rather  to  pure  fancy.  Thus  Delboeuf  tells  ' 
how  he  dreamed  of  asplenium  ruia  viuralis,  a  plant  of  the  very  existence 
of  which  he  (being  no  botanist)  supposed  himself  to  have  no  knowledge  ; 
and  only  subsequently  did  he  discover  that  the  name  was  indeed  a  memory- 
image  fixed  in  his  mind  two  years  previously  by  the  simple  and  forgotten 
act  of  coi^ying  it  into  a  friend's  album. 

^  5.  There  is  a  kind  of  retention  in  memory  which  has  received  insufficient 
notice  from  psychologists,  biat  which  is  of  considerable  practical  interest. 
We  will  call  it  "metamorphosed  "  retention — a  sort  of  metnory  kept  in  con- 
sciousness in  a  form  of  substitution.  For  example,  let  us  suppose  that  one 
has  received  from  another,  or  given  to  one's  self,  some  commission  which 
must  be  remembered,  some  i^urchase  to  be  made,  business  transacted,  letter 
written,  or  lesson  learned  ;  but  meantime  one  is  employed  about  some  qi;ite 
different  matter.  The  memory  of  the  commission  is  "driven,"  as  we  are 
accustomed  to  say,  quite  "out  of  mind"  by  the  present  employment.  But 
for  all  that  the  tone  of  the  conscious  mental  life  is  by  no  means  altogether 
the  same  that  it  would  be,  were  this  object  not  committed  to  memory 
for  retention.  A  vague  uneasiness  (as  of  "  something,"  "  sometime  soon," 
to  be  done),  probably  persists  with  considerable  uniformity  in  the  back- 
ground of  the  conscious  mental  life  ;  and  this  affective  shading  of  conscious- 
ness is  accompanied  by  frequent  or  occasional  a]ipearancos  of  tlie  object 
itself  in  a  very  obscurely  ideated  form.  Thus  the  "  fringes,"  as  well  as  the 
"shading"  of  the  successive  fields  of  consciousness  are  meinordble  of  i\\e 
object  designed  at  the  right  time  to  emerge  into  recognitive  memory.  Such 
a  form  of  fooling  and  ideation  is  in  some  sort  a  substitute  for  the  more 
careful  record  of  the  thing  to  be  remembered  ;  or  we  may  say — the  thing 
is  kept  in  memory  in  a  "  metamorphosed  "  form.     Hence  the  explanation  of 

'  Lc  Somme'l  et  les  Rfives,  p.  107  f . 


CONDITIONS   OF   IlEPRODUCTION  387 

the  feeling — bearing  almost  a  trace  of  guiltiness — with  which  we  have  been 
ojjpressed  when  we  were  forgetting  what  we  ought  to  have  remembered  ;  and 
to  it  the  saying  corresponds  :  "  I  thought  there  was  something  I  had  for- 
gotten to  do."  The  uncomfortable  feeling  and  vague  idea  of  something 
missing  with  which  ono  arrives  home  when  one  has  left  one's  cane,  umbrella, 
or  bundle,  is  of  the  same  nature.  Here  the  dim  memory-j^icture  of  how  the 
complex  sensations  of  poise  and  balance  ought  to  be,  is  contrasted  with 
actual  exi)erience  from  skin,  joints,  muscles,  etc.  We  express  this  contrast 
by  saying :  "I  thought  I  had  forgotten  something." 

It  is  altogether  likely  that  the  wonderful  so-called  "retention  in  un- 
conscious memory,"  which  certain  patients  display  in  post-hypnotic  states, 
is  partially  to  be  explained  in  this  way.  They  do  not  indeed  retain  in  clear 
consciousness  the  memory  of  the  things  suggested  to  them  in  the  hypnotic 
state.  But  api:)arently  they  do  have  somewhat  of  this  "metamorphosed" 
memory,  this  substitution  of  obscure  feeling  and  ideation  for  clearly  recog- 
nizable and  definite  memory- images.  The  obscurer  state  is  ready  to  expand 
into  the  clearer  state,  when  the  least  favorable  excitement  from  environment 
or  from  suggesting  idea  takes  i^lace.  The  condition  of  mind  in  which  we 
find  ourselves  when,  after  some  great  sorrow,  joy,  or  anxiety,  we  wake  in 
the  morning,  before  the  definite  memories  of  what  has  ha^jpened  rally  to 
the  field  of  consciousness,  illustrates  the  same  princii)les. 

The  fundamental  Conditions  and  Laws  of  Reproduction — 
the  second  of  the  three  stages  or  factors  of  memory — are  es- 
sentially the  same  for  the  more  complex  and  highly  developed 
presentations  of  sense,  or  states  of  self-consciousness,  as  for  the 
simpler  representative  images  (already  sufficiently  discussed,  p. 
241 1).  The  concurrent  development  of  other  faculties,  however, 
and  their  reactive  influence  on  the  development  of  memory,  in- 
troduces several  considerations  which  require  attention  at  this 
l^oint.  As  sense-perception  grows  more  intelligent  and  purpose- 
ful, not  only  are  the  stores  of  memory  enriched,  but  the  trains  of 
associated  ideas  become  interconnected  in  more  varied  ways. 
The  same  object  of  perception  suggests  to  the  developed  mind 
much  more  than  was  formerly  possible.  Physiologically  speak- 
ing (and  yet  figuratively)  we  may  say  that  those  sections  of 
curves,  in  which  the  "whole  curve  slumbers"  (see  p.  243),  cross 
and  recross  each  other  in  ever  more  bewildering  complexity. 
But  at  the  same  time  the  complexity  is  kept  reduced  to  order  by 
the  formation  of  reproductive  disposition  and  habit.  Education 
and  environment  constantly  operate  to  induce  the  more  frequent 
repetition  of  some  associations  rather  than  others ;  the  alread}'^ 
established  organization  into  which  society  receives  the  individ- 
ual tends  to  connect  certain  ideas  together  as  suggesting  and  sug- 
gested, with  what  approaches  a  complete  uniformity.  Every  in- 
dividual in  some  sort  enters  into  the  inheritance  of  reproductive 


388  MEMORY 

memory  which  that  portion  of  the  race  to  which  he  belongs  has 
prepared  for  him.  Moreover,  the  particular  forms  of  reproduc- 
tive energy  which  characterize  his  individuality  become  more  im- 
portant as  development  proceeds.  He  acquires  the  associations 
of  ideas,  the  suggestions  of  feeling,  which  are  habitual  with  the 
class,  the  family,  the  profession,  the  calling,  the  "  set,"  of  which 
he  is  a  member. 

Two  considerations  introduce  important  modifications  in  the 
application  of  those  most  fundamental  laws  which  ai^i^ly  to  the 
mechanical  reproduction  of  memory-images.  These  are  (1)  the 
development  of  intellect  in  connection  with  the  acquisition  and 
use  of  language  ;  and  (2)  the  effect  of  practice  in  the  use  of  means 
for  attaining  ends.  It  is  by  language,  as  the  token,  support,  and 
guide,  of  intellectual  development  that  certain  important  repro- 
ductive activities  of  memory  are  alone  made  possible.  A  high 
degree  of  speed  and  accuracy  of  reproduction  are  attained  only 
in  this  way.  Moreover,  fixed  associations  of  the  ideas  with  one 
another,  and  of  the  ideas  with  accompanying  feelings,  are  greatly 
facilitated  in  the  same  way.  By  remembering  words  we  are  able 
to  remember  things  and  to  recognize  them ;  and  by  the  use  of 
words  in  the  reproductive  phase  of  memory  our  past  experiences 
are  brought  before  us  in  logical  connections,  and  with  that  pos- 
sible expausiveness  which  belongs  to  conception,  to  developed 
judgment,  and  to  syllogistic  reasoning.  But,  second,  developed 
memory  as  reproduction  shows  increasingly  the  effects  of  final 
purpose,  the  results  of  the  intelligent  and  voluntary  adaptation 
of  the  faculties  to  the  reaching  of  practical  ends.  As  all  of  the 
faculties  develop  together,  the  individual  may  be  said  more 
and  more  to  determine  ivhat  he  will  remember ;  and  in  what 
connections — that  is,  as  associated  with,  or  suggested  by,  what 
particular  mental  occurrences.  On  the  other  hand,  this  very  de- 
velopment of  purposeful  reproductive  activity  reacts  to  sui^press 
or  destroy  the  possibility  of  reviving  clear  memory- images  of 
many  former  experiences.  The  formation  of  habit,  the  acquisi- 
tion of  tact  and  skill,  themselves  require  that  the  reproductive 
series  should  be  greatly  "condensed;"  and  in  the  perfection  of 
this  process  of  condensation  for  the  attainment  of  practical  ends 
the  memory  of  the  members  of  the  series  originally  existing  be- 
tween the  beginning  and  the  end  are,  necessarily,  more  or  less 
completely  lost. 

?  6.  Tho  interdepondonce  of  perception  us  involvincf  reoop;nitive  repro- 
duction, and  of  memory  as  the  particular  faculty  of  such  roproductioi^,  is 
intimate  and  pervasive.  The  completeness  of  our  i)erceptive  grasp  upon 
any  object  of  the  senses  depends  largely  upon  how  much  we  can  remember 


MEMOIIY    IN    PKllCErXION  889 

of  what  we  have  previously  known  respecting  sensuously  similar  objects. 
This  is  none  the  less  true  because  such  so-called  memory  in  i)erceii- 
tiou  Joes  not  ordinarily  involve  clear  recognition  of  the  place,  time,  and 
circumstances  belonging  to  the  previously  known  similar  objects.  Yet 
not  infrequently  wo  enlarge  consciously  our  perceptive  grasp  by  recalling 
that,  at  least  somewhere  and  sometime,  we  saw,  or  heard,  or  felt,  something 
like  this.  On  the  other  hand,  of  course,  the  perfection  of  such  percei)tion 
stores  memory  with  knowledge  which  will  be  constantly  suggested,  and  so 
more  or  less  perfectly  recalled  in  all  our  new  efforts  at  perception.  So  true 
is  this  as  to  induce  certain  writers '  to  claim  that  the  powers  of  memory  are 
not  substantially  different  from  the  powers  of  apprehension.  The  same 
"traces"  (Sjjui-en)  or  tendencies  growing  out  of  past  experience,  are 
called  "  powers  of  sense-perception,"  in  so  far  as  they  serve  to  strengthen 
and  supplement  new  sensuous  experiences  of  a  like  kind  ;  and  they  are  also 
called  "  powers  of  memory,"  in  so  far  as  they  are  brought  to  renewed  exci- 
tation independently  of  such  sensations.  Another  author  '^  holds  that  all 
secondary  states,  or  states  of  memory,  differ  from  the  primary  only  in  de- 
gree. "  Every  case  of  memory  is  a  case  of  sympathy."  This  is  perhaps, 
however,  to  press  a  truth  too  far— so  far,  indeed,  as  to  carry  it  beyond  the 
borders  of  truthfulness.  The  same  faculties,  or  fundamental  processes  of 
the  mental  life,  are  indeed  involved  in  both  memory  and  perception,  and 
the  relations  between  the  two  are  those  of  inseparable  interdependence  ;  but 
the  proportion  is  markedly  different  in  all  ordinary  cases,  and  the  different 
nature  of  the  recognition  as  involving  time-consciousness,  entitles  the  two 
to  be  called  different  faculties  (though  only  in  the  secondary  and  derived 
meaning  of  the  word  faculty).  One  imi^ortant  truth  connecting  memory  and 
l)erception  has  been  enunciated  and  illustrated  in  detail  by  M.  Paul  Janet : ' 
"  Memory  is  but  the  conservation  of  a  synthesis  accomplished  at  some  jjre- 
vious  time  ;  it  is  clear  that  memory  will  not  exist  when  the  synthesis  has  not 
been  formed,  or  even  when  it  has  been  only  half-made,  and  remains  Unstable 
and  fragile."  Hence  that  fixedness  and  order  which  the  reproductive  activ- 
ity has  when  it  attains  the  character  of  a  recognitive  memory  of  past  objects 
of  perception  and  self-consciousness,  as  distinguished  from  objects  of  imagi- 
nation and  thought.  We  cannot  choose  how  we  will  remember  things,  or 
our  own  experiences,  as  we  can  choose  how  we  will  fancy  or  think  them  to 
be. 

1 7.  The  influence  upon  the  memory  of  the  individual  which  comes 
from  the  solidarity  of  the  race,  as  it  were,  is  of  immeasurable  importance. 
It  is  not  by  any  means  the  experience  of  the  individual  which  is  organized 
alone  into  a  system  of  suggestions  and  orderly  reproductive  activities.  Un- 
doubtedly I  cannot  remember  the  experience  of  any  other  one  than  myself; 
even  the  possibility  of  my  doing  this  is  inconceivable,  and  it  is  just  this  im- 
possibility which  marks  the  ^-incipal  differences  between  developed  niem'- 
ory  and  other  forms  of  representation.  At  the  same  time,  the  actually  domi- 
nant laws  of  reproductive  activity  are  son^ewhat  rigidly  fixed  for  me  by  the 
conditions  which  embody  the  remembered  experience  of  the  race.    TVhether 

1  Compare  Beneke  :  Prasrmatigchc  Psycho'ogie,  p.  189  f. 

2  Rabier  :  Levona  de  Philosophic,  I.,  Psychologic,  p.  160  f. 
'  Revue  Philosophique,  March  and  April,  1891. 


390  MEMORY 

my  rei^roductive  activity  is  to  be  regarded  as  partly  spontaneous,  or  as  fall- 
ing wholly  under  the  laws  of  the  association  of  ideas  (contiguity,  similarity, 
contrast,  etc.),  its  contents,  its  pace,  and  the  connections  between  its  par- 
ticular members,  are  all  largely  established  by  the  society  of  which  I  am  a 
member.  This  is  not  true  simjjly  of  society  at  large,  but  it  is  also  true  in  an 
even  more  important  way  of  all  the  subdivisions  of  society  of  which  I  am 
also  a  member.  These  relations  largely  fix  for  me,  in  a  relatively  steady- 
going  way,  what  suggestions  shall  be  made,  what  memories  reawakened.  And 
when  the  habitually  suggested  memories  are  out  of  harmony  with  the  envi- 
ronment, or  the  environment  jjersistently  fails  to  suggest  the  customary 
memories,  one's  whole  consciousness  of  self  and  of  time  may  be  profoundly 
affected.  Thus  any  man  accustomed  to  stay  at  home,  who  finds  himself  for 
the  first  time  in  the  surroundings  of  a  totally  different  civilization,  may  have 
frequent  occasion  to  ask  himself:  "Are  these  surroundings  real  {i.e.,  such  as 
connect  themselves  by  recognitive  memory  with  j^ast  i^erceptive  experience) 
or  am  I  dreaming  ?  "  He  may  even  feel  obliged  to  ask  himself :  "  Am  I  the 
one  whom  memory  seems  to  assure  me  I  am,  but  about  whose  identity  this 
seemingly  imaginary  (recognitively  unremembered)  environment  leads  me 
to  doubt  ?  "  A  somewhat  similar  testing  of  the  influence  of  fixed  associations 
upon  the  recognitive  factor  of  memory,  in  the  form  of  a  doubt  whether  we 
are  remembering  reality  or  dreaming,  comes  when  the  "idols  of  the  tribe  " — 
whether  in  custom,  opinion,  or  current  doctrine — are  temporarily  seen  to 
totter  and  be  about  to  fall. 

^  8.  But  especially  strong  and  pervasive  is  the  influence  of  language 
upon  the  reproductive  function  of  developed  memory.  A  very  large  part  of 
our  adult  memory  is,  of  course,  ' '  word-memory."  Nor  is  it  in  their  direct  re- 
lations to  conception  and  reasoning  alone  that  the  usefulness  of  words  con- 
sists. All  tendencies  and  lines  of  rejjroductive  activity  are  largely  fixed  by 
the  language  we  have  learned,  by  the  manner  in  which  we  have  learned  it, 
by  the  feelings  and  volitions  which  have  gone  with  its  use.  Since  adult 
memory  is  "  stored  "  in  the  form  of  words,  the  hearing  or  thinking  of  words 
may  be  indispensable  to  start  the  reproductive  process ;  but  the  process 
once  being  started,  the  wonderful  economy  of  word-memory  becomes  ap- 
parent. For  since  what  is  capable  of  being  reproduced  is  embodied  in  the 
memory  of  some  word,  the  character  of  the  latter  determines  for  each  indi- 
vidual precisely  what  he  will  reproduce  as  embodied  in  each  particular 
word.  Moreover,  words  are  remembered  as  connected  into  sentences — 
propositions,  trains  of  argument,  tales  descriptive  of  past  experiences,  etc.  ; 
thus  the  memory  of  one  part  tends  powerfully,  or  even  irresistibly,  to  repro- 
duce the  memory  of  the  whole.  The  memory,  for  examjile,  of  the  number 
of  a  certain  proposition  in  Euclid,  or  of  the  words  "poj/s  asinonim,"  ov 
"  binomial  theorem,"  may  carry  with  it  an  entire  train  of  connected  reason- 
ing. If  we  could  not  cherish  in  memory  certain  words  connected  with  our 
past  (words  as  we  popularly  say,  of  "  tender  memories,"  or  of  awe-inspiring 
or  mirth-exciting  memories,  etc.),  then  we  could  reproduce  comparatively 
little  of  that  past ;  then,  too,  our  conceptions  of  self  and  of  time  would  be 
most  profoundly  affected.  Whenever  we  listen  to  a  lecture  or  a  book  with 
the  intention  of  remembering  it,  we  are  apt  to  try  to  impress  upon  ourselves 
as  many  of  the  words,  in  their  connections,  as  possible.     The  subsequent  re- 


INFLUETSTCE   OF   LANGUAGE  391 

production  of  these  words,  with  the  consciousness  of  recognition,  becomes 
the  extended  memory  of  the  lecture  or  the  book. 

It  is,  moreover,  to  a  large  extent  in  the  development  of  language-memory 
that  all  development  of  memory  consists.  That  synthesis  in  presentative 
consciousness,  which  is  necessary  in  order  that  the  object  may  become  an 
object  for  future  recoguitive  memoiy,  is  an  affair  which  requires  time.  Es- 
pecially is  this  the  case  with  all  unfamiliar  and  complex  objects,  since  they 
require  so  much  of  intellection — of  analysis,  synthesis,  assimilation,  differ- 
entiation, etc. — to  perfect  the  work  of  presentative  consciousness.  Many  of 
our  experiences,  however,  follow  each  other  so  rapidly  that  tliis  work  of  pres- 
entation is  really  impossible  of  accomiilishmeut.  Hero  language-memory 
is  indispensable,  if  any  memory  at  all  is  to  be  acquired.  Hence  when  we 
are  travelling  through  an  interesting  region  on  a  railway  train,  or  are  watch- 
ing any  swiftly  changing  spectacle,  or  are  taking  any  physical  observation 
with  an  instrument,  etc.,  we  satisfy  ourselves  with  mentally  storing  away  a 
brief  description  of  it  all  in  words.  Subsequent  reference,  as  it  were,  to 
these  few  mental  notes  serves  to  reproduce  the  whole  series  of  presentations 
for  future  recognitive  memory. 

The  general  health  of  the  mind,  its  sanity  or  insanity,  is  to  a  considerable 
extent  dependent  upon  the  amount  and  character  of  language-memory.  As 
a  rule,  though  not  always,  aphasia  and  a  general  impairment  of.  memory 
arise  and  develop  together.  As  a  rule,  too,  in  old  age  or  in  mental  disease, 
the  re^jroductive  jjowers  fail  in  a  certain  order ;  those  memories  which  are 
committed  to  abstract  terms,  and' thus  are  peculiarly  dependent  on  language, 
are  the  last  to  fail.  This  is  because  in  the  developed  memory  the  associa- 
tions which  were  latest  in  tlie  order  of  development  have  becorqe  niost  fun- 
damental ;  and  the  whole  interrelated  structure  of  the  brain — all  its  centers 
and  association-tracts — is  involved  in  them.     ^ 

Certain  phenomena  in  reaction-time  further  confirm  the  advantages  of 
word-association.  For  example— to  refer  again  to  results  which  have  al- 
ready been  considered  from  another  point  of  view — Miinsterberg  '  found  that 
reproduction  in  answer  to  such  a  question  as,  "  On  what  river  is  Cologne  ?  " 
occupied  from  808  o-  to  889  o- ;  but  the  proposal  of  a  question  in  such  form  as 
the  following  :  "  Apples,  pears,  cherries,  etc.;  which  do  you  like  best?  "  short- 
ened reaction-time  to  694  o-  to  G59  a.  In  both  these  cases  certain  words  (as 
* '  Cologne  "  in  the  first  class  of  questions,  and  "  apples,  pears,  etc.,"  in  the 
second  class)  are  full  of  memories  which  they  are  ready  to  yield  as  soon  as 
the  reproductive  activity  is  incited  by  attention  being  called  to  them.  If, 
then,  these  "  memorable  words  are  got  before  the  mind  "  eai'ly  in  the  ques- 
tion-sentence the  completed  act  of  reproduction  (choice  being  excluded  by 
the  associations  already  having  been  established  in  past  experience)  is  more 
quickly  accomplished.  This  is  because  a  vast  number  of  syntheses  of  a 
very  complex  order  have  already  been  made  and  stored  away,  as  we  figura- 
tively say,  in  word-memory.  Indeed,  language-memory  constitutes  the 
principal  portion  of  our  "  stock  "  ideas  already  bound  together  and  ready 
for  rajiid  and  firm  associated  reproduction. 

I  9.  Certain  abnormal  and  diseased  conditions   of  brain  and  mind  are 
characterized  chiefly  by  disorders  of  the  reproductive  function  of  memory. 

1  Beitrage,  etc.,  Heft  i.,  1889. 


392  MEMORY 

When  the  rate  of  reiii'oduction  is  greatly  increased  and  discriminating  con- 
sciousness can  no  longer  keep  pace  with  it,  as  it  were,  a  hurly-burly  of  mem- 
ory-images, a  "maniacal"  condition  of  memory,  results.  On  the  contrary, 
extremely  slow  and  feeble  reproduction  may  render  the  afflicted  person  un- 
able to  '•  keep  up  "  with  the  ordinary  pace  of  experience.  In  either  case  the 
action  of  the  faculty  of  memory  partially  loses  its  representative  character  and 
its  claim  to  confidence.  In  those  conditions  where  the  memory-images  are 
so  vividly  reproduced,  and  so  persistent  in  consciousness  as  to  be  mistaken 
for  true  perceistions  [idees  fixes),  we  are  wont  to  speak  of  the  mental  disorder 
as  an  "insane  hallucination;"  but  where  a  rapid  succession  of  memory- 
images  passes  through  consciousness,  with  a  failure  clearly  to  discriminate 
the  fact  that  they  do  not  represent  real  past  experience,  we  lay  the  blame 
upon  "  diseased  imagination."  In  either  case,  however,  it  is  memory  quite 
as  much  as  perception  or  imagination  which  plays  us  false.  There  is,  then, 
some  truth  in  Schopenhauer's  claim  that  ' '  the  health  of  the  mind  j^roperly 
consists  in  perfect  {i.e.,  correct  and  full)  recollection;  "  whereas  madness  is 
the  broken-off  thread  of  this  memory.  For  the  path  of  life  is  like  the  path 
of  a  traveller ;  and  to  be  safe,  it  must  be  capable  of  being  seen  as  it  is  in  its 
entire  length. 

I  10.  The  effect  upon  memory  of  that  pursuit  of  practical  ends  in  which 
life  so  largely  consists  is  something  marvellous.  This  efiect  is  felt  in  two 
directions,  which  are  both  necessary  to  be  followed,  but  which  are,  in  their 
outcome  as  respects  our  reproductive  energy,  nearly  oijposite.  What  is 
necessary  to  remember  so  as  quickly  and  correctly  to  reproduce  it  in  con- 
sciousness in  order  to  attain  desirable  practical  ends,  precisely  that  it  is 
which  one  is  interested  in  remembering.  The  child  must  bo  able  to  repro- 
duce its  experiences  in  the  past  attainment  and  previous  use  of  things,  in 
order  to  handle  successfully  the  means  for  reaching  again  the  same  ends. 
This  is  true  of  all  its  learning,  of  the  use  of  its  own  bodily  organs,  and  of  the 
simpler  pieces  of  mechanism  about  it,  in  order  to  gratify  its  wants  or  to  es- 
cajje  what  is  productive  of  i^ain.  All  such  learning  implies  the  memory  (as  re- 
productive activity  with  at  least  a  faint  element  of  recognition)  of  the  various 
sensation-complexes  (especially  the  visual,  tactual,  and  muscular  sensations) 
connected  with  the  control  of  its  own  limbs.  What  this  means  an  adult  may 
experience  by  giving  attention  to  the  way  in  which,  by  practice,  he  acquires 
any  form  of  skill  or  art.  In  learning  to  walk,  to  talk,  to  measure  distances, 
and  perceive  forms,  with  eye  and  hand  ;  and,  indeed,  in  all  learning,  this 
method  of  intellectual  activity  on  a  basis  of  reproduced  and  recognized  sen- 
sation-complexes is  the  one  employed  by  the  child.  On  the  other  hand, 
however,  as  soon  as  skill  is  attained  in  any  satisfactory  degree,  the  reverse 
effect  upon  the  memory  of  the  means  to  the  end  begins  to  take  place.  At- 
tention is  now  directed  immediately  upon  the  end  to  the  neglect  of  the 
means  to  be  employed  ;  the  series  of  reproduced  sensations  connected  with 
the  employment  of  the  means  becomes  more  condensed  ;  the  members  of 
this  series  drop  out  of  the  power  of  reproductive  energy  to  bring  them  back  ; 
and  the  end  is  reached  by  a  "  lea]>,"  so  far  as  reproductive  memory  goes, 
over  the  entire  series  of  means.  Thus  Egger  '  pertinently  calls  attention  to 
the  fact  that  wo  have  no  "memory  "  of  the  sensations  of  touch  and  muscular 

'  111  hie  Dc  la  Parole  iuterieiire. 


INFLUENCE   OF   "ATMOSPHERE"  393 

movement  that  belong  to  the  vocalizing  organs  in  speaking  words  ;  while 
we  have  a  clear  memory  of  words  or  sounds  ;  and  this  is  plainly  because  the 
direction  of  attention  to  the  practical  end — the  word-sounds  as  vehicles  of 
thought — has  suppressed  those  sensations  which  were  merely  means  to  the 
end.  In  the  same  way  it  is  the  score  which  absorbs  the  attention  of  the 
accomplished  musician  who  is  playing  at  sight ;  thus  certain  black  lines 
and  dots  excite  the  right  motor  activities  in  spite  of  a  complete  hq^se  from 
recollection  of  the  acquired  memory-images  of  tactual  and  muscular  sensa- 
tions. But  who  has  not  seen  the  nervous  soloist  — for  example,  on  'cello  or 
violin — while  the  orchestra  is  playing  the  prelude  to  his  accompaniment, 
practising  mentally,  in  the  way  of  reviving  the  images  of  the  sensations  be- 
longing to  a  particularly  difiicult  passage  in  the  solo? 

§  11.  Finally,  atmosphere  is  a  most  important  factor  in  determining  the 
character  of  the  reproductive  processes  in  developed  memory.  With  a  par- 
donable extension  of  this  term  we  may  say  that  such  "  atmosphere  "  is  of 
two  kinds — (1)  internal  and  (2)  external.  That  is  to  say,  the  character  of 
the  reproduction  at  any  particular  time  is  largely  decided  by  the  mood  and 
environment  of  that  very  same  time.  For  memory  is  not  uuartistic  ;  but, 
the  rather  does  it,  to  a  certain  extent,  follow  the  same  rules  as  imagination 
and  thought  in  its  efforts  to  produce  harmony  and  symmetry  of  total  ettect. 
The  "  systematic  association,"  to  which  M.  Paulhan  reduces  all  the  laws  of 
the  reproductive  activity,  is  not  governed  by  practical  ends  alone.  It  is 
in  some  sort  as  an  artist  that  every  man  remembers  what  he  remembers ;  and 
the  influence  upon  the  processes  of  ideation,  in  general,  which  comes  from 
the  underlying  tone  of  feeling  has  already  (p.  280  f.)  been  explained,  both 
physiologically  and  psychologically.  Everybody  knows  that  in  our  sad 
moods  we  remember  our  sad  experiences,  and  in  glad  moods  our  glad  experi- 
ences, etc.  Or  if  we  follow  the  law  of  contrast,  it  is  as  sad  pleasures,  or  as 
glad  sadness,  that  we  recall  the  ojoposite  of  our  present  mood.  •   For — 

"  Each  sutstance  of  a  grief  hatli  twenty  shadows, 
Which  show  like  grief  itself,  but  are  not  so" — 

and  the  same  thing  is  true  of  all  our  experiences  with  a  decided  affective  tone. 
This  artistic  harmony  between  memory  and  presentative  consciousness  we, 
on  the  whole,  prefer  (as  we  are  compelled,  in  the  main,  to  exjDerience  it)  to 
the  distraction  and  pain  which  any  habitual  discord  between  present  mood 
and  reminiscences  of  the  past  would  occasion. 

In  the  same  way  we  cannot  be  surrounded  by  any  kind  of  iH-edominating 
atmosphere  without  its  effect  on  oxir  reproductive  energies  being  most 
marked.  Here  reminiscence  is  compelled  to  conform  to  environment.  Thus 
a  return  to  a  foreign  country  in  which  we  have  once  learned  its  language 
stimulates  the  memory  of  that  almost  forgotten  language  by  means  of  the 
general  correspondence  of  environment.  Nor  is  this  contraiy  to,  but  con- 
firmatory of,  the  experience  of  Sully,'  who  on  a  first  visit  to  Norway  found 
himself  constantly  reproducing  Italian  words.  For  here  the  generally  for- 
eign atmosi^here,  with  its  whole  "peculiar  complex  of  feelings,"  stimulated 
the  memory  of  that  particular  foreign  language  which  had  been  previously 

>  The  Human  Mind,  I.,  p.  344  (note). 


394  MEMORY 

learned  iu  a  foreign  (and  so  similar)  atmosijliere.  In  a  foreign  atmosphere, 
foreign  language  and  foreign  customs  are  alone  consistent  with  the  interests 
of  artistic  unity. 

The  word  "  Recollection  "  is  well  adapted  to  emphasize  the 
dependence  of  the  character  of  the  reproductive  activity  —  its 
time-rate,  direction,  and  completeness  as  respects  the  vividness 
and  life-likeness  of  representative  consciousness — upon  volition. 
For  the  act  of  will  seems  to  convert  the  otherwise  passive  and 
mechanical  process  of  the  arising  in  consciousness  of  memory- 
images,  under  the  laws  of  association,  into  a  delinitely  jDurpose- 
ful  and  spiritual  activity.  That  there  is  a  certain  amount  of 
psychological  truth  in  such  distinctions,  experience,  language, 
and  practice  all  abundantly  confirm.  At  the  same  time,  in  the 
more  general  but  not  less  appropriate  use  of  the  words  mem- 
ory and  will,  such  changes  in  the  character  of  the  reproduc- 
tive activity  are  not  abrupt  as  respects  development,  or  lacking 
in  an  almost  infinite  number  of  degrees.  These  two  faculties 
(memory  and  will)  develop  in  mutual  interdependence,  if  not 
with  equal  step  ;  and  even  in  the  most  highly  developed  exer- 
cise of  the  reproductive  activity  the  amount  of  the  influence  from 
conscious  volition  varies  greatly.  On  the  other  hand,  all  the 
differences  above-mentioned  (time-rate,  direction,  and  complete- 
ness) are  illustrated  in  the  different  cases  of  so-called  passive 
reproduction — for  example,  in  dreaming  and  hypnotic  states,  in 
reverie  and  dreamy  contemplation,  when  we  let  our  thoughts 
run  back  over  the  past  as  "  they  will ;  "  and  even  in  the  highest 
moments  of  artistic  energy.  It  cannot  be  denied,  however,  that 
the  self-conscious  purposeful  volition  to  reproduce,  in  a  definite 
way,  changes  greatly  all  these  characteristics  of  the  reproduc- 
tive factor  in  memory.  Within  certain  limits,  and  at  some  times 
more  than  others,  we  can  remember  what  we  will.  The  peculiar 
feature  of  this  kind  of  memory  is,  that  voluntary  attention,  consid- 
ered as  a  selective  and  distrihutive  energy  worhincj  toward  an  end 
consciously  conceived  of,  controls  the  time-rate,  oi'der,  and  complete- 
ness of  the  reproductive  processes  in  the  inte?'ests  of  that  end.  The 
very  word  interest  recalls  our  thought  to  the  intimate  relation 
which  exists  between  the  more  complex  forms  of  feeling  and  the 
active,  voluntary  type  of  memory  ("  recollection  proper  "). 

§  12.  All  highly  psychological  languages  have  recognized  the  distinction 
between  active  and  merely  passive  repi-odnction.  For  example,  W'e  find  in 
Plato,  and  still  more  in  Aristotle,  the  distinction  between  dviifivrjais  and 
^ivffUT] ;  in  Latin  between  remmiscor  and  memini ;  in  modern  German  between 
Erinn&i'ung  and  G'eddchtniss  ;  in  French  between  souvenir  and  mivioirc.    The 


ACTIVE   AND   PASSIVE   REPRODUCTION  395 

proposal  of  Hamilton  to  use  the  word  "  lemiuiscence  "  for  active  reproduc- 
tions seems  to  reverse  the  customary  English  usage.  But,  in  fact,  this  dis- 
tinction— though  valid  and  important — has  many  degrees  which  shade  into 
each  other ;  and  neither  jjurely  active  nor  merely  jmssive  reproduction  is 
often,  if  at  all,  accomplished  in  developed  mental  life.  Hence  the  vacillat- 
ing use  of  all  the  terms  just  mentioned  ;  hence  also  the  thought  concealed  in 
reflexive  verbs  for  the  act  of  memory  [sick  erinnern,  se  souvenir,  etc.). 

While  we  cannot  appeal  to  detiuite  acts  of  recollection  as  instances  of  a 
voluntary  activity  freed  from  all  bonds  of  the  association  of  ideas,  nor  regard, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  adult  mind  as  ever  long^holly  passive  in  reproduc- 
tion, we  can  observe  certain  distinctive  features  of  recollection,  considered 
as  active  and  voluntary  reproduction.  (1)  In  recollection  some  end  is  con- 
ceived of  as  being  served  by  the  reproductive  process.  This  end  may  be 
either  the  recall  of  some  memory-  picture  as  a  sort  of  end  in  itself ;  or  the 
reproduction  of  the  memory-picture  as  a  means  to  some  other  end.  Thus 
we  "recollect"  the  past  when  we  sit  down  of  an  evening  to  "talk  over  old 
times  ;  "  but  the  witness  in  a  lawsuit  may  be  stimulated  to  recollection  in 
order  to  win  his  case  or  to  get  rid  of  a  teasing  lawyer.  But  this  setting  of 
the  end  of  recollection  before  the  mind  itself  involves  memory.  Thus  it 
may  be  said  that,  in  order  to  recollect,  we  must  remember  what  we  are 
called  upon  to  recollect.  (2)  The  essential  thing  about  recollection,  then, 
is  the  rendering,  by  an  activity  of  will,  what  Sully  '  has  called  "  a  vague  sub- 
conscious mode  of  rej^resentation,"  a  sort  of  dim  presentiment,  into  a  com- 
plete recognitive  memory.  The  word  re-collect  (to  bring  together  into  a 
whole  again)  signifies  just  this.  Hence  the  significance  and  importance  of 
' '  clews  "  in  all  acts  of  recollection.  We  figuratively  represent  ourselves  as 
trying  to  ' '  get  hold  "  of  the  memory-image  ;  we  then  consciously  make  use  of 
it  as  a  sort  of  handle,  or  token,  for  the  rediscovery  of  the  whole  experience. 
Thus,  in  the  eflfort  to  recollect,  we  find  ourselves  voluntarily  fixating  by 
attention  the  principal— though  still  inchoate  and  dim— features  of  the  pres- 
ent reproductive  consciousness.  This  process  of  fixating  alters  the  time-rate 
with  which  the  fixated  elements  pass  through  the  field  of  consciousness,  in 
two  ways  :  they  may  either  be  slightly  detained  in  consciousness;  or,  they 
may  be  recalled  in  so  continuous  a  succession  as  partly  to  sei-ve  the  pur- 
pose of  a  constant  detention. 

Now  (3)  if  the  fixation  of  discriminating  attention  on  the  so-called  "  clew '' 
does  not  result  in  a  satisfactory  revival  of  the  ideas  associated  with  this  clew, 
so  as  to  form  an  act  of  recognitive  memory  adapted  to  our  recognized  end, 
attention  is  voluntarily  redistributed,  as  it  were.  Other  features  of  the 
dim  presentiment  are  selected,  fixated,  and  the  results  of  suggestion  as 
proceeding  from  these  new  centers,  are  watched.  Again  (4,)  we  may  allow 
the  more  passive  reproductive  processes  which  are  started  by  any  one  of  the 
chosen  clews,  to  run  on  for  a  time,  in  the  hope  that  they  will  yet  lead  to 
efiective  clews  ;  or  that  (as  so  often  happens)  all  at  once  the  reconstructed 
memory  will  be  started  in  full  and  vital  experience  by  the  reawakening  touch 
of  some  suggestion.  We  may  even,  for  the  time,  voluntarily  inhibit  the 
active  process  of  recollection,  in  the  expectation  (based  upon  much  ex]ieri- 
ence)  that,  if  we  will  let  ' '  alone  "  the  reproductive  processes,  they  will  by 

J  The  Human  Mind,  I.,  p.  347. 


396  MEMORY 

and  by  do  for  us  what  we  find  ourselves  unable  to  force  them  to  do.  We 
have,  then,  an  acute  consciousness  of  "  being  on  the  watch"  for  some  portion 
of  the  desired  reminiscence  ;  or — sometimes  for  days  and  even  weeks — we 
experience  a  recurrent  and  subacute  consciousness  of  something  wanting  to 
make  our  mental  harmony  complete.  (5)  The  character  and  amount  of  the 
psycho-physical  and  psychical  activity  corresponding  to  the  conception  of 
recollection  profoundly  modifies  the  entire  current  of  conscious  mental  life. 
It  is  not  the  will  alone  which  comes  thus  to  be  emphasized.  In  "trying  to 
remember"  (or  voluntarily  recollecting)  we  become  "thoughtful,"  "care- 
ful ;  "  we  are  under  a  sense  of  strain,  a  burden  of  obligation  to  perform  a 
certain  difficult  mental  function,  as  it  were.  Severe  bodily  and  mental 
pains  may  result  from  the  difiiculty,  or  increased  inability  of  recollection  ; 
and  even  peculiar  reproaches  of  a  quasi -ethical  sort. 

g  13.  Nothing  of  any  scientific  value  respecting  the  cerebral  processes  in- 
volved in  recollection,  as  active  reproduction,  can  be  added  to  what  has  al- 
ready been  said.'  We  have  here  to  consider  a  certain  jDeculiar  mixture  of 
those  processes  which  are  the  ishysiological  conditions  of  associated  idea- 
tion with  other  processes  which  are  the  physiological  conditions  of  will,  as 
the  activity  of  selective,  fixated,  and  purposeful  attention.  This  mixture  of 
cerebral  processes,  therefore,  necessarily  involves  the  intense  activity,  with 
a  practical  simultaneousness,  of  wide-spreading  connected  areas  of  the  brain. 
Especially  is  this  true  when — as  is  the  case  with  all  adult  recollection — word- 
memory  is  involved.  We  are  much  tried  in  trying  hard  to  remember ;  for 
the  whole  cerebral  substance  is  being  set  into  a  high  degree  of  exhausting 
activity.  Hence  the  familiar  pains  and  weariness,  sometimes  amounting  to 
a  feeling  of  anguish  and  confusion,  as  though  brain  and  mind  were  giving 
way  completely,  which  the  suspense  or  failure  of  recollection  occasions. 
Hence  also  the  dependence  of  recollection,  far  more  than  merely  passive  re- 
production, upon  the  integrity  and  healthy  functional  condition  of  the  cere- 
bral tissues. 

^  14.  In  occasioning,  directing,  and  determining  the  result  of  this  "  hunt " 
for  particular  objects  among  the  stores  of  memory,  the  effect  of  feeling  is 
very  marked.  A  lack  of  the  feeling  of  interest  renders  it  as  truly  difficult  to 
recollect  as  to  commit  to  memory  for  future  recollection.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  certain  states  of  affective  quickening  all  a  man's  stores  of  memory 
seem  to  be  lilaced  at  the  command  of  his  will  for  the  end  held  in  view.  In 
certain  great  historical  speeches  (like  that  of  Huss  before  the  Council  of 
Constance)  this  influence  of  feeling  on  recollection  is  grandly  illustrated. 
Every  speaker  who  prepares  himself  beforehand  and  then  ceases  to  consider 
further  what  he  will  recall,  reckons  ui)on  the  aid  which  the  feelings  of  the 
occasion  will  give  to  his  will  to  reproduce.  Indeed,  between  wisJihig  to 
recollect  and  willing  to  recollect  the  line  is  by  no  means  easy  to  be  drawn. 
But  feeling  of  too  violent  and  emotional  a  character,  as  well  as  indiflference 
and  lethargy,  changes  the  time-rate,  the  direction,  and  the  completeness,  of 
voluntary  reproduction. 

In  this  connection  we  may  remark  the  effect  upon  recollection  which  fol- 
lows from  the  determination  not  to  recollect  (to  forget,  to  "keep  out  of 

I  Compare,  however,  Muudsley :  Mental  Physiology,  p.  159  f.;  aud  James  :  The  Principlce  of  Pny- 
chology.  I.,  p.  683  f. 


TlIK    ACTIVITY    OF   RECOGNITION  397 

mind")  what  is  repulsive  to  some  forms  of  feeling.  This  inhibilion  of  recul- 
lectioii  is  the  very  opposite  of  the  ordinary  and  uncontrolled  result  upon  our 
memory  of  whatever  strongly  excites  feeling ;  the  result  is  a  sort  of  attrac- 
tion to  recall,  often  amounting  almost  to  a  strange  fascination.  Few,  indeed, 
are  they  who  have  not  suflered  much  from  being  obliged  to  remember  what 
they  would  gladly  have  forgotten — even  the  more  bound  to  the  recognitive 
recall  on  account  of  the  association  of  strong  and  repulsive  feeling  therewith. 
On  the  other  hand,  men  of  will  and  of  trained  minds  can  refuse  attention  to 
those  objects  which  they  choose  thus  to  keep  below  the  threshold  of  con- 
sciousness ;  in  this  way  by  control  of  memoiy  they  establish  habits  of  con- 
venient forgetting.  We  are  told  of  Kant  that,  being  much  grieved  over  the 
loss  of  his  old  servant,  he  wrote  in  his  journal:  "Remember  to  forget 
Lampe." 

The  Mental  Activity  wliicli  chiefly  distinguishes  the  faculty 
of  memoiy  from  all  other  most  closely  allied  forms  of  facult}^  is 
Eecognition.  By  this  word  it  is  meant  that,  in  a  complete  act  of 
developed  memory  the  present  psychosis  is  consciously  related  to  the 
p>ast  of  my  experience  as  rep)resentative  of  that  past.  As  has  been 
said,  recog-uitive  reproduction  therefore  involves  the  conscious- 
ness of  time  and  the  consciousness  of  self ;  and  these  forms  of 
consciousness  develop,  in  mutual  dependence,  with  the  develop- 
ment of  memor3\  Recognition  is  also  plainly  dependent  upon, 
and  necessary  to,  the  development  of  all  intellectual  activity  ;  in- 
deed, as  the  very  word  xe-cognition  signifies,  such  recoU'ection 
appears  in  consciousness  as  pre-eminently  intellectual*  activity. 
Memory  is,  then,  in  some  sort,  a  growth  from  that  primary  intel- 
lection in  which  the  consciousness  of  similarity  and  of  difference, 
and  the  processes  of  assimilation  and  differentiation,  are  imi:>lied. 
But  recognition  cannot  be  explained  as  a  simple  development  of 
any  one  of  these  forms  of  consciousness,  so  called.  To  remember, 
with  recognition,  is  not  simj^ly  to  have  the  consciousness  of  time 
— however  highly  developed — or  the  consciousness  of  self,  or  the 
consciousness  of  similarity  and  difference.  Neither  is  recogni- 
tive memory  to  be  explained  as  a  comijound  of  all  these  forms 
of  conscious  mental  life.  The  rather  is  it  a  form  of  mental  re- 
action sid  generis,  which,  while  depending  upon  conditions  of  re- 
tention and  reproduction  of  ideas,  under  the  laws  of  association, 
and  involving  the  development  of  various  other  allied  forms  of 
consciousness,  has  still  a  unique  character  that  transcends  the 
conditions  on  which  it  reposes. 

The  degree  of  recognition  which  belongs  to  different  acts  of 
memory  varies  greatly  ;  for  the  faculty  of  recognitive  memory 
is  subject  to  the  laws  of  development,  in  the  history  of  mental 
life.  For  example,  I  may  be  said  recognitively  to  remember  an 
object,  an  event,  or  a  state  of  my  own  thought  or  feeling,  which 


398  MEMORY 

I  am  only  able  in  a  somewhat  vacillating  and  doubtful  way  to 
refer  to  "  some  time  or  other  "  in  my  past.  Here  the  factor  of 
recognition  is  at  its  lowest  degree,  as  it  were.  So,  also,  in  the 
rapid  recall  of  series  of  past  experiences,  of  each  one  of  which  we 
have  a  perfectly  clear  retentive  memory ;  we  actually  often  get 
over  the  ground  of  memory  by  merely  touching,  recognitively, 
each  member  of  the  series,  and  letting  it  go  immediately.  In- 
deed, if  the  process  of  recollection  is  very  rapid,  we  may  be  said 
rather  to  recognize  the  series  as  a  whole,  while  reproducing  its 
members  seriatim,  with  scant  recognition  given  to  each  one. 
This  is  the  meaning  of  the  prelude  with  which  it  is  customary  to 
begin  tales  about  ourselves  :  "  Once  upon  a  time  I  was,"  etc. ; 
or,  "It  is  just  a  year  ago  to-day  that  such  a  thing  happened  to 
me,"  etc. 

That  the  memory  of  childhood  is  relatively  in  small  degree 
■'  recognitive,"  in  the  higher  meaning  of  this  word,  there  can  be 
no  doubt.  Children  generally  retain  and  reproduce  the  more 
vivid  and  lasting  impressions  made  upon  them  in  such  manner 
as  to  suggest  the  predominance  of  the  mechanism  of  association, 
with  little  or  no  clear  consciousness  of  time,  or  of  self,  or  of  the 
relation  consciously  established  between  the  present  experience 
and  the  past  experience  of  which  it  is  known  to  be  representa- 
tive. Hence,  in  part,  that  unrecognized  mingling  of  imagina- 
tion with  memory  which  is  distinctive  of  the  childish  reproduc- 
tive activity.  Children  are  not  as  yet  "  selves  "  to  themselves  ; 
they  have  no  remembered  past  existence  which  is  believed  to  be- 
long to  the  world  of  reality,  and  to  separate  them  as  individuals 
from  other  individuals  in  this  real  world.  In  using  the  words 
"  belief  "  and  "  reality  "  we  suggest  topics  that,  so  far  as  descrip- 
tive psychology  considers  them  at  all,  can  only  be  undertaken 
later  on.  But  we  may  notice  here  the  true  statement  of  Dr. 
Ward  :  ^  "It  is  plainly  absurd  to  make  the  difference  depend 
upon  the  presence  of  belief  in  memory  and  expectation,  and  on 
its  absence  in  mere  imagination ;  for  the  belief  itself  depends 
upon  the  difference  instead  of  constituting  it."  Still  is  it  also 
true  that  "  belief  "  constitutes  memory  only  in  so  far  as  memory 
is  recognitive — is  cognition,  or  Jc)nnvlc<Ige,  in  a  meaning  in  which 
imagination  is  not  knowledge.  For  to  speak  of  "  knowledge  " 
without  implying  belief  and  a  "  grasping  on  "  to  reality,  some- 
how, is  "plainly  absurd."  On  the  other  hand,  something  more 
than  mere  recognition  is  implied  in  memory.  Hence  the  truth 
of  the  further  remark  of  the  same  author :  "  Memory  inchides  rec- 
ognition ;  recognition  as  such  does  not  include  memory  ;     .     .     . 

'  Article  Psychology,  Encyc.  Brit.,  p.  63. 


PHYSIOLOGY   AND   RECOGNITION"  399 

there  is  an  actual  remembrance  only  when  the  recog-nition  is  ac- 
companied by  a  reinstatement  of  portions  of  the  memory-train 
continuous  with  the  previous  presentation  of  what  is  now  recog- 
nized." But  this  is  only  to  say  that  recognitive  memory  does  not 
take  place  unless  the  representative  object  in  consciousness  is  to 
some  extent  recognized  as  belonging  to  Wxq  past,  and  to  my  past. 
Here  again,  however  we  discuss  the  subject,  we  are  brought 
around  to  the  truth  that,  in  the  highest  development  of  memory  we 
have  a  form  of  cognitive  activity  ichich  is  sni  generis — a  somewhat 
more  than  mere  reproduction  icithout  recognition,  and  more  than 
mere  assimilation  as  implying  recognition  but  without  reproduction 
and  the  consciousness  of  time  and  of  self . 

^  15.  All  attempts  to  explain  the  recognitive  activity  by  physiological  con- 
ditions are  hollow  and  vain.  Not  less  hollow  are  those  theories  which  assume 
that  memory  is  accounted  for  by  merely  enumerating  the  facts  and  laws 
of  the  association  of  ideas,  considered  purely  as  facts  and  laws  that  have  re- 
spect to  psychical  processes.  The  so-called  retention  of  memory,  or  tendency 
to  react  in  a  given  way  due  to  ha\ing  previously  acted  in  a  similar  way,  and 
the  relations  between  the  i^sychical  processes  due  to  established  associations, 
have  certain  correlates  in  cerebral  conditions  and  activities.  Thus  we  may 
say  that  the  intensity,  complexity,  tiine-rate,  and  succession  of  the  ideas  in 
the  mental  train  depend  ujion,  or  are  coiTelated  with,  the  intensity,  com- 
plexity, time-rate  and  succession  of  the  cerebral  processes.  But  recogni- 
tive memory  is  not  to  be  explained  as  though  it  were  a  mere  succession  of 
images ;  or  a  mere  succession  of  consciousnesses  of  any  kind ;  or  merely  a  suc- 
cession of  fainter  impressions,  resembling  in  character  and  time-order  previ- 
ously existing  impressions,  plus  consciousness  in  general,  as  it  were.  As 
Professor  James  >  has  well  said  :  '•  No  memory  is  involved  in  the  mere  fact 
of  recurrence.  ...  A  farther  condition  is  required,  .  .  .  that  con- 
dition is  that  the  fact  imaged  be  e.rpressli/  referred  to  the  jiast,  thought  as  in 
the  past.  .  ,  .  But  even  this  would  not  be  memory.  Memoiy  requires 
more  than  mere  dating  of  a  fact  in  the  past.  It  must  be  dated  in  mj/ 
past." 

When,  therefore,  there  comes  into  the  stream  of  my  consciousness  a  state 
of  which  I  may  say,  I  now  know,  because  I  remember,  that  on  such  a  day  of 
the  past  (of  July,  '92)  /climbed,  in  company  with  A,  B,  etc.,  Asama-yama,  and 
looked  into  the  crater,  etc.,  then  a  kind  of  intellectiial  acti%-ity  has  been  per- 
formed, whose  factors  and  as^iects  cannot  even  be  conceived  of,  much  less 
definitely  and  scientifically  established,  as  having  physiological  processes 
with  similar  categories. 

§  16.  The  presence  of  conscious  recognition,  with  its  accompanying  feel- 
ing of  familiarity,  etc.,  in  both  jierception  and  memory,  brings  these  two 

'  The  Principles  of  Psycholoav,  I.,  p-  649  f.  A  similar  attitude  toward  all  the  profundity  of  psy- 
chical life  implied  in  the  higher  intellectual  activities,  and  the  impossibility  of  correlating  these  ac- 
tivities with  definite  cerebral  processes,  is  implied  in  such  passages  as  are  to  be  found,  I.,  pp.  147 
(note),  158,  161  f..  181,  297,  331,  578  (note),  581.  and  591  (see  especially  what  is  said  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  "  similarity,"  in  the  last  passage).  With  all  this  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile  the  obvious  mean- 
ing of  the  remarks  on  p.  687  f. 


400  MEMORY 

faculties  yet  more  closely  into  relation.  Indeed,  tliere  are  certain  mental 
acts  which  seem  assignable  to  either  of  these  two  kinds  of  faculty  with 
almost  equal  proi^riety.  Such  are  those  two  classes  of  "  redintegrating 
activities  "  where — it  has  been  said — "  mental  evolution  is  but  slightly 
advanced  and  where  frequent  repetition  in  varying  and  irrelevant  circum- 
stances has  produced  a  blurred  and  neutral  zone."  Hence  in  childhood, 
where  recognitive  memory  is  little  developed,  neither  jierception,  nor  expec- 
tation, nor  thought,  is  definite  and  clear.  And  as  development  goes  on, 
a  larger  part  of  what  was  formerly  brought  into  consciousness  as  something 
definitely  rememhered  and  somehow  connected  with  our  past,  becomes  merged 
in  that  general  stock  of  knowledge  which  is  only  most  vaguely  recognized  as 
having  to  do  with  the  past  at  all,  because  it  is  our  acquired  knowledge.  For 
example,  we  may  say,  with  about  equal  propriety,  either  that  we  "  perceive" 
the  meaning  of  certain  words  or  that  we  "remember"  their  meaning. 

Acts  of  conscious  reproduction  which  terminate  in  some  at  least  weak 
form  of  recognitive  memory  must  be  distinguished  from  those  which  do  not 
so  terminate.  For  example,  sujipose  that  the  Latin  word  anima  is  seen  by  a 
person  who  years  ago  learned  its  meaning  and  how  to  decline  it.  The  order 
of  ideas  evoked  in  consciousness  may,  very  likely,  run  as  follows :  "  Soul " 
(or  "breath"),  "first  declension,"  "feminine  gender,"  "  genitive  in  cp,"  etc. 
Afterward  any  one  of  a  great  variety  of  thoughts  may  be  suggested,  such 
as  of  the  grammar  in  which,  school  at  which,  teacher  under  whom,  or  date 
when,  etc.,  this  linguistic  lore  was  gained.  Thus  the  meaning  of  the  word 
anima,  for  a  person  who  is  still  obliged  to  translate  the  Latin  and  yet  has 
no  difficulty  in  recognizing  the  meaning,  is  properly  spoken  of  as  per- 
ceived rather  than  as  remembered.  That  is  to  say,  recognition  is  so  fused 
with  the  completed  exercise  of  perceptive  functions  that  the  letters  of  anima 
cannot  be  perceived  without  its  meaning  in  English — we  will  say — being  "  ap- 
perceived."  What  immediately  follows  of  grammatical  ' '  lingo  "  is,  however, 
probably  to  be  regarded  as  a  case  of  reproduction  of  a  series  of  associated 
ideas  (see  p.  268  f.),  with  scarcely  a  trace  of  conscious  recognitive  memory. 
And  thus  much  of  the  whole  process,  although  it  smacks  of  what  psychology 
calls  retention,  reproduction,  and  assimilation,  cannot  j^roperly  be  spoken 
of  as  memory,  in  the  sense  in  which  we  are  now  using  this  word.  Popu- 
larly, however,  we  should  imdoubtedly  say  :  "You  remember  how  to  decline 
anima,  I  see."  When,  however,  the  suggested  ideas  of  "grammar," 
"school,"  "  teacher,"  and  "date,"  follow  in  consciousness,  the  truly  recog- 
nitive feature  of  memory — the  higher  intellectual  function — becomes  more 
emphasized ;  and  now  we  may  describe  the  stream  of  consciousness  more 
truly  by  saying  that  images  of  how  1  learned  to  decline  anima,  in  that  gram- 
mar, at  that  school,  under  that  teacher,  at  about  that  date,  are  flitting  through 
the  mind.  But  this  constitutes  true  reminiscence  ;  it  is  (at  least,  to  some  de- 
gree) recngnitire  memory.  For  we  have  here,  however  fitfully  and  faintly, 
all  the  necessary  features  of  such  memory  ;  that  is,  the  present  ideating  proc- 
esses are  consciously  known  as  representative  of  what  happened  in  the  ])aH 
that  is  my  jiast. 

The  correct  descriptive  and  explanatory  science  of  memory  will,  there- 
fore, avoid  both  of  two  extremes.  It  will  admit,  on  the  one  hand,  that  many 
degrees  of  the  recognitive  activity,  with  all  that  is  implied  in  it,  belong  to 


KNOWLEDGE   AND   RECOGNITION  401 

different  acts  of  memory  ;  but  it  will,  on  the  other  hand,  refuse  to  reduce 
this  unique  intellectual  and  reflexive  function  of  mind  to  the  terms  of  a  psy- 
cho-physical mechanism.  In  some  sort,  I  trcmscend  (he present  and  connect  it, 
hy  a  true  spirituid  siinthesia,  into  a  knoicn  realiti/,  with  the  jjctst,  in  every  act  of 
developed  recoffuitlve  memorif. 

I  17.  The  relation  of  recognitive  memory  to  all  knowledge,  and  to  those 
convictions  concerning  reality  which  enter  into  all  knowledge,  is  now  to 
some  extent  a^Dpareut.  It  is  such  memory  which  makes  rational  expectation 
possible  ;  and  as  well  all  reasoning  with  respect  to  the  future — all  rational 
looking  forward,  and  all  projection  of  remembered  trains  of  ideation  into  an 
imagined  as  distinguished  from  a  remembered  time.  While,  then,  the  con- 
scioiisness  of  time  is  necessary  to  the  develojiment  of  memory,  the  develop- 
ment of  memory  is  also  necessary  to  the  develojjed  idea  of  time,  as  i^resent, 
past,  and  future — and  all  these  with  reference,  always  and  only,  to  my  now 
conscious  self.  To  say  this  is  not  to  reason  in  a  circle ;  it  is  simply  to  ac- 
knowledge that  interdependence  of  relations  between  all  of  the  activities, 
phases,  and  stages  of  mental  life,  which  all  mental  development  shows. 

Not  only  is  recognitive  memory  necessarily  related  to  all  knowledge,  and 
to  all  development  of  knowledge,  but  such  memory  is  knowledge,  of  what 
really  happened  in  my  past.  To  the  extent  to  which  I  really  remember,  to 
that  extent  I  know  ;  and  as  long  as  I  do  not  doubt  my  memory,  I  do  not 
doubt  that  I  know  and  what  I  know.  For  belief  in  the  trustworthiness  of 
memory  is,  as  we  have  already  seen,  something  that  belongs  to  its  essential 
characteristics  as  recognitive.  To  attempt,  then,  to  verify  the  trustworthi- 
ness of  memory  in  general  is  to  attempt  something  quite  absurd.  There  is 
no  joossible  guarantee  of  memory  which  resides,  as  it  were,  outside  of  memoiy. 
There  is  no  con-ective  of  one's  own  poor  memory  but  a  better  memory; 
either  one's  own,  or  that  of  some  other  person  who  has  had  a  similar  i:)resen- 
tative  knowledge.  Whatever  appeal  we  make  for  the  correction  or  improve- 
ment of  memory  we  are  in  nowise  getting  around,  or  beneath,  or  above, 
the  "  authority"  of  memory  and  the  "  belief  "  which  we  have  in  its  deliver- 
ances. In  fact,  on  that  authority  ami  belief  hang  the  perfection  of  our  pre- 
sentative  knowledge  and  all  the  grounds  of  inferential  knowledge  ;  and 
so,  of  course,  all  that  can  be  said  or  conjectured  about  the  i^sycho-phys- 
ical  processes  of  reproduction,  the  cases  of  diseased  memory,  of  double 
consciousness,  etc.  Unless  the  essential  soundness  of  one's  own  memory 
be  preserved,  the  very  appeal  to  others  to  correct  it  becomes  ineffective 
and  even  impossible. 

^  18.  Yet  here  again  we  come  face  to  face  with  the  important,  the  almost 
omnipresent,  principle  of  continuity.  For  a  comparison  of  different  acts  of 
memoiy  shows  an  almost  indefinite  number  of  degrees  of  correctness,  and  of 
assurance  of  correctness,  belonging  to  them.  There  are  disappointed  ex- 
pectations based  upon  mistaken  memory,  conflict  of  testimony  as  to  the 
same  things  differently  remembered  by  different  memories,  acquired  knowl- 
edge of  the  influence  of  i)rejudice,  interest,  etc.,  over  the  deliverances  of 
memory  ;  and  there  are  changes  of  memory  produced,  by  further  reflection, 
or  due  to  sudden  inbursts  of  clearer  recognitive  recollection,  etc.  But 
especially  does  experience  force  upon  us  a  certain  submission  of  particular 
memories  to  the  memory  of  generalized  principles ;  as  when  we  conclude 

26  /C^ 


ft 


402  MEMORY 

that  we  must  be  mistaken  in  our  recollection  of  an  alleged  fact,  "because" 
of  something  else  which  we  remember  as  necessarily  following  from  a  rule 
of  conduct,  or  a  law  of  nature.  Thus  we  argue  with  ourselves,  or  hear  oth- 
ers dispitting  :  You  mu^t  be  wrong  "because"  it  could  not  have  happened 
as  it  is  remembered.  Not  even  in  these  last  cases,  however,  are  we  actually 
setting  up  an  authority  over  that  of  memory  in  general. 

What  is  called  "verifying  "  or  "  correcting  "  memoiy  takes  place  in  the 
following  way  :  Doubt  is  thrown  upon  a  memory-jjicture,  either  because  of  its 
own  faint  and  vacillating  character,  or  because  it  is  ojjposed  by  some  other 
memory,  either  of  fact  or  of  principle.  A  check  to  the  smooth  flow  of  the 
current  of  memory-images  takes  jjlace,  which  is  accompanied  by  a  peculiar 
painful  feeling  of  mixed  joerplexity,  anxiety,  and  desire.  The  "clarifying" 
of  the  complex  memory-picture  thus  becomes  a  problem,  whose  affective  ac- 
comi;)animents  aflford  a  strong  motif  for  its  solution.  Attentive  and  voluntary 
discrimination  is  excited  and  guided  by  the  motif,  and  the  processes  of  con- 
scious purposeful  recollection  proceed  in  the  manner  already  described. 
The  result  of  these  processes  is  either  confirmatory  of,  or  corrective  of, 
memory,  according  as  the  final  memory-picture  is  developed  in  consistency 
with  the  principal  traits  it  possessed  in  its  first  form,  or  for  one  or  more  of 
those  traits  others  come  to  be  substituted.  But  no  ground  for  belief  in 
memory  that  underlies  or  overtops  all  memory  can  possibly  be  reached  by 
such  processes  of  recollection.  Neithei',  in  the  last  analysis,  can  we  make 
the  validating  of  memory  depend  ujDon  comparison.  The  stream  of  con- 
sciousness flows  on  without  ceasing  ;  the  present  is  not  the  past ;  the  claim  of 
the  present  psychosis  to  represent  the  past  accurately  can  never  be  taken 
back  to  that  past  and  compared  with  it.  If  we  look  at  a  flower  and  then 
close  our  eyes,  or  turn  our  back  upon  it,  even  for  only  that  moment  which 
is  necessary  to  extinguish  perceptive  knowledge ;  or  if  we  hear  a  strain  of 
music  and  then  wait  only  long  enough  for  it  to  die  away  in  our  ears  ;  and  if 
then — being  in  doubt  whether  we  remember  correctly  that  flower  or  that 
strain  of  music — we  resort  again  to  the  same  percept  for  confirmation  of 
memory  ;  in  all  such  cases  ?re  only  confirm  memory  by  other  inemory,  with  an 
indestructible  confidence  in  good  memory  as  the  very  basis  of  the  correctness  of  all 
developed  nets  of  comparison. 

The  distinction  of  Kinds  of  Memory  is  of  little  value  for  psy- 
chological science  ;  it  is,  however,  illustrative  of  principles  al- 
ready established,  and  useful  in  suggesting-  rules  for  the  cultiva- 
tion of  good  memory.  Kinds  of  memory  may  be  distinguished 
according  to  two  principles  of  division  :  First,  the  relative 
amounts  of  faculty  which  are  habitual  with  different  individuals, 
or  which  enter  into  diffcn-ent  acts  of  memory.  Here  the  nature  of 
the  distinction  is  itself  relative.  Among  such  kinds  are  the 
tenacious  and  the  spontaneous  memory  ;  the  poor  and  the  pro- 
digious memory  ;  the  perfect  and  the  imperfect  act  of  memory  ; 
natural  or  logical  and  accidental  or  artificial  memory  ;  voluntary 
and  involuntary  memory,  etc.  The  second  principle  has  refer- 
ence to   the   nature  of  the   objects   most  spontaneously,  tena- 


THE   KINDS   OF   MEMORY  403 

ciously,  and  perfectly  remembered.  Here,  of  course,  the  division 
into  kinds  of  memory  is  only  limited  by  the  number  of  kinds  of 
objects  ^vllicl^  may  be  retained  and  reproduced  in  memory. 
This  distinction  also  is  merely  relative.  All  kinds  of  memory 
alike  fall  under  the  conditions  of  retention  and  the  laws  of  repro- 
duction, as  already  described.  A  few  words  with  reference  to 
selected  examples  of  several  kinds  will  therefore  suffice. 

^  19.  The  word  "  tenacious,"  as  apjilied  to  memory  has  reference  to  the 
amount  of  forgetting,  in  comparison  with  actual  or  jiossible  recollecting, 
which  experience  enables  us  roughly  to  measure.  The  very  nature  of  con- 
sciousness, with  its  limitations  of  field,  attention,  etc.,  and  the  very  nature 
of  all  memory,  have  been  shown  to  involve  forgetting  as  truly  as  recollect- 
ing. With  all  men  by  far  the  larger  portion  of  the  past  (not  only  the  years 
of  early  childhood,  but  also  the  details  of  almost  every  day's  experience)  is 
never  actually  recalled.  But  the  amount  actually  reproduced  in  conscious- 
ness differs  very  greatly  with  different  individuals  ;  hence  the  merely  relative 
use  of  the  word  tenacious  to  signify  that  some  minds  hold  on  to  their 
past  better  than  others.  A  "spontaneous"  memoiy  is  one  that  reproduces, 
what  it  reproduces  at  all,  on  relatively  little  excitement  from  suggestion,  as 
we  might  say,  and  generally  with  ease  and  marked  rapidity  in  the  sequence 
of  the  ideation  -  processes.  While  tenacious  memory  may  be  trusted  to 
"hold  on  "  to  the  ideas ,  however  sluggishly  and  reluctantly  it,  at  times,  re- 
produces them,  spontaneous  memory  is  prompt,  and,  for  the  time  being, 
generous  "  in  delivery."  These  two  kinds  of  memory  may,  or  may  not,  co- 
exist in  the  same  person  or  in  the  same  individual  act  of  memory.  A  "  poor  " 
memory  is  relatively  lacking  in  both  tenacity  and  spontaneity  ;  and  a  remark- 
able or  "  prodigious  "  memory  would  seem  to  require  excellence  in  capacity 
both  to  retain  and  promptly  to  reproduce. 

Instances  of  the  prodigies  performed  by  spontaneous  memoi-y  are  numer- 
ous enough.  Besides  the  frequently  cited  case  of  the  servant  who,  on  being 
seized  with  a  fever,  talked  in  Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew,  what  she  years 
l^reviously  had  merely  heard  recited  without  understanding  a  word,  the 
butcher  of  Bicetre  might  fitly  be  mentioned  as  an  example ;  for  this  man, 
during  his  paroxysms  of  madness  recited  entire  jiassages  from  the  tragedy  of 
"  Phedre  ; "  but  on  recovery  he  failed  to  recollect  a  single  verse.  Nor  would 
it  seem  out  of  place  to  speak  of  trained  spontaneity,  like  that  of  the  juggler 
Houdin,  who,  after  a  few  minutes  spent  in  the  library  of  a  certain  gentleman, 
astonished  him  by  repeating  "  right  off"  the  titles  of  his  books  ;  or  like  that 
of  the  painter  who  rein-oduced  from  memory  the  altar-piece  of  Rubens,  at 
Cologne,  when  it  had  been  carried  away  by  the  French,  and  did  it  so  cor- 
rectly that  careful  comparison  was  necessary  to  distinguish  between  the 
original  and  the  copy.  Of  men  of  truly  prodigious  memories,  especially  in 
certain  kinds  of  objects — implying  both  tenacity  and  spontaneity  extending 
to  a  wonderfully  large  number  of  presentation-experiences — history  furnishes 
noteworthy  examples.  In  the  highest  rank  stand  those  who,  like  Scaliger, 
Niebuhr,  and  Pascal,  combined  the  highest  qualities  of  mind  with  the  high- 
est development  of  various  kinds  of  memory.     Of  Pascal  we  are  told  by 


404  MEMORY 

Locke  '  that  "  be  forgot  nothing  of  what  he  had  done,  read,  or  thought  in 
any  part  of  his  rational  age " — a  pardonable  exaggeration  of  the  truth  in 
view  of  the  really  prodigious  character  of  the  gi-eat  man's  memory.  Brandis 
declares  that  Kiebuhr's  memory  was  "  equally  retentive  of  perceptions  and 
thoughts,  of  views  and  feelings,  of  sights  and  sounds."  On  a  lower  plane 
stand  those  generals  who,  like  Cyrus,  are  reported  to  have  known  by  name 
every  soldier  in  their  armies  ;  or  those  statesmen  who,  like  Themistocles 
(said  to  have  known  the  20,000  citizens  of  Athens),  never  forget  the  names 
of  their  constituency.  Lower  still  must  we  place  the  mathematical  memory 
of  the  mere  calculators,  or  the  musical  memory  of  Blind  Tom,  et  al. 
Thus  we  learn  with  astonishment  the  feats  of  memory  of  one  Magliabechi, 
who,  although  brought  up  in  ignorance  and  learning  to  read  late,  in  his 
capacity  as  librarian  proved  himself  able  to  repeat  word  for  word  an  entire 
book  after  having  once  read  it ;  or  of  Zacharias  Dase,  for  whom  a  few  glances 
at  a  row  of  188  figures  proved  enough,  so  that  he  could  repeat  them,  infal- 
libly, forward  and  backward,  and  give  the  i)laee  of  each  jiarticular  figure  in 
the  series.'-  These  performances  testify  to  the  incredible  delicacy  and  tenac- 
ity of  the  cerebral  mechanism  of  reproduction,  and  the  possibilities  of  future 
reproduction  that  lie  in  its  unimpaired  structure. 

Such  words  as  "iserfect"  and  "imperfect,"  when  applied  to  memory  in 
general,  or  to  particular  acts  of  memory,  are  plainly  relative.  They  refer  to 
the  completeness  of  details  with  which  the  original  presentation  is  repro- 
duced in  consciousness.  Thus  we  are  reminded  of  the  varying  degrees 
of  life-likeness  belonging  to  the  representative  image.  But  in  developed 
memory  the  accurate  placing  of  the  image  in  the  series  of  my  past  experi- 
ences, the  dating  of  it  with  exactness,  is  characteristic  of  perfect  memory. 
Natural  and  artificial,  logical  and  accidental,  voluntary  and  involuntaiy 
acts  of  memory  have  reference  chiefly  to  the  amounts  of  the  intellectual  and 
voluntary  factors  which  enter  into  these  acts.  Habit  and  training  are  here 
chiefly  determinative.  In  logical  memory  such  relations  as  cause  and  effect, 
premise  and  conclusion,  si:)ecies  and  subsumed  individual,  are  emphasized. 
But  that  "  local  memory  "  which  enables  one  to  recall  the  exact  word  or 
sentence,  by  means  of  its  place  on  the  page,  may  be  called  extrinsic  and  ac- 
cidental. 

g  20.  Marked  instances  of  the  memory  of  names,  figures,  musical  sounds, 
etc.,  have  already  been  brought  forward.  Nothing  is  more  common  than  to 
hear  a  person  saying  :  "  My  memory  for  faces  is  fairly  good,  but  fearfully 
poor  for  names ''  (or  dates,  or  abstract  principles,  etc.).  In  truth,  every  form 
of  sense-perception  may  be  said  to  constitute  a  kind  of  memory.  Here 
the  great  differences  which  exist  have  undoubtedly  an  anatomical  and  physi- 
ological basis ;  and  this  we  recognize  when  we  speak  of  a  "  good  ear  "  for 
music,  a  "  good  eye  "  for  form  and  color,  etc.  In  the  language  of  Volk- 
matin  :  "  There  are  as  many  kinds  of  memory  as  there  are  kinds  of  mental 
re])iesentations.  .  .  .  A  memory  is  everywhere ;  the  memory  is  no- 
where." Or,  to  use  the  head-line  of  Sully:  '' Memmy,  a  Chmti'r  of  ^f>>m- 
ories."     This  truth  jM-eijares  the  way  for  those  differences  which  different 

'  The  editor  of  Bohn's  edition  of  Locke's  "  Essay  "  jastly  criticises  the  accuracy  of  this  statement 
(eee  note,  I.,  p.  2f>S).  For  examples  of  remarkable  memories,  see  Ilamilton  :  Lectures  on  Metaphys- 
ics, p.  42.'>  f.  ;  and  nciickc  :  I'raL'matische  Psycholojzie,  i.,  p.  190  f. 

"  See  Kaulich  :  Uandbuch  d.  Psychologic,  p.  83  f.  (and  notes). 


THE   ART   OF   liEMEMBEKING  405 

persons  exhibit  in  respect  of  the  kind  of  objects  which  they  remember  best. 
The  genera]  fact  also  corresponds  to  the  physiological  theory  of  the  cere- 
bral conditions  of  memoiy.  Thus  in  develoi)ed  form  we  have  the  memoiy 
of  the  artist,  the  memory  of  the  man  of  science,  the  memory  of  the  j^hilos- 
opher,  the  memory  of  the  practical  man,  etc.  The  memory  of  the  great 
thinker  or  scholar  is  chiotiy  a  word-memory.  In  general,  also,  the  different 
forms  of  sense-perception  are  memorized  with  different  degrees  of  clearness 
and  completeness  by  different  individuals.  (Here  compare  what  has  already 
been  said  concerning  the  sensations  and  their  images,  p.  240  f.) 

Valid  and  useful  Maxims  for  the  Art  of  Remembering-  folloAv 
from  the  laws  of  retention  and  reproduction,  as  already  dis- 
cussed. Such  maxims  ma}^  be  divided  into  three  classes,  ac- 
cording- as  they  have  reference  to :  (1)  Those  general  condi- 
tions of  sound  brain  and  sound  mind  on  which  the  entire 
structure  of  the  faculty,  as  it  were,  depends ;  (2)  the  condi- 
tions, especially  governing  the  fixation  and  distribution  of  at- 
tention, of  the  original  exiierience  which  it  is  designed  to 
remember  ;  (3)  the  nature  and  variety  of  the  connections  be- 
tween the  particular  memorj'  and  the  entire  structure  of  asso- 
ciated mental  life.  Under  the  first  class  fall  exhortations  to 
keep  the  brain  tissue  sound  and  well  nourished  with  properly 
aerated  blood ;  to  avoid  excessive  drains  u]ion  the  elasticity  of 
the  cerebral  centers,  etc.  Among  the  qualifications  of  mental 
sanity  affecting  the  quality  of  memory,  the  $'w«^i-ethical  are 
not  the  least  important ;  such  as  not  to  allow  interest  to  falsify 
and  cloud  memory,  habitually  to  refuse  to  be  overhasty  in  con- 
clusion of  memory,  etc.  But  both  the  bodily  and  the  mental 
conditions  under  which  the  presentation  is  "committed"  to 
memory  must  also  be  carefully  guarded.  Thus  the  effort  to  learn 
when-  suffering  from  cerebral  fatigue  or  exhaustion  is  to  be 
avoided.  To  control  attention — with  fixation,  distribution,  repe- 
tition, all  directed  to  the  desired  end,  and  interest  awakened 
and  made  to  lend  vividness  to  the  impression — is  the  principal 
maxim  falling  under  tho  second  class.  Closely  connected  are 
the  maxims  which  require  that  advantage  be  taken  of  the  laws 
of  association  in  the  cultivation  of  memory ;  for  these  laws  are 
the  "natural"  modes  of  the  recun-ence  of  the  ideas  under  the 
princiiiles  of  contiguity,  similarity,  contrast,  etc.  Mnemonics, 
or  "  artificial "  memory,  then,  furnishes  safe  maxims  only  so  far 
as  it  follows  these  laws ;  that  is,  ceases  to  be  artificial  and  be- 
comes natural.  But  relatively  non-rational  or  accidental  associa- 
tions are  natural  in  the  earlier  stages  of  the  development  of 
memory ;  and,  indeed,  for  such  subjects,  in  all  stages,  as  do  not 
lend  themselves  readily  to  the  higher  forms  of  association. 


406  MEMORY 

^  21.  The  early  plasticity  of  the  brain  is  such  that  the  stores  of  new 
and  more  easily  dissociable  impressions  should  be  accumulated  before  the 
end  of  the  period  of  puberty.  The  more  methodical  arrangement  and  con- 
solidation of  these  stores  follows,  in  the  form  of  memory  of  related  things 
and  memory  of  words.  In  middle  life  new  acquisitions  are  relatively  di- 
minished, and  the  elaboration  of  experience  into  a  more  highly  intellectual 
form,  or  the  use  of  the  past  for  the  attainment  of  practical  ends,  predominates. 
These  rougiily  marked  periods  need  to  be  remembered  in  the  application  of 
means  to  the  culture  of  memory.  In  all  these  regards,  however,  individuals 
differ  widely ;  while  some  show  an  almost  perennial  youth  in  acquisition, 
without  corresponding  childishness  in  thought,  others  early  display  the 
senile  inability  further  to  stock  memory  with  new  ideas,  or  "to  break  the 
cake  of  custom"  when  it  is  no  more  than  half-baked  in  the  oven  of  ex- 
perience. 

I  22.  All  helps  to  memory  which  cannot  justify  themselves  by  direct 
appeal  to  the  natural  life  of  the  mind  are  likely  to  be  injurious  rather  than 
helpful,  however  much  they  may  temporarily  seem  to  assist  the  "  dead-lift" 
of  petty  but  convenient  memories.  The  founding  of  good,  useful,  and 
rational  memory  requires  not  only  the  firm  holding  in  connection  of  the 
ideas,  but  also  the  ability  to  release  them  from  their  former  connections  and 
to  unite  them  in  new  and  higher  combinations.  Hence  the  pupil  who  has 
learned  only  in  sight  of  the  whip  or  of  the  promised  reward,  as  well  as  the 
memorizer  who  has  practised  some  cunning  system  of  mnemonics,  may  share 
the  fate  of  the  "  good  man "  who  has  done  right  only  to  secure  happiness 
and  escape  ijunishment.  Persons  thus  trained  are  apt  to  be  powerless  to 
effect  new  and  higher  associations.  Even  the  great  philosopher  Kant  is  said 
to  have  been  quite  put  "out  of  mind"  by  the  loss  of  a  button  from  the  coat 
of  a  hearer  on  which,  as  he  lectured,  he  had  been  accustomed  to  concen- 
trate his  attention.  In  the  definite  and  petty  associations  with  numbers, 
letters,  geometrical  figures,  etc.,  which  most  systems  of  mnemonics  recom- 
mend, the  danger  of  establishing  a  sort  of  slavery  of  the  rccognitive  processes 
is  by  no  means  small. 

In  all  self-training  of  memory  the  limitations  which  belong  to  every 
individual  should  always  be  kept  in  mind.  Much  may  be  done  to  im- 
])rove  any  one's  memory,  but  we  cannot  all  become  Scaligers,  or  Pascals, 
or  Niebuhrs  in  this  regard.  Neither  should  all  aim  to  rival  the  inferior 
prodigies  in  the  line  of  mathematical  or  musical  memory,  in  memory  for 
names,  dates,  etc.  With  a  fairly  serviceable  and  reasonable  memory  which 
is  fitted  to  the  particular  purpose  of  one's  calling  and  work,  one  may  well 
be  satisfied ;  and  this  is  to  be  gained  by  judicious  mental  culture  all  around 
rather  than  by  practising  any  special  system  of  mnemonic  gymnastics. 

^  23.  Several  important  maxims,  which  are  of  especial  sei-vice  to  the 
teacher  of  young  children,  may  be  derived  from  the  experimental  data 
obtained  by  Ebbinghaus  and  others.  (1)  Do  not  undertake  too  long  tasks 
of  memorizing,  in  one  effort,  as  it  wore.  It  has  already  boon  shown  (p.  ()7  f.) 
that  the  time  and  expenditure  of  nervous  and  psychical  energy — beyond  a 
certain  limit,  which  is  difTerent  for  different  persons,  but  generally  not  hard 
to  find— increase  far  more  rapidly  than  does  the  length  of  the  task.  (2) 
Find  at  least  some  meaning  in  what  you  attempt  to  learn,  so  that  it  may  bo 


MEMORY   AS   FACULTY  407 

associated  witli  the  rest  of  experience  in  an  intelligible  way.  (Comp.  p.  272  f.) 
(3)  Eepeat  with  rixed  attention  until  the  object  is  *'  fastened"  in  memory 
(see  p.  2SC)  ;  or,  if  this  cannot  bo  done  without  excessive  expenditure  of 
energy  and  time,  repeat  as  frecjuently  as  possible  the  first  attemi^ts  at 
memorizing.  For  forgetting  is  rapid  at  first  and  slower  afterward  ;  and  es- 
tablished recognitive  memory — other  things  being  at  all  equal — makes,  for  its 
firm  establishment,  a  large  demand  upon  both  time  and  energy.  [Thus  Eb- 
binghixns  found  that  even  10  repetitions  would  often  not  secure  recognition  of 
his  series  of  non-sense  syllables  the  next  day  ;  sometimes  53-61  repetitions 
were  necessary.]  (-i)  Bear  always  in  mind  that  really  good  memory  can- 
not be  secured  without  cultivation  of  the  powers  of  percej^tion  and  reason- 
ing. Nor  can  the  conscience  and  the  heart  (the  ethical  and  general  affec- 
tive accompaniments  and  factors  of  knowledge)  be  left  out  of  the  account. 
For,  although  memory  often  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  special  and  isolated  piece  of 
j)sycho-physical  mechanism,  if  the  factdty  is  to  be  developed  as  a  fountain  of 
knowledge,  we  must  reckon  roitli  the  tvhole  man — brain  and  mind — as  the  subject 
who  remembers. 

[In  addition  to  works  cited  at  the  end  of  Chapter  XIIL,  and  in  this  and  preceding 
chapters,  the  following,  on  Memory,  may  be  consulted  :  Articles  in  the  Am.  Journal  of 
Psychology,  ii.,  1-3,  by  W.  H.  Burnham.  Dugald  Stewart :  Philosophy  of  the  Human 
Mind,  I.,  chap.  vi.  Sully:  The  Human  Mind,  II. ,  Appendix  D.  Taine  :  JDe  I'lntelligence, 
ii. ,  1-2.  Among  the  many  treatises  on  the  cultivation  of  Memory  the  following,  especially 
the  first,  perhai)s,  deserve  mention  :  M.  L.  Holbroolc  :  How  to  Strengthen  the  Memory. 
Pick  :  Memory  and  a  Rational  Means  of  Improving  it.  Kay  :  Memory,  What  it  is  and 
How  to  Improve  it.     W.  L.  Evans  :  Memory  Training.] 


I 


CHAPTEE  XVni. 

IMAGINATION 

As  compared  with  memory  that  development  of  reproductive 
faculty  which  we  call  Imag-ination  stands  jjartly  on  a  hig-her, 
and  partly  on  a  lower,  intellectual  plane.  On  the  one  hand, 
the  psycho-physical  mechanism  may  bring  into  the  stream  of 
consciousness  an  elaborate  train  of  representative  images,  if 
they  are  not  to  be  placed  in  my  past  by  recognitive  recollection, 
with  but  very  little  development  of  intelligence.  It  is'chiefly  as 
acting-  in  this  way  that  we  strive  to  picture  to  ourselves  the 
mental  life  of  children  and  of  the  lower  animals  ;  it  is  some- 
what thus  that  certain  philosophical  tenets  represent  the  life  of 
the  "  world-soul."  And  it  is  this  kind  of  life  which,  for  the 
most  part,  we  live  in  dreams,  where  the  representative  images  are 
g-enerally  of  a  highly  schematic  and  vague  character,  and  very 
little  definitely  recognized,  in  the  stricter  meaning  of  this  term. 
In  reverie  and  day-dreaming,  memory  and  imagination  g-o  hand 
in  hand,  and  both  may  lack  the  chief  characteristics  of  higher 
intelligence.  But  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  by  imagination  that 
the  inventor,  the  artist,  or  the  poet  (and  even  more,  the  man  of 
pure  science  or  of  philosophy)  transcends  all  the  memories  of 
his  own  past,  and  even,  in  the  case  of  g-enius,  of  the  jiast  of  the 
entire  race ;  while,  as  Schopenhauer  says,  the  man  without  im- 
agination is  related  to  him  avIio  has  much  of  the  highest  de- 
velopment of  this  faculty,  "as  the  mussel  fastened  to  its  rock, 
that  must  wait  for  what  chance  may  bring  it,  is  related  to  the 
animal  that  moves  freely  or  even  has  wings." 

In  somewhat  the  same  manner  must  we  compare  the  imag-ina- 
tion, as  respects  its  place  in  the  development  of  mental  life,  with 
the  faculty  of  thinking-.  For  here  again  we  must  place  imagina- 
tion below  the  power  of  forming-  conceptions  and  of  making  in- 
ferences, if  by  imagination  we  mean  to  indicate  most  of  our  m(n-e- 
ly  reproductive  image-making  faculty.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
dependence  of  thinking,  in  all  its  higher  functions,  upon  the  de- 
veloped and  trained  power  of  imagination  is  undoubted.  There 
is  much  also  to  make  us  sympathize  with  those  who  regard  the 


IMAGINATION   CONSIDERED   AS    FACULTY  409 

so-called  "intuitions"  of  the  artist,  or  the  man  of  sc-ienco  and 
philosophy,  as  standing-  higher  in  the  scale  of  intelligence  than 
the  "thoughts"  of  the  same  man — so  far  as  by  this  latter  term 
we  designate  i)sychoses  different  from  the  intuitions.  It  is  im- 
agination largely  that  makes  what  Balzac  calls  the  "  specialist," 
and  declares  to  be  necessarily  the  loftiest  expression  of  man — 
the  link  Avliich  connects  the  visible  to  the  superior  world.  He 
acts,  he  sees,  he  feels,  through  his  "  Inner  Being."  For,  how- 
ever much  of  offensive  mysticism  may  cling-  to  such  talk  as  this, 
scientific  psychology  has  still  to  remember  that  the  facts  of  the 
creative  and  artistic  life  of  man  exist ;  and  since  they  exist, 
they  are  not  to  be  denied  description  and  explanation,  however 
stubborn  they  may  prove  themselves  in  the  face  of  all  petti- 
ness from  mathematical,  or  cerebral,  or  experimental  science  so 
called. 

But,  in  truth,  imagination  and  intellect  should  not  be  re- 
g-arded  as  distinct  faculties  properly  opposed.  They  must  co- 
operate and  interpenetrate  each  other  most  profoundly  ;  although 
different  sexes,  ages,  and  individuals  show  these  two  sides  of 
elaborating  and  reflecting-  consciousness  in  different  proportions. 
Thus,  some  psychologists  treat  them  as  two  directions  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  sej)arating-  and  combining  activity  of  mind. 
Imag-ination,  by  more  searching-  separation,  gets  at  the  interior 
content  of  the  individual ;  thought,  by  manifold  combinations  of 
another  kind,  forms  laws  and  principles,  and  opens  up  the  so- 
called  universal.^  What  is  chiefly  to  be  noticed,  however,  is  that 
the  merely  reproductive  forms  of  imagination  closely  resemble 
memory,  with  a  low  degree  of  recognitive  energy  ;  while  the 
creative  forms  of  imagination  rather  resemble  that  rapid  and 
lofty  thinking  which  leaps  to  conclusions  with  an  immediacy 
and  certainty  comparable  to  the  intuitive  processes  of  percep- 
tion. Both  these  two  extremes,  however,  are  connected  by  an 
indefinite  number  of  intervening  links.  And  in  all  imagination, 
memory  and  thinking  are  necessarily  involved. 

§  1.  It  is  scarcely  worth  while  to  enter  into  the  controversy  as  to  whether 
imagination  shall  be  called  a  "  facnlty  "  or  not.  The  Herbartians  and  the 
physiologists  here  again  agree  in  denying  such  a  title  to  this  form  of  mental 
life.  According  to  Volkmann,  properly  speaking,  imagination  is  only  a  term 
for  the  energy  residing  in  the  ideas  themselves,  and  is  therefore  different  ac- 
cording to  the  differences  of  the  ideas.  Each  idea  has  its  memory,  and  every 
movement  of  the  collective  consciousness  has  its  power  of  imagination.  Ac- 
cording to  the  physiologists  the  highest  flights  of  creative  genius  are  fully 
accounted  for  as  reproduced  cerebral  activities  formerly  excited  by  external 

'  Sec  George  :  Psychologic,  p.  2C4  f. 


410  IMAGINATION 

stimulus,  plus  tlio  epiplienomenou  of  consciousness.  So  far  as  merely  re- 
productive imagination  is  concerned  there  is  truth  in  the  claim  that  it  is  not 
so  much  a  faculty  as  a  particular  case  under  the  association  of  ideas.  It  is 
in  connection  with  the  correlated  develoiiment  of  intellect  and  will  that  the 
faculty  of  imagination  develoj^s ;  or  rather,  that  the  primary  processes  of 
ideation  devdop  into  the  faculty  of  imagination.' 

§  2.  Nothing  additional  remains  to  be  said  respecting  the  physiological 
conditions  of  reproductive  imagination.  In  such  cases  as  are  more  dis- 
tinctively creative,  we  have  indeed  little  but  our  ignorance  to  display.  To 
a  certain  extent  modern  science  confirms  the  vague  impressions  which,  in  all 
ages,  have  connected  that  constitution  of  the  brain  which  is  favorable  to  un- 
usual creative  and  artistic  imagination  with  tendencies  to  vagaries  in  so- 
caJled  "  practical  judgment."  The  "  great  imagination,  proper  to  madness," 
is  supposed  to  mark  the  genius — in  military  affairs  and  in  invention,  but  es- 
pecially in  poetry  and  other  forms  of  art.  That  such  unusual  development 
of  faculty  implies  an  intense  and  widely  extended  use  of  the  associated 
cerebral  areas  is  beyond  doubt,  but  we  know  nothing  of  the  precise  differ- 
ences (chemical,  thermic,  neural),  between  those  processes  which  are  corre- 
lated with  creative  imagination  and  those  which  are  correlated  with  other 
allied  forms  of  the  life  of  representation.  Only  since  in  the  higher  work 
of  imagination  the  reproductive  aspect  is  less  prominent,  and  the  more 
purely  creative  is  more  prominent  from  the  point  of  view  of  consciousness, 
we  may  conjecture  that  the  cerebral  difference  consists  chiefly  in  the  relative 
amount  of  neural  "automatism." 

But  the  most  highly  "creative"  genius  in  respect  of  imagination  creates 
only  as  he  also  reproduces ;  and  hence  has  perceived  and  remembered. 
Especially  must  we  insist  upon  the  prominence  of  motor  consciousness  in  the 
neural  conditions  of  productive  imagination.  This  involves  something  more 
than  the  mere  starting  of  processes  in  the  brain  as  the  physical  basis  of 
this  exercise  of  mental  faculty  ;  it  involves  profound  changes  produced  in 
the  peripheral  motor  organism  as  the  result  and  as  the  concomitant  and  in- 
dispensable support  of  imagination.  There  are  few  things  on  which  Kant 
insists  with  more  of  true  psychological  insight  than  ujion  this  ;  in  order 
to  know  a  straight  line,  for  example  (as  a  priori,  we  may  say)  one  must 
imagine  it;  in  order  to  imagine  it,  one  must  draw  it.  Now  "drawing" 
apparently  involves  motor  activity — either  actiial  or  regarded  as  "  traces  " 
of' past  activity  in  the  form  of  images  of  past  strains,  tensions,  or  move- 
ments. Further,  in  the  act  of  imagining  words,  Strieker  ^  has  proposed 
to  test  the  dependence  of  imagination  on  motor  consciousness  in  the  follow- 
ing way  :  Open  the  mouth  and  then  try  to  imagine  a  word  in  which  labials 
or  dentals  are  prominent  (as,  e.g.,  "bubble"  or  "toddle").  The  profound 
effect  of  imagination  upon  the  entire  secretory  and  vaso-motor  system  is  also 
emphasized  by  modern  experiments  in  hypnotism.  By  suggestion  swell- 
ings can  be  produced  or  made  to  disap])ear,  secretions  excited  or  repressed, 
and  even,  in  relatively  rare  cases,  burn-brands  and  stigmata,  etc.,  can  be  pro- 
duced. Every  intelligent  i:)hysician  knows  the  close  relation  between  imag- 
ination and  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  peripheral  organs.     The  whole 

•  Conipnru  Rnliicr  :  Lcooim,  etc.,  I.,  I'sycholofric,  pp.  174  f.,  and  209  f. 

'In  his  Studieu  ilbcr  die  SprucUvoristelluugeu,  aud  Studien  iiber  die  Bewegungsvorstellungen. 


I 


DIVISION   INTO    REPKODUCTIVE   AND   rilODUCTIVP:       411 

theory  of  ideo-motor  effect  ou  the  skin  and  muscles,  so  necessary  to  the  art 
of  the  actor,  reposes  upon  the  same  basis  of  truth.  Lichtenborg  highly 
praised  Garrick  as  an  actor  by  declaring  that  he  (by  gift  of  vivid  imagina- 
tion) "  appeared  to  be  present  in  all  the  muscles  of  his  body."  The  rise  of 
feeling  from  the  fg,inter  forms  in  which  imagination  first  excites  it,  to  the 
highest  jntch  of  emotional  grandeur,  is  possible  only  on  the  same  basis.  The 
complete physiologicdl  anidilions  of  productive  hnagimition  seem  to  involve  both 
centrcdh/  initiated  ideation-facloi'S  and  motor  factors,  both  centrally  and  pei-iph- 
erully  reproduced. 

The  most  important  psychological  Division  of  the  Imagina- 
tion is  into  Reproductive  and  Productive  (or  Creative).  This 
distinction,  however — like  the  others — is  one  of  degrees  onl}'. 
As  the  type  of  the  more  purely  rei^roductive  form  of  imagina- 
tion we  may  instance  our  di'eams,  or  those  phantasms  which 
chase  each  other  through  consciousness  when  w6  are  about  fall- 
ing asleep  ;  or  again,  when  we  are  lying  awake  and  (excitedlj^ 
or  placidly)  watching  ourselves  make  pictures  as  it  were.  Here, 
however,  the  truly  creative  character  of  the  work  involved  is 
often  wonderful.  In  the  wildest  of  our  dreams  the  spontaneity  of 
fancy  may  be  most  apparent ;  and  there  are  few  dreams  where 
the  whole  pageantry  does  not  show  the  soul  of  the  dreamer  to  be 
an  artist  that  makes  much  of  a  small  amount  of  sensation-''  stuff,'' 
by  helping  it  out  with  large  drafts  upon  the  image-making  fac- 
ulty. On  the  other  hand,  it  is  customary  to  deny  that  the  most 
supreme  efforts  of  imagination  can  result  in  truly  creating 
anything.  Here,  however,  Ave  miist  distinguish  carefully  our 
use  of  w^ords.  No  object  can,  of  course,  be  constituted  by  activity 
of  representation  which  may  not  be  analyzed  into  factors  that 
have  previously  been,  by  discriminating  consciousness,  known  as 
factors  of  presentation-experience.  For  so-called  creative  im- 
agination, however,  the  factors  themselves  are  re-creations — ex- 
isting only  while  the  mind  creates  them ;  and  as  respects  the 
limits  of  combination,  none  can  be  assigned  except  those  fur- 
nished by  the  most  fundamental  principles  of  all  intellectual 
life.  Within  these  expansive  limitations  the  imagination  creates 
(more  divinely  because  consciously,  and  because  more  freely  ac- 
cording to  ideals)  the  world  of  both  material  and  psychical  sort 
with  which  it  presents  itself,  and  which  it  presents  also  to  the 
apprehension  of  other  minds.  It  is,  as  Professor  Everett '  has 
said,  "  the  x^ower  of  mental  vision,  a  i^ower  which  creates  that 
which  it  beholds." 

Reproductive  Imagination  develops  in  constant  dependence 
upon  the  two  closely  allied  forms  of  the  general  representative 

1  Poetry,  Comedy,  and  Duty,  p.  1. 


412      ,  IMAGINATION 

faculty  ;  these  are  memory  and  thought.  Its  character  is  de- 
fined by  the  return  of  the  ideas  in  consciousness  as  themselves 
changed  by  the  elaboration  of  experience.  This  change  takes 
place  chielly  in  two  directions  :  (1)  The  ideas  are  "  freed  "  from 
those  connections  of  place  and  time  in  mj'  past  which  char- 
acterize the  objects  of  recognitive  memory.  This  form  of  imag- 
ination may  then  be  considered  as  a  sort  of  memory  ;  that  is 
to  say,  a  complex  idea  which  results  from  many  impressions, 
arises  without  recognition  of  it  as  representative  of  any  one  of 
them,  and  without  my  dating  of  it  as  belonging  to  my  past. 
Hence  we  speak  of  places  and  friends  as  we  see  them  in  dreams, 
or  call  them  up  in  reverie,  as  either  memory-images  or  as  pict- 
ures of  the  imagination.  (2)  The*  concrete  complexity,  the  rich- 
ness and  the  vividness  of  the  objects  of  reproductive  imagination 
depend  upon  the  total  character  of  the  mental  development. 
Thus  the  growth  of  even  the  lower  forms  of  fancy  requires  keen 
and  analytic  perception  of  those  objects  which  are  to  be  re^3ro- 
duced  by  act  of  fancy ;  it  also  requires  the  retentive  memory, 
which  holds  in  store  the  single  features  and  the  totals  of  the  re- 
produced objects.     ' 

^  3.  The  ordinary  psycliological  account  of  dreams  ascribes  them  almost 
wholly  to  the  reprodnction  of  mental  images  under  the  laws  of  associa- 
tion. No  doubt  reproductive  imagination,  so  called,  plays  a  large  rule  in 
the  drama  of  dream-life.  But  the  writer  of  this  treatise  knows  from  a  care- 
ful examination  of  experience  that  in  his  own  case  more  or  less  of  sen- 
sation-material is  woven  into  nearly  all  his  dreams.  Indeed,  a  scientific 
analysis  of  most  dreams,  wherever  the  data  are  sufficient,  shows  traces  of 
peripherally  excited  factors  entering  into  the  composition  of  the  dream. 
These  psychoses  are,  then,  more  like  real  '■'fancy  sketches,"  made  by  the  mind 
to  account  for  its  experiences,  than  pure  histories  of  what  has  occurred  under 
the  laws  of  suggestion.  The  "stuff"  of  which  dreams  are  made  is  really 
meagre  ;  the  tale  woven  ahout  it  by  the  imagination  may  be  absurdly  dispro- 
portionate. Such  were  the  cases  of  the  dreamer  that  explained  to  himself  a 
straw  between  his  toes  with  a  dream  about  robbers  who  ended  their  assault 
by  impaling  him  through  the  foot ;  or  of  the  man  who  in  sleep  was  forced 
into  a  mask  of  ])itc!h  which  was  then  torn  away  with  the  skin  of  his  lips— and 
all  duo  to  his  being  tickled  about  those  organs  with  a  feather  ;  or  of  the  asth- 
matic sleeper  who  projected  his  own  distress  for  breath  into  the  horse  of  the 
diligence  that,  in  his  dream,  was  carrying  him  over  the  Alps,  and,  having 
fallen  down,  lay  panting  and  dying  before  his  eyes.  Thus,  interesting  arwl 
yet  nonsensical  i)ages  of  print  may  bo  read  off  in  sleep — ajiparently  from  a 
book,  but  really  from  meaningless  dots  in  the  retinal  field  of  vision.' 

Now  it  is  plain  that  we  may  speak  of  such  work  as  this,  either  as  belong- 
ing to  memory,  or  to  reproductive  imagination,  or  to  creative  imagination; 

'  See  tlic  iirtidc  by  the  author  iu  Miiid.    New  Scries,  vol.  i.,  p.  299  f. 


AS   CREATIVE   IN   DREAMS   AND   INSANITY  413 

accoiiling  to  our  chosen  point  of  view.  But  certainly  the  fancy  of  thousands 
ni  dreamers  nightly  constructs  tales  quite  as  worthy  of  the  title  "  creative," 
and  quite  as  ingenious,  as  the  greater  number  of  the  current  novels.  In  this 
same  connection  may  be  mentioned  the  work  done  by  the  imagination  of  the 
insane  ;  for  example,  the  case  of  the  Russian  Nihil^t,  long  imprisoned,  for 
wliom  his  creaking  slippers,  as  he  paced  his  prison-cell,  became  "  the  haunt- 
ing voices  of  damned  fiends." 

On  a  still  lower  plane,  psychologically,  stand  those  instances  of  reproduc- 
tive imagination  where  the  members  of  the  series  are  bound  together  into 
scarcely  a  semblance  of  dramatic  unity.  This  is  a  form  of  development 
closely  connected  with  that  spontaneity  of  the  image-making  processes  to 
wlTich  attention  has  already  been  directed.  Here,  as  in  dreams,  an  increased 
rapidity  of  metamorphosis  takes  thei)lace  of  artistic  combination.  A  certain 
creation  takes  place  ;  but  chaos  is  the  result  rather  than  a  dramatic  unity. 
Thus  Grinthuisen  tells  us  how  he  once  dreamed  that  he  was  riding  a  horse, 
when  immediately  the  horse  became  a  buck,  the  buck'  became  a  calf,  the 
calf  a  cat,  the  cat  a  beautiful  maiden,  and  she,  an  old  woman.  The  tree 
on  which  the  cat  climbed  became  a  church,  and  this  a  garden  ;  the  playing  of 
-the  organ  in  the  church  changed  into  the  mewling  of  the  cat  and  this  into 
a  song  from  the  maiden,  etc.  Such  "  rout  "  of  the  imagination,  or  running 
riot  of  fancy,  cjiaracterizes  certain  well-known  forms  of  insanity.  In  some 
such  cases,  if  the  insane  person  is  artistically  inclined,  or  artistically  trained, 
the  product  of  the  imagination  may  take  on  a  vaguely  suggestive  and  ex- 
ceedingly weird  character.  Such  are  the  songs  sung,  the  pictures  drawn,  the 
poems  and  speeches  composed  in  madhouses.  Nor  have  instances  been 
wanting  where  ai\tists  of  alleged,  or  even  of  great  real,  merit  have — espe- 
cially, perhaps,  in  their  later  compositions,  when  unchecked  tendencies  to 
idiosyncrasies  of  fancy  had  developed — gone  "  half-mad,"  as  it  were,  in  their 
works  of  art.  Indeed,  certain  jjassages  in  the  greatest  dramatists  and  mu- 
sicians acquire  the  effect  they  have  over  our  imagination  by  their  suggestions 
of  the  author's  fancy  as  having  broken  free  from  all  laws  of  association,  as 
well  as  all  forms  of  reality.  The  capers  of  the  clown,  the  carnival,  the  pan- 
tomime, etc.,  certainly  do  not  excite  what  George  Eliot  has  called  "  the  ex- 
quisite laughter  that  comes  from  a  gratification  of  the  reasoning  faculty  ;  " 
but  they  at  least  spring  from,  and  appeal  to,  one  genuine  side  of  imagina- 
tive faculty  ;  they  thus  enable  a  good  wit  to  "  turn  diseases  to  commodity." 

§4.  Fortunately,  however,  most  of  the  acti\'ity  of  human  imagination 
more  obviously  bows  to  some  form  of  the  laws  of  association,  as  dependent 
upon  iierception,  memory,  and  thought.  Thus,  in  some  sort,  by  being  less 
spontaneous  and  productive,  the  fancy  is  more  tame  and  serviceable.  Such 
is  the  imagination  of  the  average,  steady-going  man  in  his  waking  life. 
Indeed,  the  character  of  its  working  determines,  to  a  considerable  extent,  the 
difference  between  waking  life  and  dream  life.  For,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  imagination  enters  into  all  perception  of  things ;  as  we  shall  soon  see, 
it  largely  constructs  the  world  as  known  to  science ;  while  the  world  in 
which  all  pure  mathematics  revels  is  its  creature  pai'  excellence.  But  in 
all  these  cases  imagination  creates  by  reproducing  under  the  limitations 
of  memory  as  dependent  upon  past  exj^erience,  and  of  thought  as  directed 
by  the  unchanging  forms  of  intellectual  development.     With  the  average 


414  IMAGINATION 

man,  in  all  matters,  and  with  the  highest  sound  imaginations  in  many 
matters,  these  limitations  are  narrowly  drawn.  They  forbid  the  man  of 
common-sense,  for  example,  to  imagine  that  water  can  burn  ;  as  they  are 
said  to  have  forbidden  the  king  of  Siam  to  imagine  that  it  could  become 
solid  enough  for  elephaj^s  to  walk  ui^on.  They  forbid  one  to  imagine  that 
yonder  object  is  a  man,  if  one  jjerceives  it  more  than  about  six  feet  high 
and  cannot  account  for  the  perception  as  illusory.  They  forbid  some  per- 
sons to  imagine  that  a  railroad  train  will  ever  run  more  than  eighty  miles 
an  hour  ;  and  others,  who  can  imagine  this,  that  we  shall  ever  really  cross 
the  Atlantic  in  flying-machines.  All  of  us  feel  bound  not  to  keep  trying 
to  imagine  the  body  A  as  passing  from  x  to  1/  without  touching  successively 
every  point  along  the  line  x  y ;  biit  not  bound  to  stop  trying  to  imagine 
how  atoms  look  and  how  luminiferous  ether  moves  in  the  form  of  light- 
waves. It  was  the  same  kind  of  "  common-sense  "  limitations  of  imagination 
which  first  led  Mr.  Spencer  to  posit  the  impossibility  of  "conceiving"  of  the 
Absolute  ;  and  upon  such  limitations,  in  no  small  degree,  are  the  celebrated 
cosmological  antinomies  of  Kant  based,  in  a  wholly  mistaken  Avay. 

But  the  large  amount  of  more  truly  creative  imagination,  hand  in  hand 
with  thought,  which  modifies  the  development  of  the  reproductive  faculty  of 
image-making,  keej^s  pushing  these  limitations  aside  and  moving  beyond 
them.  Or  rather,  the  imagination  itself  lifts  up  and  places  further  away  the 
limitations,  as  it  transcends  them  by  its  creative  acts.  How  this  is  done  we 
must  now  proceed  to  consider. 

Genuine  Productive  or  Creative  Imagination,  in  the  liig-lier 
meaning-  of  the  words,  involves  much  more  than  mere  combi- 
nation into  new  forms  of  the  factors  and  objects  of  past  expe- 
riences. Conscious  selective  activity  must  be  directed  upon 
these  factors  and  objects  with  a  view  to  the  realization  of  an 
ideal ;  but  in  saying  this,  it  is  implied  again  that  the  high- 
est exercises  of  so  -  called  imagination  require  a  correspond- 
ing development  of  the  allied  faculties  of  perception,  mem- 
ory, thought,  and  choice.  Every  ideal  is  itself  a  creation  of  the 
imagination  (and  herein  the  "  newness  "  of  the  object  is  found) ; 
it  may  seem  to  spring  from  the  first  almost  complete,  as  it  were, 
into  the  consciousness ;  but  it  is  more  likely  to  be  the  result 
of  a  growth,  and  its  very  comjilexity  in  unity  is  significant  of  an 
intelligent  recognition  given  to  the  necessity  of  choice  amoiu/ 
many  factors  and  many  objects  of  past  experience.  Creative 
ivuKjination  is,  then,  cdways  teleologlcal ;  it  is  consiructive  acconUnff 
to  a  plan.  Such  a  complex  mental  performance  involves  (1)  re- 
membered experience  in  the  form  of  past  presentations  of  sense 
and  of  self-consciousness ;  (2)  analysis,  by  discriminating  con- 
sciousness, of  these  presentation-exi)eriences  ;  (3)  desire  to  com- 
l)ino  the  factors,  discovered  by  analysis,  into  new  prodiicts — and 
this  often  accompanied  by  dissatisfaction  with  the  imperfections 
of  past  presentations  ;  (4)  some,  at  least  dim,  mental  picture  of  a 


I 


LIMITS    OF   ITS   PRODUCTIVITY  415 

new  unity  to  be  effected  by  the  combination,  as  its  end  (some 
semblance  of  an  "  ideal  "—that  is  to  say — held  before  the  mind). 
The  interests  served  by  creative  imaefination  arc  exceeding-ly 
various,  as  respects  the  character  of  its  ideals,  the  amount  of 
conscious  attention  given  to  selection  of  means,  and  the  amount 
of  feeling-  involved,  etc.  They  range  all  the  way  from  a  cook's 
construction  of  a  new  ragout  or  a  new  dressing-  for  salad  to  the 
activity  of  the  astronomer  Avho  rounds  out  the  solar  sj'stem 
by  inserting  the  as  yet  unseen  planet,  or  who  traverses  the 
space  beyond  the  remotest  discoverable  star  to  form  a  picture  of 
the  universe.  Strictly  speaking,  it  is  only  by  x>roductive  imagi- 
Vnation  that  we  can  complete  at  all  the  otherwise  fragmentary  ex- 
perience of  sense  and  self-consciousness.  By  it  one  puts  one's 
self  the  other  side  of  the  tree  yonder,  and  so  completes  a  jiicture 
of  the  object  as  having  a  far  side  as  well  as  a  near  side.  Only 
by  it  does  one  enter  the  arena  of  past  histories,  understand 
and  enjoy  biog-raphies,  comprehend  and  sympathize  with  one's 
fellow-men.  Thus  the  child  learns  to  play  his  part  upon  life's 
stage  by  practising,  in  anticipation,  Avith  an  almost  limitless 
variety  of  imagined  circumstances.  Thus,  too,  does  the  artist 
enter  into  the  very  heart  of  nature  and  intuit  the  beauty  and  the 
meaning  which  utterly  escape  all  scientific  analysis.  Or,  like 
the  musician  who  saw  "  all  heaven  opened  and  the  great  God 
sitting  on  his  throne,"  the  believer  in  the  tenets  of  religion 
transcends,  by  use  of  this  faculty,  the  bounds  of  memor}'^  and  of 
syllogistic  reasoning. 

?  5.  Detailed  statements  are  scarcely  needed  respecting  the  question 
how  far  imagination  can  be  truly  "  creative."  Nor  is  it  likely  tliat  snch 
statements  can  he  scientifically  made  and  defended.  On  the  one  hand, 
fixed  lines  cannot  be  drawn  in  definition  of  the  limits  within  which  new 
coml)iiiations  can  take  ])lace.  The  limHs  of  the  combinations  i)ossil)le  are 
very  variously  fixed — (1)  by  the  ends  sought  through  the  act  of  imagina- 
tion ;  (2)  by  the  skill  in  analytic  observation  and  synthetic  power  l)elong- 
ing  to  the  individual  ;  and  (3)  by  the  insuperable  laws,  the  ultimate  forms 
of  the  development  of  all  mental  life.  Thus  the  limitations  set  by  the  ends 
which  the  man  of  science  or  the  inventor  recognizes  dififer  greatly  from 
those  to  which  art  subjects  itself ;  and  each  form  of  art  acknowledges,  at 
least  in  some  indefinite  fashion,  its  own  jieculiar  limitations  (as  respects 
material  in  which  the  idea  of  the  imagination  must  be  realized,  method  of 
procedure,  etc.).  Prose  imaginative  literature,  for  exam])le,  recognizes 
some  vague  distinction  between  the  novel  and  the  I'omance  ;  the  dilTerent 
forms  of  musical  composition  (oratorio,  symphony,  etc.,)  observe  other  lim- 
itations. Again,  it  only  needs  saying  to  be  credited  that  different  individ- 
uals are  differently  limited  in  respect  of  this  so-called  creative  faculty, 
according  to  the  original  constitution  of  their  minds,  their  training,  and 


416  IMAGINATIOlSr 

their  jiast  experience.  But  in  attempting  to  deal  ■with  all  this  ^ve  are 
obliged  to  content  ourselves  with  vague  talk  about  those  mysteries  that  lie 
back  of,  and  beneath,  the  life  of  consciousness  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  history  of  human  imagination  is  full  of  the  most  astonishing  surprises,  of 
facts  of  sudden  and  single  displays  of  jiroductive  energy  that  quite  baffle 
all  attempts  at  explanation  from  heredity,  environment,  and  suggestion. 
Over  all,  however — serene  and  undisturbed,  and  eternal,  as  it  were — preside 
the  laws  of  mental  development.  For  by  this  figure  of  speech  we,  in  our 
ignorance,  record  the  simple  truth  that  space,  time,  and  causation  are  forms 
of  the  activity  of  creative  imagination,  as  well  as  of  the  most  servile  co2:)ying 
in  memory,  or  of  the  most  careful  scientific  devotion  to  the  facts  and  laws 
of  the  real  world. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  ordinarily  said  (and  to  this  we  have  already, 
p.  410  f.  given  a  qualified  assent)  that  no  "  perfectly  new  "  creation  is  possible 
for  the  most  active  imagination.  "  The  greatest  imaginative  genius,"  says 
Sully,'  "  would  strive  in  vain  to  picture  a  wholly  new  color."  But  here  much 
depends  on  what  we  are  to  understand  by  "  wholly  new."  For  the  number 
of  new  colors  employed  in  manufacture  and  the  arts  (now  as  compared 
with  those  of  ancient  Greece)  has  become  enormously  increased  ;  nor  do 
those  who  use  their  picturing  faculty  much  in  this  way  have  great  difficulty 
in  constructing  a  fancy  image  of  one  of  these  colors  when  guided  by  the 
memory-images  of  other  known  colors.  The  process  by  which  this  is  accom- 
plished may  be  described  somewhat  as  follows  :  Take  A  and  B  and  put  them 
together  in  such  and  such  proportions  to  imagine  C ;  or  B  is  just  about 
midway  between  A  and  G ;  or  B  is  a  little  "off"  from  A  or  C.  But  limits 
of  the  productive  imagination,  as  respects  the  construction  of  new  "  shades," 
"  tints,"  and  "  colors,"  are  not  even  thus  easy  to  fix.  Probably  many  per- 
sons, if  they  had  never  seen  orange,  could  easily  imagine  it,  on  being  told 
that  it  may  be  produced  by  a  mixture  of  red  and  yellow.  But  the  author  has 
never  yet  met  with  any  one  who  could,  previous  to  the  experimental  demon- 
stration, imagine  what  color  (seal-brown)  black  with  admixture  of  a  little 
white  and  a  little  orange  will  produce. 

In  all  imagination  of  wholly  new  creations  the  mind  taTces  its  point  of 
starling  from  one  or  more  memory-images  ;  and  then,  by  j)rocesses  of  combina- 
tion or  differentiation,  it  pictures  the  newly  created  object.  But  the  different 
degrees  of  fusion  and  intimate  association  which  the  processes  of  ideation 
have  already  reached  furnish  all  kinds  and  degrees  of  limitations  for  the 
imagination  of  the  individual.  Thus  no  color  can  bo  imagined  excejit  as 
colored  extension  ;  no  degree  of  smoothness  or  roughness,  except  as  smooth 
or  rough  surface,  etc. 

I  6.  It  is  customary  to  notice  the  dependence  of  imagination  upon  intel- 
lect, but  the  real  truth  of  this  i-elation  has  already  been  partially  explained 
in  a  much  more  profound  way.  If  by  "  intellect"  we  mean  developed  activ- 
ities of  thought  and  reasoning,  as  connected  Avith  the  use  of  language,  then 
sncli  faculty  may  properly  bo  said  to  be  necessary  to  the  development  of 
the  highest  ])rodnctivo  imagination.  The  i^rofounder  truth  is  tliis :  both 
thought  and  imagination  develop  out  of,  and  in  dependence  ui)on,  proc- 
esses of  ideation  co-ordinated  with  processes  of  primary  intellection — or 

'  The  Uuman  Mind,  I.,  p.  3C5. 


k 


DEPENDENCE  UPON   INTELLECT  417 

tliscriminating,  assimilating,  and  differentiating  conscioiisness.  Especially 
important,  however,  is  the  dependence  of  imagination  on  intellective  preseu- 
tation-exiierience,  on  perception  as  an  achievement  of  both  image-making 
and  thinking  faculty.  Such  j^erception  is  as  necessary  to  the  man  of  imag- 
ination as  to  the  man  of  science  ;  but  difTerent  aspects  of  the  object  are 
caught  in  the  two  cases,  and  the  end  sought  in  the  new  combination  is  also 
diti'erent.  The  imagination  of  th(^  inventor  and  of  the  artist  mnst  both  be 
stimulated  and  fed  by  discriminating  perception  ;  but  in  the  case  of  a 
painter,  his  eye  seizes  ujton  the  form  and  coloring  of  perceived  objects  in 
such  an  analytic  way,  and  so  fixes  it  in  memory,  that  it  may  serve  as  ma- 
terial for  his  art  in  the  future.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  musician, 
whose  perception  is  the  most  "interior"  of  all  artists.  Apropos  of  this  it 
may  be  noted  that  certain  Japanese  kakemonos  represent  their  old-time 
musicians  as  wandering,  with  their  simple  musical  instruments,  in  the  soli- 
tary places  of  nature  to  catch  the  various  notes  which  she  emits.  And  be- 
cause the  musical  art  of  this  people  never  got  beyond  the  lower  imitative 
stage,  it  is  confessedly  inferior  to  that  of  European  peoples  ;  for  imagination 
does  not  lose,  but  rather  gains,  in  intellectiial  quality  when  it  passes  beyond 
the  reproductive  stage  and  constructs  an  ideal  by  fashioning  over  the  ele- 
ments of  a  past  perceptive  experience. 

§  7.  The  origin  of  all  great  creations  of  imagination  is  necessarily 
more  or  less  enveloped  in  mystery.  Especially  is  this  true  when  we  see 
them  manifesting  a  relative  independence  of  the  development  of  what  we 
call  the  "thinking  faculty."  In  reflecting  upon  certain  phenomena  of  nat- 
ure, of  the  lower  animals,  and  of  the  lesthetical  j^roducts  of  human  activity, 
one  is  led  to  refer  much  to  the  unconscious,  or  to  so-galled  instinctive 
as  distinguished  from  intellective  and  voluntary  activity.  But  psychology, 
as  the  description  and  explanation  of  the  phenomena  of  human  conscious- 
ness, can  only  recognize  in  silence  the  so-called  unconscious  creative  imag- 
ination of  nature.  The  theory  of  instinct,  whether  in  man  or  in  the  lower 
animals,  is  not  much  clearer  ;  and,  as  has  just  been  said,  we  are  forced  to 
admit  that  psychological  science  cannot  wholly  explain  the  origin  of  certain 
products  of  creative  imagination.  Certainly  they,  not  infrequently,  arise  in 
such  way  as  to  give  countenance  to  the  word  "divine  ;"  and  this  word  is, 
psychologically  considered,  far  more  clear  and  intelligible  than  is  the  word 
unconscious.  Hence  we  have  no  fault  to  find  —  except  to  say  that,  of 
course,  such  phrases  are  not  scientific— with  Mozart's  father,  who  desig- 
nated as  "a  gift  of  God"  the  imagination  of  his  son,  when  at  first  sight  he 
played  the  grand  organ,  treading  its  pedals  aright ;  or  with  Kepler's  claim 
that,  in  imagining  the  laws  of  motion  he  "  read  the  thoughts  of  God"  after 
Him. 

Scientific  psvchology  is  warranted,  however,  in  insisting  upon  the  truth 
that,  as  a  rule,  the  growth  of  the  products  of  creative  imagination  under  the 
laws  of  association  of  ideas,  and  of  intellectual  progress,  can  be  definitely 
traced.  This  is  true  for  the  individual ;  and  it  is  also  true  for  the  race. 
Thus,  if  we  are  permitted  to  analyze  the  creations  of  the  imagination  (even 
those  of  the  greatest  genius),  and  are  furnished  with  data  for  tracing  the 
history  of  the  author's  mental  development,  we  can  largely  explain  the 
result  in  accordance  with  psychological  laws.     For  the  works  of  the  great 


27 


\^ 


418  IMAGINATION 

masters  are  understood  in  the  liglit  of  their  note-books,  sketch-books,  dia- 
ries, or  thoir  biographies,  their  acquaintance  with  the  ■works  of  others,  their 
natural  environment,  teachers,  etc.  Only  in  all  such  explanation  we  are 
finally  brought,  as  we  are  by  all  our  attempts  at  explanation,  face  to  face 
with  the  unexplained. 

§  8.  The  dependence  of  imagination  on  feeling  and  will  is  also  obvious. 
Even  more  sj^eedy,  sure,  and  vivid  are  the  stirrings  of  the  aflfective  accom- 
paniment for  this  form  of  faculty  than  for  percei^tion  or  thought.  To  create 
well  one  must  enter  by  feeling  into  the  most  interior  life  of  that  which  one 
creates.  This  is  true  even  of  so-called  cool  scientific  imagination.  The 
astronomer,  in  observing  or  in  calculating  from  data  of  observation,  puts 
feeling  as  far  as  jjossible  to  one  side.  But  in  order  really  to  imagine  the 
enormous  velocities  of  the  immense  masses  through  illimitable  space,  or  the 
incalculable  thermic  energy  of  the  central  mass  of  the  solar  system,  he  must 
rise  to  the  occasion  on  wings  that  take  notice  of  their  own  flight.  The  in- 
fluence of  this  affective  accompaniment  is  felt  in  the  time-rate  of  the  imagi- 
nation ;  it  is  beneficially  quickened  or  perturbed,  according  as  the  feeling  is 
excessive  antl  inaj^propriate,  or  not.  Conversely,  it  is  by  appeal  to  the  imag- 
ination that  feeling  is  aroused  and  guided.  In  fact,  mere  perception  (if 
indeed  we  can  speak  in  this  connection  of  jierceiitiou  without  imagination) 
has  comparatively  little  effect  on  feeling.  Thus  the  author  of  ' '  Masks  or 
Faces  ? "  has  shown  that  most  great  actors,  not  only  by  imagination  put 
themselves  in  the  place  of  the  characters  they  represent,  but  also  actually 
feel  the  appropriate  affective  accompaniments  of  those  characters.'  In  ordi- 
nary affairs  also,  sympathetic  feeling  and  a  sort  of  "  imaginative  contagion" 
go  hand  in  hand  ;  individuals  and  groups  of  persons,  when  moving  together 
for  a  common  end,  must  be  awakened  and  carried  forward  both  on  the  side 
of  emotion  and  on  the  side  of  imagination. 

But  cultivation  of  will  is  also  indispensably  connected  with  the  develop- 
ment of  productive  imagination.  Indeed  it  is  the  relation  to  the  volitions 
which  mainly  determines  the  difference  between  the  so-called  receptive 
and  the  creative  exercise  of  imagination.  In  the  more  purely  reproductive 
forms  of  this  faculty  we  seem  to  ourselves  to  let  our  fancy  "  nin ; "  our 
imaginings  are  left  to  "  take  care  of  themselves."  In  certain  less  purely 
reproductive  activities — as,  for  exami^le,  in  listening  to  a  jioem  being  read, 
or  to  a  drama  being  acted — we  are  called  upon  to  create  for  ourselves  ;  but  we 
create  as  directed  by  the  jjurposeful  imaginings  of  another.  In  these  cases 
even,  it  is  left  for  us  to  decide  whether  we  icill  construct  the  meaning  of  the 
poem,  or  the  setting  of  the  drama,  in  this  jmrticular  way  or  in  some  other. 
Thus  the  higher  forms  of  art  are  pre-eminently  suggeatire ;  they  invite  all  be- 
holders to  an  act  of  imagination  ;  but  they  leave  each  beholder  some  choice 
as  to  what  he  will  imagine.  The  secret  of  the  beauty  of  the  best  Japanese 
art  is  that  it  appeals  to  the  fancy  in  this  way  ;  its  weakness,  however,  is  often 
apparent  in  the  form  of  a  certain  excessive  vagueness,  a  lack  of  intellect- 
ual vigor,  and  a  tendency  to  excessive  sentimentalism.  In  similar  manner 
Wordsworth's  "feelings,"  that  lie  so  "doei^"  and  yet  are  excited  by  the 
"meanest  flower  that  blows,"  are  left  to  be  rendered  into  almost  anything  of 
a  definite  sort  that  any  reader  may  choose  to  imagine.    This  defect  we  express 

'  See  a  work  by  this  title  on  tlie  Psychology  of  Acting,  by  William  Archer. 


I 


I 


DEl'KXDEXCE    0:S    FIOKLING    AND    WILL  419 

by  saying  "one  does  not  know  what  to  imagine."  In  the  liigliest  products  of 
creative  imagination,  however,  developed  intellect  and  imagination  both 
excite  and  guide  the  choice  of  an  ideal,  and  of  means  carefully  selected  for 
its  realization.  The  case  of  works  of  art  is  often  presented  as  though  lofty 
and  pregnant  imagination  coukl  be  divorced  from,  or  were  even  opposite  to, 
the  choices  and  stresses  of  volition  and  the  conative  onsets  which  we  ascribe 
to  will.  But  this  is  not  so.  In  creative  imagination  of  the  highest  order  the 
man  must  will  what  he  imagines,  or  no  real  creation  takes  j^lace.  Gautier 
says  of  Balzac  that  he  did  not  "  copy "  the  two  or  three  thousand  types 
which  play  a  more  or  less  important  role  in  his  "  hiiman  comedy  ; "  he 
lived  them  ideally.  "  He  wore  their  clothes,  contracted  their  habits,  moved 
in  their  surroundings,  was  themselves — during  the  necessary  time."  For  the 
freedom  of  the  artist,  and  of  the  appreciative  beholder  of  the  work  of  art,  is 
not  independent  of  his  choice  ;  and  this  choice  extends  both  to  the  factors 
and  to  their  ideal  mode  of  synthesis. 

I  9.  But  the  work  of  creative  imagination  is  by  no  means  confined  to  gen- 
ius, or  to  artists,  or  to  persons  of  marked  talent  in  their  line.  What  is  called 
the  "real  world"  of  daily  experience  is  far  more  largely,  than  is  at  first  sup- 
posed, the  construction  of  the  productive  image-making  faculty.  The  ideal 
world  which  this  faculty  mingles  with  the  daily  life  of  the  average  man  is  an 
inexpressible  solace  to  the  soul.  For  without  his  dream  of  some  kind  no 
man  could  well  bear  to  exist.  Thus  we  read  of  a  certain  house-servant  who 
had  cherished  an  ardent  but  never-realized  desire  to  become  a  soldier ;  during 
the  day  the  poor  wretch  cleaned  boots,  but  by  night  he  dreamed  himself  a 
major  and  in  command  of  a  regiment.  In  somewhat  similar  fashion  children 
amuse  themselves  with  play  ;  the  lover  enjoys  the  iM'esence  of  his  absent  mis- 
tress ;  the  mother  fondly  dwells  over  the  virtues  and  iwospects  of  her  far- 
away child ;  or  the  business  man  sustains  and  stimulates  himself  with  the 
prospects  of  what  he  shall  gain  and  be  when  "his  ship  comes  in."  On  the 
other  hand,  all  manner  of  depressing,  fearful,  and  corrupting  superstitions 
are  baleful  fruits  of  the  productive  imagination.  Under  its  influence  the 
same  child  who  has  played  merrily  by  day  covers  his  head  beneath  the 
bedclothes  by  night,  or  sits  shivering  in  the  dark  room  to  which  he  has  been 
consigned  for  punishment.  If  we  are  to  believe  Bourget— and  many  in- 
stances support  the  conclusion— it  is  with  youth  especially  that  the  "  frenzied 
power  of  imagination  turns  to  torture."  But  savage  peoples  generally,  and 
the  more  ignorant  in  all  countries,  produce  by  diligent  exercise  of  this  faculty 
a  world  of  weird  and  horrid  shapes  and  events  that  gain  easily  the  belief  iu 
their  reality  which  attaches  itself  to  all  objects  of  vivid  constructive  mental 
activity.  And  here  the  popular  and  the  artistic  uses  of  the  imagination  blend 
indistinguishably  in  their  results  ;  for  varied  "  folk-lore,"  ballads,  fairy  tales, 
and  fables  thus  emerge  and  become  parts  of  literature.  With  men,  gener- 
ally, it  is  the  creative  imagination  which  adds  so  vastly  to  the  significance 
of  death — something  far  beyond  that  instinctive  repulsion  to  the  threat  of 
dissolution  which  the  higher  of  the  animals  are  supposed  to  show. 

It  is  not  this  pleasure-  and  pain-giving  work  of  productive  imagination, 
however,  which  we  have  here  chiefly  in  mind.  The  rather  is  it  the  extension 
of  that  profound  truth  which  we  have  already  seen  illustrated  in  many  ways  ; 
perception  itself  involves  idealization ;  the  percept  is  largely  the  creation  of 


420  IMAGINATIOlSr 

the  image-making  activity  of  mind.  In  saying  this  we  do  not  reject  the  dis- 
tinction between  what  we  know  to  be  real  and  what  we  know  to  be  the  result 
merely  of  productive  imagination.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  only  by  develop- 
ment of  the  imagination,  under  proper  discipline,  that  the  way  is  prepared 
for  establishing  such  distinctions  in  a  valid  manner.  As  Gutlie  said  :  "  Im- 
agination is  the  preparatory  school  of  thought."  For  the  child,  the  savage, 
the  half-tutored  man,  the  total  world  in  which  he  lives  is  a  very  mixed  affair, 
created  scarcely  less  by  his  fancy  than  by  solid  jDcrceptive  and  inferential 
knowledge.  And  for  us  all,  however  highly  developed,  the  boundaries  be- 
tween the  real  and  the  ideal,  between  what  we  can  say  we  know  on  iiTe- 
proachable  grounds  of  experience  and  what  we  imagine,  are  never  irremovably 
fixed. 

The  distinction  of  Kinds  of  Imag-ination  is  somewhat  impor- 
tant for  understanding-  the  psychology  of  this  facility.  For  pro- 
ductive imagination  has  many  ends  to  serve,  and  these  ends  must 
be  served  in  somewhat  markedly  diflerent  ways ;  while  the  pur- 
pose of  memory  is  substantially  one  throughout.  The  impor- 
tance of  this  consideration  is  enhanced  also  by  the  fact  that,  both 
in  the  scientific  and  in  the  popular  estimate,  the  province  of  this 
form  of  mental  function  has  been  far  too  narrowly  conceived. 

The  kinds  of  imagination  may  be  distinguished  according  to 
the  subjects  to  which  its  productive  activity  is  applied.  Such 
a  division,  though  made  on  indirect  lines,  is  a  real  classification, 
because  the  real  differences  in  the  exercise  of  the  faculty  are  so 
largely  determined  by  differences  in  its  subject-matter  and  its 
chosen  end.  Thus  we  derive  (1)  practical  imagination  ;  (2)  scien- 
tific imagination  ;  (3)  artistic  or  festhetical  imagination  ;  and  (4) 
ethical  and  religious  imagination. 

The  foregoing  distinctions  in  kind,  although  well  founded, 
are  relative  and  not  mutually  exclusive.  For  example,  the  im- 
agination of  the  inventor  or  the  artist  must  partake  of  scientific 
quality ;  nor  can  the  discoverer  of  nature's  wide-reaching  laws 
dispense  with  mental  activity  resembling  that  which  furnishes 
conditions  for  the  highest  art-work.  Again,  the  sesthetical  uses 
of  imagination  are  most  closely  akin  to  the  ethical  and  the  re- 
ligious, as  the  history  of  art  and  religion  would  confirm  the 
analysis  of  i^sychology  in  showing.  Yet  further,  since  both  the 
practical  and  the  ethical  concern  the  one  sphere  of  conduct,  it 
is  evident  that  th(^se  two  kinds  are  closely  allied.  In  a  word, 
the  one  creative  human  mind  develops  a  variety  of  ideals  that 
have  respect  to  different  forms  of  its  interest  and  its  activities, 
and  by  discriminating  intelligence  and  selective  attention,  with 
choice,  sets  itself  to  the  approximate  realization  of  these  ideal 
ends.  Hence  imagination  is  in  some  sort  an  undorhnng  and 
unifying  mental  activity  that  overleaps  those  barriers  of  space 


AS   DISTINGUISHED   FROM   FANCY  421 

autl  time  wliicli  reality  respects,  and  thus  binds  the  data  of  im- 
mediate experience  into  an  ideal  whole,  in  preparation  for  the 
supreme  synthesis  of  the  reasoning-  faculty.  And  if  intellect 
chastens  imagination  with  reg-ard  for  fact  and  law,  imagination 
outstrips  intellect,  since  it  is  a  pioneer  and  exciter  of  revolt 
ag-ainst  what  is  merely  "  conformable  to  past  experience ; "  and 
with  it  the  intellect  cannot  dispense. 

The  ordinary  distinction  between  Fancy  and  Imag-ination  is 
fairly  well  taken  ;  but  it  introduces  a  subdivision  which  properly 
belong-s  under  the  sesthetical  imagination,  and  which  is  some- 
what vague,  and  at  best  only  a  matter  of  degrees.  For  these 
very  reasons  imagination  is  a  much  broader  term  than  fancy. 
To  apply  the  words  "i)ractical"  and  "scientific"  to  the  term 
fancy  would  seem  to  be  inappropriate  ;  and  it  is  only  with 
some  show  of  contempt  that  one  would  speak  of  the  ethical 
and  religious  imag-ination  as  identical  with  a  similar  w'ork  of 
fancy.  But  certain  art-work,  which  is  the  construction  of  the 
imag-e-making  faculty  as  related  to  the  excitement  of  a3sthetical 
feeling — may  properly  be  spoken  of  as  belonging  under  the 
rubric — "  the  fanciful."  With  this  understanding  even,  we  should 
hesitate  as  to  where  to  classify  many  a?sthetical  compositions ; 
for  they  might  equally  well  be  spoken  of  as  belonging  to  fancy 
or  to  imagination.  But,  in  general,  fancy  is  distinguished  from 
imagination  (1)  by  having  less  regard  for  the  probable  as  de- 
termined by  known  facts  and  laws  ;  (2)  by  being  less  likely  to 
be  connected  with  practical  interests  other  than  that  of  mere 
amusement  (fancy  may  be  "  tickled,"  imagination  must  be 
"  awakened  "  and  "  fed  ")  ;  (3)  by  being  less  bound  by  considera- 
tions of  method  in  the  attainment  of  its  lower  and  more  imme- 
diate end ;  (4)  and  consequently,  by  being  narrower  in  the  range 
of  subjects  to  which  it  can  be  applied ;  (5)  by  serving  more  tem- 
porary issues,  but  tiring  and  disgusting  if  the  attempt  be  made  to 
render  it  an  object  of  enduring  or  frequent  intuition  ;  and  (6)  when 
successful,  by  ministering  to  a  lower  form  of  sesthetical  feeling. 

?  10.  It  is  a  truism  to  say  that  without  jvactical  imagination  no  occupation 
can  successfully  be  carried  on.  By  imagination  the  end  to  be  attained,  how- 
ever lowly  and  immediate,  is  held  before  the  mind  and  thus  the  nature  of 
the  practice  determined  ;  thus  also  are  the  separate  transactions  modified 
according  to  the  relation  which  they  are  found  to  sustain  as  means  to  this 
end.     For  as  Schiller  says  in  his  "  Song  of  the  Bell :  " 

"It  is  just  this  whicli  manhood  graces, 

And  'tis  for  tliis  his  mind  should  stand, 
That  in  his  hoart  he  ever  traces 

What  he  coustructs  with  his  own  hand." 


422  IMAGINATION 

The  savage  who  shai^es  to  its  more  perfect  iisds  liis  bow  and  qniver  of 
arrows  ;  the  boy  who,  on  beginning  geometry,  takes  chalk  and  string  in 
hand  with  the  purpose  both  to  realize  and  to  perfect  his  inchoate  idea  of  a 
circle  or  an  ellipse  ;  the  mother  who  by  anticipatory  act  of  imagination  for- 
tifies her  courage  and  resists  the  oncoming  pains  of  maternity  ;  or  the 
patient  who  collapses  at  the  bare  sight  of  the  dentist's  easy-chair — all  of  us, 
in  every  deed  of  all  our  work-a-day  living,  illustrate  the  uses  of  the  practical 
imagination.  The  entire  world  of  experience  is  liable  to  be  lived  over  in 
three  different  ways — once  in  imagination  that  jDrojects  and  anticipates 
as  here  and  now  present  what  is  really  yonder  and  in  the  future  ;  once  in 
what  we  call  actual  and  living  experience,  the  immediate  awareness  of  per- 
ception and  self-consciousness ;  and  yet  once  more  in  memory. 

Those  of  the  race,  however  unknown  to  history,  who  do  the  really  fine 
and  great  things  of  a  so-called  practical  kind,  must  have  unusual  endow- 
ment, good  training,  and  active  functioning  of  the  productive  imagination. 
Without  this  great  practical  enterprises  cannot  be  jDlanned  or  carried  to  any 
measure  of  success.  As  a  modern  writer  on  this  subject  has  truly  said  : 
•'  Imagination  is  the  creative  origin  of  what  is  fine,  not  in  art  and  song  alone 
but  also  in  all  forms  of  action,  in  campaigns,  civil  triumphs,  material  con- 
quests." Certain  men  of  genius,  or  of  high  order  of  talents  in  practical 
achievements  may  indeed  be  lacking  in  certain  kinds  of  productive  imagi- 
nation ;  they  may  be  relatively  poor  in  strictly  scientific,  or  a3sthetical,  or 
ethical  and  religious  imagination.  But  they  cannot  be  lacking  in  that  crea- 
tive activity  of  the  representative  faculty  which  sets  before  the  mind  ideals 
of  what  is  new  and  larger  than  the  measure  of  past  experience.  So  they 
who  plan  great  business  enterprises,  or  political  and  military  campaigns,  as 
well  as  they  who  plan  dramas  and  musical  compositions,  must  have  minds  of 
large  capacity  for  some  kind  of  productive  imagination.  And  perhaps  as 
many  have  failed  miserably  in  such  manner  of  enterprises  through  lack  of 
expansive  faculty,  as  on  account  of  excess  in  devising  generous  plans  for  the 
attainment  of  high  ends,  without  sufficiently  careful  calculation  respecting 
materials  and  means  of  realization. 

^  11.  To  listen  to  the  claims  of  certain  modern  advocates  of  the  triumphs 
of  science,  one  would  suppose  that  all  which  is  covered  by  this  title  must 
be  founded  on  the  most  exact  and  carefully  limited  perception,  with  an  ex- 
tension only  along  strictly  guarded  lines  of  mathematical  demonstration  or 
reasoning,  capable  of  being  experimentally  tested.  But  the  truth  is  that 
what  is  called  "science"  is — all  of  it — very  largely  the  work  of  constructive 
imagination  ;  scarcely  less  largely  so  than  is  the  work  of  the  aitist  in  words, 
or  tones,  or  colors.  Indeed,  there  are  many  artistic  delineations  of  life 
(some  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  for  example,  or  not  a  few  modern  novels) 
which  wo  may  know,  by  a  careful  comparison,  to  be  more  nearly  true  rep- 
resentatives of  reality  than — in  all  probability — certain  current  scientific 
theories  would  prove  to  be,  if  only  wo  could  ever  kiwro  how  correctly  the 
latter  do  represent  reality.  As  Professor  C.  C.  Everett  has  said  :  "  The  the- 
ory of  evolution,  whether  it  be  true  or  false,  is  as  truly  a  creation  of  the 
mind  as  the  fables  of  iEsop,  where  the  monkey  and  the  fox  talk  together. 
The  fable  may  be  more  fanciful,  the  theory  may  be  more  imaginative." 

Let  what  is  called  the  "body"  of  any  of  the  physical  sciences  be  ex- 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   IMAGHSTATION  423 

amined  in  detail  wlu-n  testing  the  statement  just  made.  But,  in  the  first 
place,  let  it  be  remembered  that  what  is  said  to  be  observed  is,  in  truth,  very 
largely  constructed  by  the  imagination.  No  one  accustomed  to  the  use  of 
the  higher  powers  of  the  microscope  can  for  a  moment  doubt  this,  as  respects 
what  is  seen  lander  its  lenses.  Indeed,  ichdt  is  seen  depends,  not  so  much 
upon  the  \n\Y6  sense-data  as  upon  interi)retation  —  upon  the  reading  into 
these  data  of  the  appropriate  mental  images.  For  example,  in  nerve-histol- 
ogy the  cuts  of  the  ordinary  text-books  picture  imagined  characters,  the 
exact  likeness  of  which  no  one  can  find  in  actual  uorve-preiiarations.  No 
one  can  find  anything  in  i^articular  in  these  preparations  Avho  is  not  him- 
self prepared  by  constructive  imagination  to  i:)icture  what  he  is  to  find. 
And  the  history  of  the  growth  of  this  science  is  full  of  illustrations  of  the 
truth  that  different  observers  noi  infrequently  do  find  what  they  imagine  they 
shall  find.  What  is  true  in  high  degree  of  this  most  difficult  science  of  ob- 
servation is  true— although  in  less  degree — of  all  similar  sciences.  The  de- 
mands made  upon  the  mind  by  these  sciences  corresj^ond  with  the  method 
of  training  which  they  furnish  to  the  mind.  As  a  recent  writer  has  said  of 
geology,  it  trains  the  mind  in  "  the  method  by  which  theoretical  order  is 
made  out  of  the  interminable  confusion  and  complexity  of  natural  things." 

What  is  true  of  the  observational  basis  of  modern  science  is  pre-eminently 
true  of  its  theoretical  development.  For  modern  science  is  not  more  dis- 
tinguished for  its  widely  extended  and  carefully  guarded  observation  than 
for  its  subtile  and  stupendous  theories.  But  every  theory  is  the  product, 
of  necessity  and  by  virtue  of  its  very  nature  as  theory,  of  the  construc- 
tive imagination.  It  is  a  synthesis  exijlanatory  of  facts  hy  reference  to  cin  ideal 
principle.  And  what  a  marvellous  complex  equipment  of  entities  and  laws 
is  that  with  which  the  devotee  of  the  natural  sciences  finds  himself  pos- 
sessed whenever  he  resorts  to  this  treasure-house  of  the  i^icture-making 
faculty  !  Here  are  beings  and  modes  of  behavior,  not  only  unlike  anything 
that  comes  within  the  sphere  of  perceptive  reality,  but  even  combining 
within  themselves  the  idealized  potencies  of  most  contradictory  real  qual- 
ities. Such  are  the  luminiferous  ether,  the  electricity  that  is  a  physical 
entity,  perchance,  without  having  mass,  the  atoms  that  are  too  large  to  be 
imagined  as  mere  points,  and  yet  not  large  enough  to  be  imagined  in  terms 
of  sensuous  imagination,  whether  of  sight  or  touch.  The  changes  which  are 
ceaselessly  going  on  in  these  beings,  and  which  theoretically  underlie  and 
accoiint  for  all  jihysical  change,  make  the  most  exhausting  demands  upon 
constructive  imagination,  if  we  are  to  have  any  idea  whatever  as  to  what 
these  beings  are  really  about.  Especially  do  biological  and  geological 
science,  with  their  theory  of  evolution,  require  from  this  faculty  an  exercise, 
stretching  through  countless  eras  of  time,  and  picturing  processes  in  the 
wombs  and  brains  of  extinct  animals,  and  in  the  capillary  vessels  of  plants, 
etc.,  that  no  eye  has  ever  seen  or  ever  could  have  seen.  And  we  refrain 
from  speaking  in  this  connection  of  those  immeasurable  "  gaps  "  and  "  miss- 
ing links,"  and  "sudden  Icajis,"  and  infinitesimally  small  "  variations,"  on 
which  imagination  must  draw  ad  lihifum,  if  any  satisfactory  theory  of  evolu- 
tion is  to  be  set  up  and  maintained. 

These  large  drafts  upon  the  human  faculty  for  making  i)ictures  of 
the   ideal   are  not  here  spoken  of  with  the  intention  to  reproach  modern 


424  IMAGIlSrATION 

physical  science  for  excessive  imagination.  Far  from  this  ;  but,  on  the  con- 
traiy,  our  intention  is  to  show  that  science,  too,  is  artistic,  and  that  her 
art  is  born  of  the  same  jiarentage  with  that  of  the  poet  and  the  dramatist. 
Only  the  important  difference  concerns  the  principles  which  regulate  imagi- 
nation in  the  two  cases,  and  the  character  of  the  ends  which  are  to  be  served. 
It  is,  moreover,  a  significant  fact  in  history  that  many  of  the  most  important 
discoveries  in  mathematics  and  the  natural  sciences  have  been  due  to  the 
constructive  imagination  of  poets  and  philosophers.  But  has  not  Mr. 
Tyudall '  himself  declared  that,  when  ' '  nourished  by  knowledge  patiently 
won,  and  bounded  and  conditioned  by  operant  reason,  imagination  becomes 
the  mightiest  instrument  of  the  physical  discoverer  ?  " 

^  12.  It  is  universally  acknowledged  that  artistic  and  sesthetical  excel- 
lence depends  upon  the  activity  of  creative  imagination.  The  connection  of 
such  activity  with  the  excitement  of  feeling  has  already  been  remarked ;  it 
will  be  still  better  understood  after  our  subsequent  discussion  of  the  nature 
and  kinds  of  ajsthetical  sentiments.  Since  the  one  end  of  all  jesthetical 
imagination  is  to  express  and  appeal  to  aesthetical  feeling,  the  limitations  of 
the  different  kinds  of  sesthetical  imagination  are  set  by  differences  in  the 
means  necessary  to  reach  this  end.  Here,  however,  fancy,  in  its  more  un- 
governed  and  grotesque  forms,  may  combine  the  results  of  past  visualizings 
into  new  constructions  that  regard  only  the  limitations  of  space-form,  while 
quite  overstepping  all  the  boundaries  of  material  reality.  Such  are  the 
"  castles  in  the  air,"  or  "  the  houses  that  crown  the  top  of  Jack's  bean-stalk." 
In  the  realization  of  this  work  of  imagination  the  more  particular  limitations 
are  further  determined  by  the  character  of  the  material  employed ;  this  is 
also,  of  course,  closely  connected  with  the  character  of  the  end  to  be 
reached.  By  these  forms  of  art  not  too  complex  ideas  may  be  presented  in 
pictorial  form.  "  Pictures  and  statues  are  the  books  of  the  peojjle,"  said 
St.  Augustine. 

In  music  notes  of  different  timbre  are  combined  in  a  rhythmic  way  by  the 
constructive  faculty.  Here,  however,  the  peculiarly  "interior"  qiiality  of 
the  material  has  a  i^rofound  effect  upon  the  work  of  the  creative  imagination. 
The  painter,  architect,  or  sculptor  can  project  his  visualizings  into  objective 
space,  as  it  were,  and  look  upon  them  as  something  separable  from  the 
activity  of  his  own  which  creates  them.  For  this  it  is  not  necessary  that  he 
should  wait  until  the  mental  images  have  been  set  on  canvas,  or  into  wood 
or  marble.  But  the  musician,  while  composing,  hears  only  the  harmonies 
he  creates,  and  creates  them  only  as  he  hears  them  reverberating  within  the 
concert-chamber  of  his  own  brain.  Thus  we  read  of  Mozart  that  the  airs  he 
wrote  or  played  imjiromptu  were  only  a  part  of  those  which  the  divine 
faculty  played  for  him  to  hear  ;  and  that  he  could  not  well  avoid  listening  to 
what  was  going  on  in  his  ears,  or  stop  it  sounding  until  it  had  been  cast 
forth  upon  paper.  All  this  corresponds  exactly  with  the  nature  of  the  sen- 
sations and  perceptions  of  sound.  Further  limitations  are  set  to  the  imag- 
ination in  music  by  the  laws  of  consonance  and  dissonance.  As  to  tlie 
growth  of  this  form  of  aisthetical  imagination  the  history  of  music  is  most 
instructive.  Enlarged  scope  was  given  to  this  faculty  when  the  discovery 
was  made  that  two  or  more  arias  could  bo  simultaneously  sung,  if  only  their 

•  The  Scientific  Use  of  the  Imagination,  p.  6. 


IN   MUSIC   AND   POETRY  425 

successive  notes  stood  in  certain  relations,  without  a  disagreeable  effect  from 
dissonance.  But  only  when  the  modern  harmony  siicceeded  counterpoint,  was 
the  wide  world  of  musical  glories  opened  before  the  creative  imagination  ; 
and  with  the  increased  number  and  power  of  the  musical  instruments  at 
command  the  artist  in  tones  is,  of  all  others,  most  gloriously  free.  Yet  there 
is  no  more  affecting  tribute  to  the  incredible  achievements  of  the  masters  of 
this  form  of  constructive  faculty  than  to  compare  the  works  of  Beethoven  or 
Haydn,  as  rendered  by  modern  instrumentation,  with  the  feeble  sensuous 
result  which  must  have  been  produced  by  the  instruments  on  which  these 
masters  composed  them.  It  was  surely  what  imagination  wrought,  and  not 
what  the  senses  received,  that  carried  the  tokens  of  such  grandeur ! 

It  is  in  poetry,  however,  that  the  constructive  imagination  attains  its  lof- 
tiest exercise  ;  for  here  it  is  more  completely  joined  with  the  higher  intel- 
lectual processes  of  thinking,  and  it  emi^loys  language  as  the  vehicle  of  ex- 
pression and  means  of  appeal  to  other  minds.  Here,  then,  its  creative  work 
consists  in  combining  conceptions  into  such  pictorial  forms  as  lend  them- 
selves to  intuition  of  their  meaning  with  an  accompaniment  of  appropri- 
ate sesthetical  feeling.  Thus  in  poetry  the  whole  soul  expresses  itself,  as 
it  were,  through  the  channels  of  constructive  image-making  faculty.  On 
account  of  the  nature  of  the  material  employed  (conception  and  its  embodi- 
ment in  words),  poetic  creations  must  be  more  "  thoughtful "  than  is  the 
case  with  the  other  arts — j^ainting  standing  next  in  this  regard,  and  music 
farthest  away.  Unless  imagination  is  clarified  by  thought,  its  highest  crea- 
tive work  in  poetry  is  impossible.  As  Joubert  has  said  :  "  The  true  poet 
has  a  mind  full  of  very  clear  images,  while  ours  is  only  filled  with  confused 
descriptions."  But  all  the  unfathomable  mystery  of  life  may  be  clearly 
imaged  by  poetry,  as  well  as  its  recognizable  aspects  and  more  undoubted 
teachings,  with  a  fulness  and  variety  more  nearly  corresjjonding  to  reality 
than  is  the  case  with  other  arts.  Hence,  with  the  proper  limitations,  it  is 
not  wholly  improjper  to  say :  "  The  imagination  is  in  a  si^ecial  sense  the 
poetic  faculty." 

It  belongs  to  a  more  special  psychology  to  discuss  the  mental  origin  and 
significance  of  all  those  various  forms  of  pictorial  representation  which 
poetry  (and,  indeed,  in  a  more  limited  way,  all  the  other  arts)  employs.  But 
the  connection  of  the  work  of  constructive  imagination  with  percei)tion 
should  be  again  noticed  here.  It  is  not  i^rimarily  the  association  of  ideas 
by  similarity  and  contrast  which  accounts  psychologically  for  tropes,  similes, 
and  the  various  figures  of  speech  which  poets  employ  ;  it  is  rather  primarily 
the  activity  of  lively  fancy  or  vivid  imagination  in  connection  with  percep- 
tion. The  determining  experience  is,  for  the  poet  this — that  he  sees  and 
hears  something  more  than,  and  different  from,  the  ordinary  observer  in  the 
presentations  of  sense  and  of  self-consciousness.  It  is  the  idea  as  intuited 
in  the  perception  rather  than  as  suggested  by  another  idea  which  he  catches 
as  others  do  not.  It  is  the  fundamental  difference  in  his  perceptive  in- 
terests and  experiences  which  furnishes  him  with  his  jjeculiar  eqiiipment  of 
associated  ideas  for  the  use  of  constructive  imagination.  In  general,  scsthet- 
ical  imagination  feeds  upon  what  it  finds,  by  inttiitiou  of  the  ideal,  as  pres- 
ent in  the  concrete  and  individual  experience — the  presentation  of  sense  or 
self-consciousness. 


426  IMAGINATION 

?  13.  Finally,  ethics  and  religion  are  quite  impossible  without  a  lofty  and 
expansive  use  of  imagination.  It  is  requisite — as  will  be  shown  more  clearly 
later  on — to  the  exercise  and  development  of  conscience  that  some  ideal 
of  conduct  and  character  should  be  framed.  This  is  true  of  the  very  begin- 
nings of  what  is  truly  ethical,  and  of  the  lower  grades  of  its  development. 
Until  the  distinction  is  made,  however  dimly,  between  what  is  and  that  which 
ought  to  be,  the  sphere  of  ethics  has  not  been  experimentally  entered  upon. 
But  "that  which  ought  to  be,"  as  distinguished  from  that  which  only  has  been  or 
is  now,  must  be  constructed  by  image-making  faculty.  And  if  we  will  reflect, 
we  shall  find  that  all  conduct,  as  distinguished  from  mere  action,  implies 
the  work  of  mentally  constructing  standards,  ideals,  and  new  combinations 
of  means  to  be  employed  in  the  attainment  of  ends  (what  "  I  ought  to  do," 
or  "  ought  to  have  done,"  under  a  given  set  of  circumstances,  in  order  to 
gain  this,  and  to  be  that,  etc.).  The  word  "  right,"  in  its  genuine  ethical 
meaning,  stands  for  some  sort  of  an  ideal ;  and  all  ideals  are  the  construc- 
tion of  imagination,  suffused  with  feeling  and  guided  by  reasoning  faculty. 

If  what  has  just  been  said  is  true  for  the  very  beginnings  of  ethical  life, 
it  is,  of  course,  pre-eminently  true  for  the  men  of  genius  or  unusual  talents 
in  this  line  of  life.  It  has  been  said  that  "imagination  has  impelled  even 
the  saints  and  the  martyrs  of  humanity."  Leaving  out  the  word  "  even  "  and 
changing  the  word  "  impelled  "  (for  it  is  feeling  that  impels),  we  may  at 
once  admit  that  moral  heroism  is  impossible  without  the  power  to  construct 
high  moral  ideals.  Indeed,  the  man  who  seems  to  be  a  hero  in  the  matter  of 
courage,  fidelity,  or  self-sacrifice,  but  who  does  the  deed  by  habit  merely, 
or  by  stress  of  will,  without  any  mental  picture  of  its  significance  as  related 
to  some  ideal,  is  no  real  hero  at  all.  It  is  as  true  of  ethical  as  of  sesthetical 
imagination  that  it  is  essentially  an  idealizing  process. 

That  the  alleged  entities  and  principles  recognized  by  religious  faith  and 
worship  are  dependent  upon  constructive  imagination  no  one  will  be  found 
to  deny.  This  is  i3erhaps  no  more  true,  although  more  obvious,  than  the  de- 
pendence of  scientific  theory  upon  the  same  faculty.  In  any  intelligent  use 
of  words  like  "the  Infinite,"  "the  Absolute,"  or  of  terms  designating  the 
predicates  and  attribirtes  and  activities  of  Deity — such  as  his  eternity,  om- 
nipotence, unity,  and  even  his  wisdom  and  truth,  etc. — the  combined  ener- 
gizing of  imagination  and  thought,  in  a  very  high  degree  of  the  exercise  of 
both  these  facilities,  is  necessarily  implied.  But  the  religious  imagination 
is  in  many  respects  more  closely  allied  with  the  aisthetical  than  with  the 
scientific ;  while,  of  course,  its  connection  with  ethical  imagination  is  so 
close  and  important  that  it  is  in  fact  difficult  to  separate  between  the  two. 
Ethical  and  religious  imagination,  however,  is  more  nearly  allied  to  the 
scientific  than  to  the  rosthetical,  in  at  least  one  important  respect ;  it  makes 
an  appeal  to  observation  and  to  inference,  in  the  world  of  reality,  for  a  sup- 
port to  its  ideal  creations.  This — as  has  already  beeu  said — is  one  reason 
why  fancy,  as  distinguished  from  imagination,  is  tolerable  and  even  pleas- 
ing in  art ;  but  is  not  so  in  science,  conduct,  and  religion. 

The  Development  (and  cultivation)  of  Imag-ination  is  an  im- 
portant ])art  of  psycliolopfical  praxis.  Its  g-eneral  rules,  how- 
ever, follow  pretty  plainly  from  the  laws  of  the   reproductive 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   IMAGINATION"  427 

activity  as  tliey  have  already  been  discussed.  But  since  the  cult- 
ure should  always  be  special,  all  the  most  api)roi)riate  maxims 
depend  u^jon  tlu^  conditions  of  the  different  kinds  of  imagina- 
tion. The  scientitic  imagination,  as  cultivated  in  a  way  special 
to  its  kind,  will,  of  itself,  scarcely  be  favorable  to  the  development 
of  the  aisthetical  or  the  ethico-relig-ious  imagination.  It  will 
even  need  much  tempering-  in  order  to  be  most  serviceable  in  so- 
called  "  practical  life."  On  the  other  hand,  a  high  order  of  les- 
thetical  imag-ination  is  attainable  with  little  or  no  ability  to  form 
an  adequate  conception  of  that  world  of  atoms  and  forces  and 
physical  laws  in  which  science  revels.  While  that  men  who  con- 
fess no  difficulty  in  picturing-  the  nature  and  the  behavior  of  lu- 
miniferous  ether,  and  of  other  imag-inary  physical  entities,  flhd 
themselves  quite  unable  to  imagine  the  entities  of  religion,  there 
is  no  lack  of  examples  to  show.  In  fine,  the  very  nature  of  imag- 
ination makes  an  "  all-around  "  cultivation  of  it,  to  a  high  degTce 
of  attainment,  very  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  achieve. 

[In  addition  to  the  works  already  cited,  end  of  Chapter  XIII.,  compare  the  following  : 
Addison  :  Spectator,  Nos.  411-419.  Leigh  Hunt :  Imagination  and  Fancy.  Joly  :  L'lmag- 
ination.  Maass  :  Versuch  iiber  d.  Einbildungskraft.  Frohschammor :  Die  Phantasie  als 
(irnndprincip  d.  Welti)rocesses.  Oclzelt-Newin  :  Uebcr  Phanta'iie  -  Vor.^itellungen.  Ra- 
bier  :  Lec'Ons  de  Philosophic,  I.,  chaps,  xvii.,  xviii.  Fricdrich  :  Die  Entstehnng  d.  Wahn- 
sinnes.  Cohen  :  Die  dichteri.sche  Pliantasie.  Schniidkunz  :  Analytisclie  iind  synthetische 
Phantasie.  Lowenfeld  :  Physiognoniik  nnd  Alimik.  Siebeck  ;  Das  Wesen  d.  Ksthetischen 
Anschauung.  Hecker  :  Die  Physiologic  und  P.sychologie  d.  Lachens  und  d.  Komischen. 
Du  Prel :  Psychologie  der  Lyrik.] 


k 


CHAPTER  XIX. 
THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

On  beg-innirig  the  discussions  of  the  two  following-  chapters, 
it  is  desirable  to  distinguish  the  psychological  from  the  logical 
point  of  view.  Without  unwarrantably  disparaging-  the  science 
called  "  formal  logic,"  it  only  accords  with  fact  to  say  that  most 
treatises  which  bear  this  title  make  upon  the  unprejudiced  reader 
either  the  impression  of  being-  commonplace  or  the  impression 
of  being-  remote  from,  and  even  unfaithful  to,  any  psychical  real- 
ity. It  is  customary  to  answer  objections  arising-  from  the  latter 
im^Dression  by  saying  that  logic  deals  with  the  universal  laws,  or 
abstract  and  contentless  forms,  of  the  intellect.  This  answer, 
however,  only  affords  a  partial  justification.  It  is  undoubtedly 
an  advantag-e  tb  have  the  more  obvious  intellectual  connections, 
which  come  to  maintain  themselves  between  the  successive  psy- 
choses in  the  stream  of  consciousness,  stated  in  the  form  of  ab- 
stract and  universally  valid  formulas.  At  the  same  time,  the  too 
wide  separation  of  log-ic  during-  these  hundreds  of  years  from  its 
psychological  basis  has  exercised  an  unfortunate  influence  upon 
the  science  ;  and  it  is  hard  to  show  that  it  has  any  right  to  ex- 
istence as  thus  separated.  From  the  time  of  its  founding-  by 
Aristotle  until  almost  the  present  day,  the  so-called  "  science  of 
thought"  has  undergone  little  or  no  development.  But  when  it 
received  its  shaping  at  the  hands  of  that  great  master  it  could  not 
derive  its  full  legitimate  benefit  from  a  knowledge  of  the  actual 
phenomena  of  concrete  mental  life  ;  for  no  science  of  psychology 
(since  Aristotle's  De  Anhna  sustains  no  such  relation  to  all  sub- 
sequent treatises  on  the  soul  as  his  logic  sustains  to  all  subse- 
quent treatment  of  the  laws  of  thought)  existed  at  that  time  on 
which  logic  could  base  itself,  or  with  which,  as  both  sciences  be- 
gan to  develop,  it  could  keep  pace.  From  its  very  nature,  how- 
ever, formal  logic  can  never  be  anything  but  a  subordinate 
branch  of  j)sycliology  ;  its  sole  jjrovince  is  to  state — for  pur- 
l)oses  of  convenience,  it  may  be  in  symbolical  manner — what  are 
the  forms  which  the  psychoses  assume,  what  are  their  implica- 
tions, and  what  are  the  laws  of  their  sequence,  as  by  activity  of 


PSYCHOLOGY    AND   LOGIC  429 

the  relating  faculty  the  development  of  knowledge  goes  on.  But 
this  is  essentially  what  the  psychology  of  thought  and  of  reason- 
ing also  attempts.  And  the  fact  that  logic  aims  to  make  its  con- 
clusions more  indubitable,  its  statements  of  the  general  forms 
and  laws  of  tlic  intellect  more  universal,  by  al)stracting  from  all 
concrete  content,  is  of  relatively  little  importance.  Among  the 
most  genuinely  interesting  questions  concerning  the  phenomena 
of  mind  are  such  as  follow :  "What  is  the  real  nature  of  those 
mental  processes  for  which  both  psychology  and  logic  emjoloy 
the  terms  "  conception,"  "  judgment,"  "  reasoning  "  (inductive 
and  deductive)  ?  A\liat  laws  must  these  processes  observe  in 
order  to  contain  the  truth,  and  mentally  represent,  in  a  valid  way, 
what  we  call  reality?  and.  How  may  the  sphere  of  I'noidedge,  as 
distinguished  from  the  regions  of  conjecture,  opinion,  and  mere 
belief,  be  enlarged  ?  But  the  complete  answer  to  these  questions 
takes  us  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  descriptive  science  of  psychol- 
ogy, even  if  we  include  in  it  the  subjects  usualh*  treated  under 
formal  logic  and  logical  praxis.  Indeed  these  questions  suggest 
much  that  lies  in  that  department  of  philosophj^  which  we  call 
Noetics,  or  theory  of  knowledge. 

Two  differences,  however,  exist  between  the  more  distinc- 
tively logical  and  the  more  distinctively  psychoh  gical  treatment 
of  the  processes  and  laws  of  thought. 

(1)  Psychology  treats,  primarily,  of  the  actual  x>rocesses  of 
mental  life  to  which  the  names  conception,  judgment,  reasoning, 
etc.,  apply.  It  regards  this  mental  life  as  being  what  it  actually 
is — a  ceaseless  succession  of  processes,  a  stream  of  conscious- 
ness in  which  different  states  and  fields  of  consciousness  follow 
each  other  without  any  possibility  of  pause.  It  is  the  nature  of 
these  processes  and  the  actual  forms  of  their  sequence — the  life 
of  relating  consciousness,  which,  like  all  mental  life,  moves  on 
while  it  relates,  and  analyzes  and  synthesizes  its  own  content  as 
the  successive  "moments"  of  that  content  occur — which  psychol- 
ogy tries  to  describe  and  explain.  Logic,  on  the  contrary,  enacts 
the  fiction  of  a  so  -  called  product  of  thought,  which  can,  by 
abstraction,  be  considered  as  separable  from  the  living  process 
and  as  capable  of  thus  being  subjected  to  analysis  in  order  to 
determine  its  nature.  Thus  logic  treats  concepts  as  products, 
differing  in  respect  of  "content"  and  "extent;"  judgment 
and  the  syllogism,  too,  are  regarded  by  this  science  as  com- 
pleted resultants  of  operative  faculty— psychical  entities,  as  it 
were,  which  can  be  analyzed  into  formulated  arrangements  of 
the  aforesaid  concepts.  And  so  we  are  told  how  judgments 
are  "  formed  "  by  combining  concepts  ;  and  syllogisms  and  trains 


430  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

of  reasoning  b}'  combining-  judgments.  In  all  this  tlie  real  truth 
which  psychology  emphasizes  is  too  often  overlooked  or  sup- 
pressed by  logic.  Concepts,  j)udgiae)its,  and  trains  of  reasoning 
are  themselves,  in  actuality,  only  established  fovnis  of  the  movenient 
of  tnental  life;  and — to  employ  a  suggestive  figure  of  speech 
— it  is  the  "  morphology  "  ^  of  intellectual  growth  which  both 
logic  and  psychology  aim  to  discover. 

(2)  The  treatment  of  thought-processes  by  psychology,  as 
compared  with  logic,  differs  furthermore  in  that  the  former  con- 
stantly considers  these  processes  as  related  to  all  the  other  men- 
tal iDrocesses  in  the  total  development  of  mental  life.  But  logic 
speaks  of  "  pure  "  thought  and  its  laws,  etc.  Now  there  is  no 
2)ure  thought  in  reality ;  and  the  attempt  to  work  out  a  sci- 
ence of  such  thought,  independently  of  actual  concrete  thought- 
experience,  is  less  successful,  b}'  far,  than  is  the  attempt  to  form 
a  i3ure  science  of  geometrical  form  and  of  number.  For  example, 
we  cannot  begin  to  understand  the  concept  without  constant 
reference  to  the  representative  image ;  or  abstraction,  without 
introducing  the  theory  of  attention  ;  or  comparison,  without  im- 
plying a  true  psychological  science  of  perception  and  memory. 

Without  further  reference  to  formal  logic,  and  its  successes 
or  failures,  from  the  point  of  view  of  psychological  science, 
we  may  now  define  our  purpose  in  the  next  two  chapters  as  fol- 
lows :  We  are  going  to  trace  the  development  of  that  faculty 
which  is  called  "  the  Intellect,"  or  the  faculty  of  thought.  For, 
in  the  broader  meaning  of  the  word  it  is  thought  which  consti- 
tutes the  essence  of  intellect ;  or  rather,  thinking  is  the  distinc- 
tive function  whose  development  conditions  the  formation  and 
growth  of  intellectual  faculty  as  such.  But  in  doing  this  we 
shall  build  upon  the  basis  already  laid.  Intellect  proper — 
that  mental  functioning  which  is  called  conception,  judgment, 
and  reasoning — is  a  complex  growth.  It  is  dependent,  like  all 
faculty,  in  this  sense  of  the  word,  upon  other  allied  forms  of 
mental  life  and  upon  their  development.  Its  dependence  upon 
the  processes  of  ideation  is  especially  close.  Indeed,  all  develop- 
ment of  thought  really  is  conditioned  iqxm — we  might  say  without 
impropriety,  consists  in — the  changes  that  lal'e  place  in  the  ideas 
and  in  the  laws  of  their  sequence,  as  the  activity  of  ^^i^ifnary  intel- 
lection becomes  more  dominant  under  the  guidance  of  a  choice  of 
certain  ends  ofhioioledge  to  he  reached. 

§  1.  Since  the  devcloiiment  of  intellect  proper,  or  the  faculty  of  thought 
and  reasoning,  involves  the  preparatory  growth,  as  it  were,  of  all  the  element- 

>  Thus  BoBnnquct  gives  to  his  excellent  work  the  title,  Logic,  or  the  Morphology  of  Knowl- 
edge. 


IMAGINATION   AND   THOUGHT  431 

ury  processes  of  mental  life,  a  consideration  of  this  develoi:)mcnt  makes  it 
necessary  briefly  to  summarize  our  previous  conclusions  so  far  as  they  bear 
ui")on  the  topic.  We  have  seen  how,  in  the  form  of  representative  images, 
our  past  iirosentation-expcriencps  are  reproduced  iu  consciousness.  "When 
thus  reproduced  they  exhibit  ditlerent  degrees  of  intensity,  life-likeness,  and 
objective  resemblance  to  the  originals  from  which  they  are  said  to  be  derived. 
They  also  become  related  in  various  ways  under  the  so-called  laws  of  the 
association  of  ideas  ;  or  they  are  spontaneously  reproduced  according  to  the 
occasions  furnished  by  our  psycho-physical  condition,  our  mental  mood,  and 
the  various  characteristics  of  the  ideation -processes,  original  or  acquired 
by  repetition,  etc.  All  such  spontaneous  or  associated  reproduction,  how- 
ever, is  accompanied  by  certain  intellectual  activities  which  are  the  primary 
and  indispensable  conditions  of  mental  development.  The  consciousness  of 
resemblance  and  the  consciousness  of  difference  accompany  the  recurrence 
of  like  and  unlike  ideas.  By  processes  which  lie  at  the  roots  of  intellectual 
life,  and  to  which  the  name  of  "  primary  intellection"  has  been  given,  con- 
scious assimilation  and  differentiation,  and  inchoate  acts  of  analysis  and  syn- 
tliesis  take  place.  In  all  this,  some  at  least  rudimentary  and  primitive  ac- 
tivity of  judging  is  involved  ;  and  the  dawnings  of  a  consciousness  of  time 
are  not  far  removed.  In  all  this,  conative  activity,  as  displayed  in  the  focus- 
ing and  redistribution  of  attention,  is  also  present,  and  the  various  forms  of 
feeling,  the  affective  accompaniments  of  all  intellectual  life,  constantly 
exert  an  influence  over  the  intellectual  development.  When,  then,  we  come 
to  consider  the  case  of  adult  and  developed  joerception,  memory  and  imagi- 
nation, we  find  that  thinking  and  reasoning  have  already-  contributed  to  the 
formation  of  these  faculties,  in  a  very  profound  and  coniprehensive  way.  It 
is  by  conscious  comparing,  relating,  analyzing  of  the  wholes  given  to  the 
senses  or  to  self-conscioiisness  as  objects,  and  by  synthesis  of  the  recognized 
elements  of  past  experience  into  new  combinations,  that  we  learn — so  to 
speak — to  perceive,  to  remember,  and  to  imagine. 

§  2.  It  is  not  strange,  then  (to  recur  to  a  subject  already  touched  upon,  p. 
408  f.),  that  certain  psychologists  deny  the  j^ossibility  of  distinguishing  be- 
tween imagination  and  thought.  Thus  one  author  '  holds  that  when  the  ideas 
owe  to  chance  circumstances  the  conditions  which  control  their  coming  into 
relations,  we  call  the  process  "  imagination  ;  "  but  when  they  owe  these  con- 
ditions to  their  own  constitution,  as  fixing  the  terms  of  their  association,  we 
call  the  process  "thinking."  There  is,  therefore,  no  line  to  be  drawn  be- 
tween the  two  processes  ;  they  merge  into  each  other  by  imperceptible  de- 
grees. So  far  as  the  foregoing  statement  involves  the  notion  of  ideas  as 
entities  influencing  each  other,  we  have  already  repeatedly  rejected  it.  Ac- 
cording to  Dr.  Ward,''^  however,  "  for  psychologists  who  do  not  cut  the  knot, 
.  .  .  it  is  confessedly  a  hard  matter  to  explain  the  relation  of  the  two  " 
(here  siteaking  of  so-called  sense  and  intellect).  "Thinking  may  be  broadly 
described  as  solving  a  problem — finding  an  A  A' that  is  D.  In  so  doing  we 
start  from  a  comparatively  fixed  central  idea  or  intuition  and  work  along  the 
several  diverging  lines  of  ideas  associated  with  it — hence  far  the  ajitest,  and, 
in  fact,  the  oldest,  description  of  thought  is  that  it  is  discursive."      Still 

1  BallanfE :  Die  Elemente  d.  Psychologrie,  p.  94. 
*  Article  Psychology,  Encyc.  Brit.,  p.  75. 


432  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

another  writer '  goes  so  far  as  to  say — and  not  without  warrant — that  iJiinkiiif/ 
first  begins  at  the  point  where  the  exploring  movement  of  touch  takes  the 
place  of  planless  reflex  movement.  The  same  writer  holds  that  all  the  psy- 
chical processes  become  what  they  are  only  by  thinking.  In  this  way  only 
does  movement  become  voluntary  movement,  and  sensation  develop  into 
mental  presentation  of  an  object,  or  into  desire  to  attain  an  end.  And  the 
"  stutT"  (or  problems)  of  thinking  is  no  less  than  all  those  related  elements 
of  the  psychic  life  to  which  attention  directs  itself.  Once  more,  we  are  told  - 
by  another  authority  that  "  the  first  apprehension  of  a  form,  the  primary  re- 
lating of  points  and  lines  to  one  another,  pi'esupposes  the  activity  of  intel- 
lect; since  consciousness,  supported  by  the  movements  of  the  bodily  organ- 
ism, passes  from  point  to  point  and  connects  them  together,"  etc.  Thinking 
is,  then,  one  with  consciousness  in  general ;  and  if  we  distinguish  these  at 
all,  we  distinguish  them  as  a  development  and  a  result.  "  Becoming  con- 
scious "  (as  we  developed  adults  do)  "  is  a  process  of  thinking." 

In  discussing-  the  Nature  of  Thinking-  it  must  then  be  ad- 
mitted that  the  exact  line  where  it  emerg-es  in  distinctness  from 
the  other  allied  forms  of  mental  life  cannot  be  drawn  with  con- 
fidence. But,  on  the  other  hand,  not  to  distinguish  thought  and 
reasoning-  from  perception  and  memory,  as  well  as  imagination, 
would  be  more  indefensible,  psychologically,  than  to  attempt  to 
draw  the  line  too  rigidly.  In  fact,  the  distinguishing-  character- 
istics of  thinking  faculty — like  those  of  all  faculty — are  the  result 
of  development.  It  is  what  we  hecome  capable  of  doing-  through 
activity  of  so-called  Intellect,  which  marks  off  this  power  of 
mind  from  the  other  cognate  powers.  And  on  this  point,  in  ad- 
dition to  what  has  already  been  said  (p.  376  f.),  we  note  the  fol- 
lowing : 

(1)  In  thinking,  the  process  of  conscious  Comparison  is  rela- 
tively developed  and  emphasized.  In  thinking,  we  "  dwell  upon  " 
(and  in  thinking  hard,  we  attentively  "  mind  "  or  "  pore  over  ") 
the  likenesses  and  unlikenesses  of  the  objects  that  occupy 
the  fields  of  consciousness.  Thus  we  say  to  ourselves  or  to 
one  another,  observe  tko^ighffully,  or  remember  thonghtfully  ;  we 
even  exhort  the  too  fanciful  man  to  regulate  his  imagination  by 
thought.  Hence  thought  is  relating,  and  intellect  has  several 
times  been  called  by  us  the  "  relating  faculty."  The  more  we 
think  the  more  we  compare — A  with  B  and  both  with  C  or  D  ; 
and  thus,  the  more  we  bring  out  the  consciousness  of  their  re- 
semblances and  differences  in  preparation  to  unite  the  like  and 
separate  off  the  unlike.  Illustrations  of  this  emphatic  feature  of 
all  thought  may  be  taken  from  acts,  either  of  perception  or  of 
memory,  or  of  constructive  imagination.     For  example,  let  it  be 

'  Ilonvicz  :  Psycholopische  Analysen,  il.,  p.  5  f. 
■J  George  :  Psychologie,  pp.  2T0  f.  aud  302  f. 


THE   NATURE   OF   THINKING  433 

supposed  that  oue  is  staudiiig-  before  a  complex  building',  or 
holding-  in  the  hand  a  new  flower,  and  thoughtfully  observing  it. 
Then  attentive  comparison  of  part  with  part  is  going  on  ;  and  of 
this  whole  with  other  similar  or  dissimilar  wholes. 

All  such  acts  of  comparison  are  expressible  in  judgments  of 
comparison  :  "  This  cathedral  is  larger  than  the  one  at  X\  is 
more  purely  Gothic ;  has  two  or  more  steeples  or  towers  ;  is 
built  of  such  material ;  so  many  windows  here  ;  mullions  orna- 
mented so,"  etc.  Or  again:  "This  flower  is  blue,  variegated 
with  yelloAv  ;  stamens  so  many  ;  pistils  so  many  ;  leaves  oblate  ; 
name  A  ;  class  J"''  etc.  So  also  in  thoughtful  memory  one  is 
comparing  part  with  part  of  the  memory-picture,  and  asking 
one's  self  :  "  Was  the  object  or  the  event  really  like  this  pre- 
cisely, or  somewhat  unlike  ?  was  the  exact  date  of  my  seeing 
it,  or  of  its  occurrence,  this  or  some  other  date  ?  "  By  em- 
phasizing conscious  comparison  we  are  said  to  "  think  out  "  the 
same  result  which,  from  another  point  of  view,  we  ascribe  to  con- 
structive imagination.  And  as  we  think  we  ask  ourselves,  is  this 
or  that  combination  best  adapted  to  the  end  desired — most  con- 
formable to  the  accejDted  rules  of  literary  or  musical  compo- 
sition, etc.  ?  Nor  is  it  only  in  such  elaborate  instances  of 
"  thoughtful  "  perception,  "  thoughtful  "  memor}',  and  "  thought- 
ful "  imagination  that  we  convert  the  total  state  of  conscious- 
ness into  one  of  a  distinctively  intellectual  order,  by  voluntarily 
emphasizing  the  act  of  comparison.  Essentially  the  same  thing 
happens  in  observing,  planning,  projecting,  anticipating  the 
most  trifling  matters  whenever — as  we  so  siguiticantly  say — we 
have  time  and  inclination  to  think. 

(2)  Let  us  now  examine  what  further  takes  place  in  all  genu- 
ine thinking.  The  "condensation  "  of  the  results  of  comparison 
takes  place.  The  changes  in  the  processes  of  ideation  already 
described  as  "  freeing "  of  the  ideas  and  "  condensation "  of 
sequent  imag'es  (p.  285  f.)  are  preparatory  for  similar  changes  in 
the  process  of  thought ;  and  similar  clianges  are  furthered  by 
all  thinking.  Kepeated  acts  of  attentive  comparison  of  the  like 
quality  in  difi'erent  objects  result  in  the  immediate  recognition 
of  similar  quality  in  newly  perceived  objects  as  the  same — as  the 
qualit}'  which  no  longer  excites  discriminating  consciousness  to 
a  separate  act  of  comparison,  as  it  were.  An  act  of  conscious 
Identification  is  now  possible.  Thus  discrete  individual  experi- 
ences are  apprehended  as  having  something  in  common,  when 
they  are  experienced  in  connection  with  other  qualities,  whether 
of  X,  or  Y,  or  Z.  Each  concrete  similar  now  becomes  entitled 
to  one  name  A  {the  so-called  color,  "  red  "  or  "  blue  ; "  the  exten- 
28 

/...  ■. 


484  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

sive  motor  activity  of  eye  or  liand,  called  "large"  or  "small;" 
the  taste,  called  "  sweet  "  or  "  sovir; "  the  sound,  as  of  a  "  cornet," 
or  of  a  "  violin ").  So  also  by  repeated  thoug-litful  observa- 
tion (with  comparison  emphasized,  and  memory  and  imagina- 
tion called  upon  to  yield  their  stores  of  like  or  unlike  objects) 
any  new  object,  similar  to  the  known  cathedral  or  the  flower, 
may  be  identified  as  embodying-  the  condensed  results  of  many 
intellectual  acts.  Each  building  or  flower  in  sufficiently  large 
measure  similar,  is  then  at  once  apprehended  as  the  "  now  well- 
known  "  If  (a  cathedral),  or  N  (a  flower  of  a  particular  kind). 
The  complexly  similar  is  identified  as  the  same — whether  it  be 
experienced  in  connection  with  the  space-  and  time-relations  of 
X,  or  of  Y,  or  of  Z.  Thus  the  idea  which  we  have  of  the  quality 
A,  or  of  the  building  M,  or  of  the  flower  N,  is  still  further  "  freed," 
or  made  abstract  by  the  condensation  of  the  thinking  process 
upon  it.  When  tlie  individiiaUy  similar  hecomes  the  universally 
identical,  it  is,  as  it  were,  made  ready  for  hmnediate  application  to 
all  sufficiently  similar  objects  of  experience  in  time  to  come.  Tb 
thought,  every  A,  or  M,  or  iV— however  different  to  sense  or  to 
memory — is  made  part  of  one  experience.  This  jirocess  of 
obliterating  all  consideration  of  the  particular  mental  existence 
of  ideas,  and  of  binding  them  together  by  judgments  of  compa- 
rison into  forms  capable  of  symbolic  and  secondary  employment 
results  in  changing  the  merely  representative  image  into  the 
"  conception  " — the  product,  the  sign,  the  convej^er,  the  starter, 
and  the  guide  of  thought. 

(3)  With  this  emphasis  upon  the  act  of  conscious  compa- 
rison, and  its  resulting  establishment  of  resemblances  and  diftcr- 
ences,  another  characteristic  of  thought  is  closely  connected. 
The  objects  of  our  presentation-exjDerience  thus  become  united 
under  those  relations  of  resemblance  which  attentive  comparison 
has  emphasized.  Something  similar  happens,  of  course,  with 
the  ideas  representative  of  the  same  presentation-experience.  It 
is  on  this  account  that  some  authors  have  spoken  of  thinking  as 
a  new  combination  of  presentations  according  to  their  "  objec- 
tive "  connection  ;  and  others  have  spoken  of  it  as  "  the  uniting 
and  separating  of  ideas  solely  according  to  the  nature  of  their 
content."  By  thinking,  what  is  numerous  and  discrete  in  ex- 
perience is  organized  into  systematic  relations.  "  Thought  is 
the  ordering  of  the  manifold  into  a  unity."  Nor  is  the  fact 
simply  that,  by  thinking,  the  manifold  and  diverse  materials  get 
ordered  and  arranged  into  unities  of  one  kind  or  anotlior  ;  but 
it  is  also  true  that  we,  in  tlius  ordering  and  arranging  them,  be- 
come conscious  of  the  relations  which  bind  them  together  into 


PARTIAL    PROCESSES   IN   ALL   THOUGHT  435 

tlicsG  unities.  This  is  that  hig-her  synthetic  act  of  intellect 
Avhich  makes  Generalization  and  Classification  possible. 

(4)  In  order  that  the  results  of  the  activity  of  intellect  in 
comparison,  identification,  and  synthesis  may  bo  conserved,  and 
that  the  psychoses  which  it  makes  possible  may  be  used  for  the 
preservation  and  extension  of  knowledg'e,  some  further  concrete 
means  of  "  storing-,"  as  it  were,  these  results  is  necessary.  Such 
means,  we  have  already  seen,  is  found  in  certain  concurrent  modi- 
fications of  motor  consciousness — in  the  symbols  of  the  unifyin.g 
activity  itself.  More  particularly  in  the  case  of  man  it  is  the 
vjord,  the  modification  of  the  org-ans  of  expression  (vocal  or 
tactile)  which  can  appeal  to  ear  or  eye,  and  so  serve  the  purpose 
demanded.  The  discussion  of  the  nature  of  thought  is,  therefore, 
inseparably  connected  with  the  discussion  of  the  office  and  de- 
velopment of  languag-e.  For  Naming-  and  thinking-  are  closely 
correlated. 

In  these  four  conscious  activities — Comparison,  Identification, 
Generalization,  and  Naming- — we  find  the  entire  essential  nature 
of  Thought.  Whenever  the  stream  of  consciousness  shows  tokens 
of  these  activities  we  may  speak  of  intellect  proper  as  at  work ; 
whatever  conscious  being  has  actually  performed  these  activities 
has  learned  distinctively  to  think. 

I  3.  The  conditions  of  successful  comparison,  and  the  degrees  of  com- 
parison wliicli  enter  into  all  truly  intellectual  acts,  are  various.  The  con- 
ditions may  be  classed  as  either  objective  or  subjective,'  according  as  they 
are  connected  with  the  nature  of  the  objects  as  presentations,  or  with  the 
nature  of  the  individual  mind.  This  distinction,  however — psychologically 
speaking — only  considers  the  same  processes  in  consciousness  from  two  dif- 
ferent points  of  view.  For  example,  a  certain  moderate  intensity  of  any 
sensation  or  feeling,  and  a  certain  degree  of  vividness  to  any  idea,  is  more 
favorable  to  comparison  than  a  very  high  or  very  faint  degree  of  intensity. 
But  the  subjective  conditions  of  [n)  attention,  {h)  i^rc-existing  sensibility, 
either  natural  or  acquired,  and  (c)  mental  preparation  intlucing  adjustment, 
have  an  influence  upon  all  acts  of  comparison  as  respects  the  intensity  of  men- 
tal impressions  comjiared.  So  that  for  certain  persons,  or  in  certain  condi- 
tions of  body  and  mind  for  all  persons,  the  intellectual  "arousement  "  may 
be  such  as  to  make  the  nicest  discriminations  possible  with  either  unusually 
faint  or  unusually  intense  impressions.  In  studying  the  quality  and  quan- 
tity of  sensations  it  was  found  what  discriminations  are  possible,  when 
thought  has  i)cnetrated  sensation,  when  the  conscious  relating  activity  has 
been  trained  on  a  good  natural  basis  to  a  high  degree  of  discrimination 
(see  chapters  VII.  and  VIII. ) . 

Much  depends  also,  of  course,  upon  the  particular  features  of  any  two 
complex  objects  which  are  selected  for  comparison,  and  upon  the  favorable 

»  Comp.  Sully  :  The  Human  Mind,  1.,  p.  399  f. 


436  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

or  unfavorable  relation  into  which  we  are  able  to  bring  them  for  purposes 
of  comparison.  In  reality  no  so-called  "  same  "  qualities  of  two  objects  can 
be  said  beforehand  to  be  precisely  the  same  ;  they  are  only  so  nearly  the 
same,  so  similar,  that  I  do  not  distinguish  the  difference — perhajis  because  I 
cannot,  or  because  I  do  not  care  to,  or  perhaps  because  it  would  defeat  the 
purpose  of  my  thinking  if  I  discriminated  too  closely.  But  to  another  per- 
son what  I  consider  the  "  same  "  may  seem  different,  and  so  the  result  of  his 
relating  activity  may  express  itself  in  a  different  judgment,  in  assigning  the 
objects  to  another  class,  and  in  designating  them  by  another  name.  Or,  with 
another  purpose  in  view,  I  may  myself  find  the  common  features  of  the 
two  objects  no  longer  sufficiently  similar  to  think  them  together  as  though 
they  were  the  same.  Furthermore,  the  indefinite  complexity  of  all  real  ob- 
jects makes  it  possible  to  compare  any  two,  as  respects  a  number  of  similar 
features  (quality,  quantity,  or  complexity  of  sensation-content,  extension  in 
space,  duration  in  time,  origin,  use,  class,  history  of  growth,  etc.).  In  some 
cases  (as  in  that  of  two  lines  having  the  same  direction  and  lying  side  by 
side)  proximity  is  favorable  to  comparison  ;  in  other  cases  (as  in  that  of 
the  pitch  of  two  notes  of  different  timbre— violin  and  piano-forte  in  tuning, 
e.g. — or  two  weights  lifted  with  two  hands)  succession  is  more  favorable  to 
exact  comparison.  Not  infrequently,  moreover,  one  quality  suppresses  an- 
other and  makes  its  exact  shading  or  its  intensity  difficult  to  distinguish  ; 
such  is  the  influence  of  the  hue  of  any  color  on  its  apparent  saturation,  or 
the  influence  of  the  interval  of  tones  upon  their  pitch. 

^  4.  The  various  processes  which  logicians  emphasize  in  their  account  of 
the  formation  of  concepts  and  of  the  pronouncing  of  judgments  have  all  been 
provided  for  in  what  was  said  above.  For  example  (a)  abstraciion  is  defined 
as  the  "  withdrawal "  of  the  attention,  in  an  act  of  comparison,  from  some  of 
the  many  elements,  parts,  or  properties  of  a  complex  object,  and  its  concen- 
tration iTpon  the  elements,  parts,  or  properties  made  the  subject  of  compari- 
son ;  more  frequently,  but  less  properly,  in  logic,  the  term  is  employed  in  a 
figurative  way  to  signify  the  "  withdrawal"  from  the  concrete  whole  of  that 
element  or  property  on  which  attention  is  concentrated,  (i)  Anahisis  is  the 
taking  apart  by  thought  -  separation  of  that  which  is  actually  conjoined 
into  a  concrete  whole.  This  term,  then,  regards  the  same  act  of  comparison 
from  a  somewhat  different  point  of  view.  Successive  acts  of  abstraction  are, 
however,  necessary  to  the  completion  of  analysis  ;  and  analytic  wandering  of 
the  attention  is  necessary  to  the  completion  of  the  act  of  abstraction.  Ab- 
straction and  analysis,  taken  together,  signify  that  the  object  which  is  given 
as  a  relatively  undiscriminated  totality  is  by  thinking  activity  to  be  organ- 
ized into  the  growing  system  of  exiierience.  (?)  Geiieralizat!n)i.  is  a  term  em- 
jiloyed  to  denote  that  the  modified  idea  which  results  from  thinking  has 
somehow  become  capable  of  being  applied,  with  equal  proi)i'iety,  to  a  num- 
ber of  sufficiently  similar  objects.  It  has  acquired  a  certain  generality  of 
applicability.  But  inasmuch  as  all  objects  to  which  it  may  bo  applied  are  in 
this  way  made  capable  of  being  regarded  as  falling  "  objectively  "  together 
into  a  class,  the  process  of  thus  grasping  them  together  in  thought  is  called 
(d)  claasijicafio)).  Generalization  and  classification  are  plainly  one  essen- 
tially identical  mental  act  regarded  from  two  points  of  view  ;  and  the  word 
which  emphasizes  the  "  unifying"  character  of  thought— the  newly  construe- 


THE   STAGES   OF   THOUGHT  437 

tive  stage  of  intellectual  development  thus  reached  by  the  relating  activity — 
is  (e)  st/)>thesis.  This  last  terra  is,  o£  course,  highly  figurative.  That  it  is  not 
to  be  interpreted  as  indicating  the  existence  of  entities,  either  below  con- 
sciousness or  in  consciousness,  as  fixed  and  separable  products  of  mental  life, 
which  are  then  "  put  together  "  ah  extra,  as  it  were,  has  already  been  ex- 
plained repeatedly.  But  that  thinking  actually  binds  together  the  different 
elementary  processes,  with  their  objects,  into  higher  and  yet  higher  unities, 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  (/)  jVami?ig—a  term  taken  from  that  form  of  sym- 
bol which  is  distinctive  of  human  thinking — or  "denomination,"  is  the  proc- 
ess which  fixes  and  makes  subject  to  recall  for  further  use  the  results  of 
both  the  comparative  and  the  constructive  aspect  of  intellectual  life. 

It  is  customary  to  distinguish  three  kinds,  or  stag-es,  in  the 
process  of  thinking  ;  and  these  are  called  Conception,  Judgment, 
and  Reasoning.  From  a  slightly  different  point  of  view  it  may 
be  said  that  the  relating  activity  results  in  three  classes  of  prod- 
ucts— the  conceist,  the  judgment,  and  the  argument.  But  con- 
cerning "products"  of  thought,  as  distinguished  from  processes 
of  thinking,  and  tendencies  and  habits  resulting  in  processes, 
it  has  already  been  declared  that  scientific  psychology  cannot 
speak.  Conception,  judgment,  and  reasoning  must  then  all 
be  regarded  as  actual  forms  of  jysychoses  hi  the  fioimng  stream  of 
co)isciousness  ;  the  rather  do  we  designate  by  these  words  certain 
successions  of  psychoses  which  derive  their  characteristics  from  the 
nature  of  their  sequence,  and  of  the  laws  (orfxedfoi^nis)  which  are 
shown  hy  the  states  of  consciousness  in  this  sequence.  These  three 
kinds,  or  stages,  are  not,  however,  alike  well  fitted  to  reveal  to  us, 
on  being  examined,  the  essential  nature  of  the  thinking  process 
itself  ;  for  this  purpose  the  process  called  judgment  is  far  supe- 
rior to  the  other  two.  In  the  formation  and  expression  of  judg- 
ments the  whole  essence  of  the  thinking  process  is  involved.  To 
think  is  to  judge  ;  and  to  use  language  as  the  vehicle  and  expres- 
sion of  thought  is  to  iironounce — whether  in  one  word,  or  in  many 
words — a  judgment.  Conception  and  reasoning,  so  far  as  they 
are  distinctive  of  intellectual  faculty,  are  not  essentially  different 
from  judgment ;  but  both  are  reducible  to  the  activity  of  judg- 
ing. For  to  form  a  conception  is  to  judge  ;  and  to  use  or  unfold 
a  conception  is  also  to  judge.  Without  the  actual  process  of 
judgment  the  so-called  "  concept,"  in  distinction  from  the  repre- 
sentative image,  has  no  psychic  existence  ;  the  very  word  is  it- 
self an  abstraction  which  needs  an  actual  process  of  imagination, 
accompanied  by  judgment  and  supported  b}^  languag'e,  in  order 
to  give  to  it  any  meaning  at  all.  And  reasoniiig  (whether  induc- 
tive or  deductive,  demonstrative  as  in  mathematics,  or  probable 
as  in  economics)  has  its  whole  nature  explained  when  we  have 


438  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

shown  according-  to  what  laws  the  different  judg-ments,  whose  se- 
quence is  the  actual  process  of  reasoning,  follow  each  other  in 
consciousness. 

A  modern  writer  on  logic '  has  declared :  "  Judgment  is  co- 
extensive with  affirmation  and  denial,  or,  which  is  the  same 
thing,  with  truth  and  falsehood  ;  "  and  ag-ain  :  "  Thus  truth  and 
falsehood  are  coextensive  with  judgment,  and  dei3end  on  the 
fact  which  is  its  primary  condition ;  the  fact  that  a  thing-  may 
have  an  ideal  relation  to  reality  over  and  above  its  own  particular 
existence,  so  that  its  existence,  though  in  itself  real  and  actual, 
is  empty  and  valueless  in  the  absence  of  the  further  reality  that 
such  a  relation  demands."  The  fuller  estimate  of  this  declaration 
cannot  be  made  until  the  nature  of  knowledge  has  been  considered 
as  the  hig-hest  and  most  complex  activity  of  mind,  involving- 
the  disciplined  and  experienced  activity,  in  harmony,  of  all  the 
various  so-called  faculties.  But  two  remarks  may  fitly  empha- 
size, in  this  connection,  the  relation  of  judgment  to  all  think- 
ing, and  of  thinking  to  knowledge.  (1)  In  all  mature  perce^jtion 
objective  judgment  is  involved.  Such  judgment  has  been  called 
"l^erceptive  judgment  " — the  result  of  "  minding  "  the  particular 
object  in  its  relation  to  other  objects.  Perception,  therefore,  af- 
firms, as  the  result  of  an  intellectual  process,  the  "  objective  ref- 
erence of  an  idea  "  as  chai'acterizing  some  reality  given  in  sense- 
perception,  but  through  it  related  to  other  reality — to  reality  as 
a  whole.  My  j^erceptive  judgment  ends  in  my  affirming  such  or 
such  a  thing-  as  belonging  to  the  world  of  my  experience.  (2) 
All  so-called  conceptions  and  reasonings  have  so  much  reality, 
and  no  more,  as  is  possessed  by  the  judgments  which  enter  into 
them.  Their  entire  truth  or  falsity  is  the  truth  of  the  affirma- 
tions or  denials  of  the  processes  of  judging-  which  thej'^  embody 
or  call  forth.  As  "  pure  "  conceptions  or  "  pure  "  reasoning-s 
they  may  be  regarded  apart  from  the  perceptive  jiidg-ments 
which  formed  them,  but  thus  regarded  they  have  no  "truth"  or 
"  falsity  "  in  any  other  than  the  logical  meaning:  of  these  terms. 

^  5.  Our  ordinary  but  most  significant  language  clearly  shows  that  wo 
identify  thinking  and  judging  as  though  the  latter  contained  the  essentials  of 
the  former.  To  ask,  What  do  you  think  ahoxd  this  or  that  ?  What  do  you 
think  of  him  or  her  ?  What  do  you  think  the  object  here,  or  yonder,  to  he  ? — 
is  the  same  thing  as  to  evoke  the  judgment  of  another.  Suppose  that  no 
doubt  arises  in  the  mind  of  either  questioner  or  one  questioned  ;  then  the 
judgment  made  (proposition,  or  Satz)  calls  for  no  defence  by  way  of  alleging 
grounds.  But  if  doubt  arises,  then  the  jiidgmont  must  pause  until  by  infer- 
ence, or  consideration  of  a  series  of  related  judgments,  such  doubt  can  be 

'  Bosanquet :  Logic.  I.,  p.  72  f. 


NATURE   OF   THE   CONCEPT  439 

removed.  "Against  any  donht,"  it  has  been  well  said,  "judgment  main- 
tains itself  as  an  inference."  Td  decide  ui)on  one's  own  "  thonglits  "  is  to 
settle  npon  certain  judgments  which  one  is  ready  to  adopt  as  one's  own  and 
to  defend  against  doubt. 

The  same  truth  is  further  shown  when  it  is  considered  that,  in  all  cases 
of  the  comparison  of  two  or  more  complex  objects,  whether  with  respect  to 
cue  or  more  qualities,  the  result  of  comparison  presents  itself  as  a  problem 
to  be  solved  by  pronouncement  of  a  judgment.  For  example  :  Do  you  think 
these  two  colors  or  tones,  A  and  H,  to  be  the  same  ;  or  do  you  think  A 
brighter  in  color,  or  higher  in  pitch,  than  5.''  Any  thoughtful  answer  re- 
quires comparison,  identification  under  the  results  of  past  experience,  and  a 
judgment.  This  has  been  called  by  Sully  '  the  "  discriminative  i)roblem," 
if  the  detection  of  difference  is  called  for  ;  but  the  "  assimilative  problem," 
if  one  is  required  to  select  the  similar  in  two  objects.  For  our  present  pur- 
Ijoses  such  a  distinction  is  unimportant.  Thus  the  experimenter  in  psychol- 
ogy who  gives  to  his  reacting  agent  the  problem  to  put  one  shade  of  gray 
exactly  midway  between  two  others,  who  solicits  the  child  to  distinguish 
blue  and  green,  or  who  tries  the  ignorant  savage  to  see  whether  he  can 
count  beyond  the  fingers  upon  his  two  hands,  evokes  a  judgment.  "  Mind 
what  you  are  about  and  think " — we  say  under  such  circumstances ;  and 
then  your  judgment  (or  finished  thoiight — your  "mind"  upon  that  problem) 
will  be  correct.  When  Hegel,  somewhat  perversely,  declares  that  to  affirm 
"a  carriage  is  passing  the  house  "  is  not  a  judgment  unless  there  is  a  ques- 
tion, e.  g.,  "  whether  it  is  a  carriage  or  a  cart,"  he  bears  witness  to  the  truth 
we  are  illustrating.  For  in  truth  to  hear  either  a  carriage  or  a  cart  pass- 
ing outside  involves  the  results  of  innumerable  previous  perceptive  judg- 
ments, based  upon  complex  acts  of  comparison ;  it  is  itself  (whether  true 
or  false,  whether  called  in  doubt  or  not)  a  perceptive  judgment  of  a  high 
degree  of  complexity.  But  if  the  question  arises  as  to  the  meaning  of  this 
particular  succession  of  sounds — "/s  it  a  carter  a  carriage?"  then  inter- 
vening judgments  must  be  called  forth  in  consciousness  that  may  serve  as 
grounds  on  which  to  base  a  final  affirmation  (or  judgment).  In  both  these 
cases,  and  in  all  cases  where  we  think  as  distinguished  from  merely  having  a  suc- 
cession of  images  succeed  each  other  that  may  &e  regarded  as  severed  from  thought, 
judgment  is  the  activity  essential  to  our  bringing  the  case  under  the  thought- 
faculty. 

The  true  Nature  of  the  Concept  is  now  clear  as  seen  in  the 
light  of  what  lias  been  said  concerning-  the  complex  mental  proc- 
esses which  construct  it.  Both  Imagination  and  Intellect,  with 
memory  exercised  in  the  selection  of  certain  elements  of  the  ob- 
jects of  presentation  to  the  exclusion  of  others,  are  necessary  for 
those  complex  processes  which  result  in  what  logic  calls  the  for- 
mation of  a  concept.  To  use  the  more  suggestive  and  vital  lan- 
guage of  psychology,  the  process  of  conception  is  a  %inio7i  of  the  re- 
productive function  of  consciofis7iess  rvith  the  thinMng  function — the 
essence  of  the  latter  heinxj  the  act  of  judging.      The  representative 

»  The  Human  Mind,  I.,  p.  404  £. 


440  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

image  is  thus  converted  into  a  concept  (the  idea  becomes  gener- 
alized and  takes  on  the  characteristics  of  a  so-called  "  general 
notion  ")  as  the  result  of  an  activity  of  thinking  the  relations  in 
which  it  stands  to  other  mental  images  or  objects  of  presenta- 
tion-experience. This  "  intellectualizing  "  of  the  idea  is  brought 
about  by  means  of  the  judgments  whose  common  subject  the  idea 
is.  The  effect  of  repeated  acts  of  judging,  all  of  which  end  in 
the  identification  of  the  similar  as  the  same,  and  in  the  attribu- 
tion of  a  class-name  to  all  concrete  examples  of  this  similar,  is 
the  conversion  of  the  images  into  a  concept.  Or  rather — since 
we  wish  to  escape  as  much  as  possible  from  the  logician's  falla- 
cious way  of  regarding  his  terms  as  standing  for  products  in- 
stead of  living  processes  or  movements  of  mental  life — the  de- 
velopment of  thought  reacts  uj)on  the  reproductive  activity  ;  the 
mental  states  lose  their  concrete  and  life-like  resemblance  to 
particular  originals  which  they  reproduce  ;  the  consciousness  of 
the  more  universal  relations  in  which  the  particular  ideas  stand 
to  each  other  becomes  more  prominent ;  the  mental  synthesis, 
which  every  complex  field  of  consciousness  actually  is,  now 
becomes  more  determined  by  the  character  of  these  general  rela- 
tions ;  and,  finally,  the  symbol  of  this  result  of  accomplishing 
an  intellectual  combination — namely,  the  Word — stands  as  the 
one  individual  and  concrete  remainder  of  the  multitude  of  visual, 
tactual,  auditory,  and  other  images. 

Every  concept  is  declared  by  logic  to  be  of  "  the  general " 
or  "  the  universal ;  "  and  thus  markedly  to  differ  from  the  repre- 
sentative image  which  is  confessedly  concrete  and  individual.  It 
would  seem,  then,  that  some  mark  of  such  universality  must  be 
found  in  the  actual  process  of  conception,  if  the  declaration  of 
logic  be  in  any  sense  true  to  the  facts  of  mental  life.  But  how 
can  a  process  in  consciousness  which  is  always  some  particular 
movement  of  imagination  and  thought  in  some  one  stream  of 
conscious  mental  life  merit  a  claim  to  universality^  ?  For  is  it  not 
always  I,  or  you,  or  he,  or  some  individual,  avIio  thinks,  when  the 
sequence  of  psychoses  is  strongly  intellectual  and  conceptual,  as 
truly  as  when  this  sequence  is  one  of  memories  or  of  acts  of  pict- 
ure-making ?  How,  then,  is  my  process  of  conception,  psycholog- 
ically and  concretely  considered,  any  more  "  universal "  than 
my  process  of  remembering  or  thinking?  As  a  preliminary 
answer  it  may  be  affirmed:  The  psychological  universality  of 
the  process  of  conception  consists  in  the  consciousness  that  we 
are  mcntiilly  representing  as  "belonging  together,"  as  "really 
related,"  wlnit  is  given  in  sense  and  imagination  as  manifold; 
that  we  arc  mentally  representing  as  id(nitical  what  is  experi- 


THE   CLASSIFICATION   OF   CONCEPTS  441 

enced  in  presentation  as  various,  in  respect  of  i^lace  and  time 
and  other  contents,  without  this  variety  being-  itself  brought  into 
consciousness.  Hence  it  has  been  claimed  that  the  conscious- 
ness of  an  identical  reaction  upon  different  presentations  of  sense 
or  of  self-consciousness  lies  underneath,  as  it  were,  all  processes 
of  conception.' 

What  has  just  been  said  of  the  difference  between  conception, 
as  an  intellectual  process,  and  the  merely  reproductive  character 
of  the  mental  image,  requires  further  elucidation.  The  process 
of  conception  may  be  concretely  reg^arded  from  two  points  of 
view :  (1)  It  may  be  regarded  as  ierminatbvj  in  the  bestowal  of  a 
naiiie,  which  is  said  to  fix  the  result  of  this  intellectual  synthesis 
when  completed,  and  to  render  it  i^ossible  of  easy  and  accurate 
recall.  AVheu  an  act  of  comparison  has  resulted  in  the  mental 
grasping  together  of  two  or  more  similars  as  the  same  (the  in- 
tellectual activity  of  "  identification  "  which  brings  into  an  ideal 
unity  the  manifold  of  sense),  and  a  symbol  has  been  attached  to 
the  new  mental  totality,  the  conception  is  completed.  But  (2) 
the  process  of  conception  may  also  be  regarded  as  starting  from 
the  name,  and  then  proceeding  to  realize  itself  in  such  sequent 
states  of  consciousness  as  result  from  an  effort  to  think  out  the 
meaning  of  the  name.  Postponing  the  further  discussion  of  the 
intimate  relations  between  the  process  of  conception  and  that 
thinking  which  gives  meaning  to  words,  we  may  for  the  present 
regard  the  two  as  identical.  And,  in  general,  we  have  no  other 
way  to  call  up  for  introspection  the  actual  form  of  intellectiial 
life  for  which  the  term  conception  stands,  than  to  think  what 
the  names  of  the  objects  conceived  mean  to  us.  We  are  forming 
a  concept  (or  rather,  performing  an  act  of  conception)  when  we 
are  learning  the  meaning  of  any  name — not,  indeed,  as  a  com- 
mitting of  words  to  memory,  but  as  an  activity  of  ideating  and 
judging  consciousness  combined.  And  when  we  attend  to  what 
in  our  conscious  experience  actually  interprets  any  name,  we 
find  ourselves  exercising  the  same  activity'  of  ideation  and  judg- 
ment combined. 

The  Classification  of  Concepts  into  Kinds  depends  upon  the 
various  jjossible  modifications  and  combinations  of  the  activities 
already  described.  In  the  use  of  various  concepts,  it  is  the 
amount  of  condensation  which  takes  place  that  chiefly  deter- 
mines the  character  of  this  use.  In  rapid  and  highh'  developed 
thinking  the  "name-image  "  bears  within  itself  all,  of  a  concrete 
nature,  which  is  necessary  to  the  conceptual  process.  Thus  the 
purpose  which  "  the  word  "  serves  is  similar  to  that  served  by  the 

'  See  Strumpell :  Grnndriss  d.  Psychologic,  p.  255  f . 


442  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

X  aud  y  of  the  luatliematiciau  in  the  rapid  handling  of  mathe- 
matical problems.  A  vague  consciousness  of  ability,  as  it  were, 
to  stop  and  "  think  out  "  the  meaning  of  the  name,  accompanies 
its  use ;  such  consciousness  may  be  described  as  "  conceptual 
consciousness  " — a  ^melange  resulting  from  the  faint  revival  of 
the  traces  of  repeated  acts  of  comparison,  identification,  and 
generalization,  together  with  the  feelings  of  familiarity  and  of  a 
tendency  to  ideate  and  to  judge  only  in  certain  definite  direc- 
tions. Indeed,  in  rapid  thinking — where  the  so-called  concep- 
tions follow  each  other  in  the  stream  of  consciousness,  borne 
along,  as  it  were,  by  the  succession  of  names — several  words,  or 
groups  of  words,  may  be  summarized  in  one  faint  and  sketchy 
act  of  conception.  This  resembles  the  grasp  of  the  mathema- 
tician upon  some  familiar  grouping  of  his  symbols,  e.g.  {x'  + 
"l.t'ij  +  y-),  as  one  symbol.  On  the  other  hand,  if  any  name  be 
dwelt  upon — with  a  view  to  think  out  its  meaning  completely  (or 
"realize"  it — i.e.,  convert  the  sj^mbol  into  an  actual  process  of 
conception),  we  find  ourselves  engaged  in  that  same  complex 
activity  of  ideation  and  judgment,  in  which  it  has  alread}'  been 
declared  that  the  very  nature,  pyschologically  considered,  of 
conception  consists. 

I  6.  Few  subjects  in  psychology  have  been  more  discussed,  and  yet  more 
unsatisfactorily  treated  than  the  nature  of  the  concept.  Three  views  have 
been  historically  distinguished:  these  are  the  "realist,"  the  "nominalist," 
and  the  "conceptualist."  But  seldom  or  never  do  the  advocates  of  any  one 
of  the  three  fail  either  curtly  to  admit  from  the  rival  theories  certain  claims 
injurious  to  the  integrity  of  their  own  view ;  or  else  to  hold  their  own  view 
in  such  shape  as  to  contradict  the  plainest  facts  of  experience.'  The  view  of 
the  realist,  in  so  far  as  it  is  metaphysical  and  concerns  the  relation  in  which 
the  psychic  pi'ocess  or  act  of  conception  stands  to  extra-mental  reality,  does 
not  concern  us  here.  But  both  realists  and  conceptualists,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  nominalists  on  the  other  hand,  habitually  misrepresent  the  actual  psy- 
chological state  of  the  case.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  much  of  the  current 
argument  as  to  the  possibility  or  impossibility  of  abstract  ideas.  On  this 
latter  subject  we  find  Berkeley,  in  his  Introduction  to  "  The  Principles 
of  Human  Knowledge,"  maintaining:  "I  can  imagine  a'  man  with  two 
heads,  or  the  upper  parts  of  a  man  joined  to  the  body  of  a  horse.  I  can 
consider  the  hand,  the  eye,  the  nose,  each  by  itself  abstracted  or  separated 
from  the  rest  of  the  body ;  but  then  whatever  hand  or  eye  I  imagine,  must 
have  some  particular  sliape  and  colour.  .  .  .  But  I  deny  that  I  can  ab- 
stract from  one  another,  or  conceive  separately,  those  qualities  which  it  is  im- 
])ossibh>  should  exist  so  separated ;  or  that  I  can  frame  a  general  notion,  by 
abstracting  from  ])articulars  in  the  manner  aforesaid."  It  has  frequently 
been  pointed  out  that  elsewhere  Berkeley,  in  a  measure,  contradicts  the  dec- 

'  For  a  brief  Sketch  of  Theories  as  to  the  nature  of  the  concept,  sec  Porter,  The  Human  In- 
tellect, p.  403  ff. 


REALISM   AND   NOMINALISM  443 

laration  of  the  passage  just  quoteil,  for  be  says:  "A  man  may  consider  a 
rigure  merely  as  triangular,  without  attending  to  the  particular  qualities  of 
the  angles  or  relations  of  the  sides,"  etc.  But  surely  a  figure  "merely  as 
triangular  "  cannot  possibly  exist  as  "  separated  "  from  "  particular  qualities  " 
of  angles  and  sides.  As  to  what  can  really  be  done  in  the  way  of  thus  idea- 
ting, we  need  only  refer  to  the  entire  theory  of  ideation  as  already  established. 
Now,  the  word  "idea,"  as  here  employed  by  Berkeley,  plainly  stands  for  the 
result  of  an  attempt  to  visualize,  as  directed  by  selective  attention,  certain 
l)ast  experiences  of  visual  in-esentations  ;  and  this  result  we  have  found  to 
vary  greatly  in  respect  to  ^y«rts<-"abstractness,"  according  to  the  sketchy  or 
schematic  character  of  the  constructive  activity  of  imagination  thus  employed. 
But  this  activity  itself  varies  according  also  to  the  end  held  in  view  by  the 
act  of  image-making.  Ovw  present  question,  it  wall  be  remembered,  concerns 
the  effect  upon  "ideas"  (in  Berkeley's  sense  of  the  word)  of  those  processes 
of  thinking  which  end  in  the  formation  of  a  concept,  with  a  name  to  fix  it 
for  future  use. 

Again,  John  Stuart  Mill,'  in  his  excessive  nominalism,  claims  that  when- 
ever the  name  of  a  class  is  used  intelligently,  the  mind  must  have  before  it 
some  individual  object  either  perceived  or  remembored.  Instead  of  the  term 
"abstract  notion,"  or  "concept,"  Mill  would  use  the  term  dass-name.  But 
surely  every  name,  as  such,  is  only  so  much  sound ;  and  what  psychology 
wishes  to  know  is  this  :  (1)  What  mental  processes  are  those  which  make  the 
use  of  class-names  possible?  and,  further,  (2)  What  mental  jsrocesses  are 
evoked  by  the  use  of  class-names  ?  The  answer  to  both  these  questions  is 
one  and  the  same  ;  it  has  been  given  in  our  previous  descrii^tion  of  the  com- 
plex i^rocess  called  conception.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  fashion  of  the 
conceptualist  to  argue  as  though  some  actual  state  of  consciousness  were  pos- 
sible, in  which  a  notion,  as  a  sort  of  statical  product,  devoid  of  all  imme- 
diate influence  from  concrete  processes  of  ideation,  and  at  least  logically 
sejiaralile  from  the  act  of  naming,  could  be  found.  But  when  we  search 
consciousness  with  the  vivid  light  of  introspection  turned  on,  we  do  not  find 
any  such  notion,  or  thought-product,  actually  existing  there. 

g  7.  The  proper  w-ay,  therefore,  to  realize  the  time  nature  of  conception 
is  to  notice  what  follows  in  consciousness  upon  the  presentation  of  the  name 
of  a  class.  Thus  let  the  experiment  be  tried  by  pronouncing  a  class-name  be- 
fore a  gi"0up  of  persons  who  are  in  an  attitude  of  expectant  attention  as  to 
some  siich  name,  but  do  not  know  what  iiarticular  name  to  expect.  It  will 
be  found  that  every  successful  attempt  to  "  conceive"  the  meaning  of  such 
word,  consists  of  a  longer  or  shorter  conscious  series  of  more  or  less  abstract 
images  interspersed  with  judgments  pronounced  to  one's  self  in  language 
and  "  explicating  "  the  meaning  of  the  word.  For  example,  let  the  word 
"  lion  "  be  the  one  selected  for  the  experiment.  Some  hearers  will  immedi- 
ately visiialize  the  picture  seen  in  a  book  in  childhood,  or  revive  the  memoiy- 
image  of  the  animal  as  seen  in  a  menagerie  ;  or  more  slowly  reconstruct  the 
detailed  images  of  shaggy  mane,  a  lashing  tail,  a  pair  of  glaring  eyes  set  in 
a  hairy  animal  countenance,  etc.  ;  and  simultaneously  they  will  say  to  them- 
selves— "this  is  a  lion,"  a  "  lion's  mane,"  etc.  Others  will  make  more 
prominent  in  the  process  of  conception  that  part  which  the  proposition 
>  Logic,  B.  I.,  ii. ;  and  Examination  of  Sir  William  Ilainiltou's  Philosophy,  chap.  xvii. 


444  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

expressed  in  language  bears  ;  these  will — with  little  or  extremely  schematic 
and  vague  ideation — exclaim  inwardly:  "An  animal,"  "fierce"  and 
•'  strong ;  "  "  it  lives  in  Africa,"  or  " in  a  jungle  ; "  "a  quadruped,"  "  a  car- 
nivorous mammal  of  the  genus  Leo"  etc.  The  process  of  sensuous  ideation 
thus  evoked  by  the  class-name  may  vary  all  the  way  from  that  which  the 
writer  once  heard  described  as  an  involuntary  shudder  running  through  the 
frame — a  young  woman's  "idea  of  a  lion" — to  the  completest  visual  scheme 
of  the  animal  in  the  appropriate  environment  of  forest  or  Jungle.  The  more 
distinctively  judging  activity  evoked  in  the  same  way,  may  be  alike  variable 
iu  completeness.  And,  indeed,  in  each  individual  response  to  any  call  for 
conception,  the  entire  past  experience  of  jjerception,  memory,  imagination, 
and  thought,  as  embodied  in  a  single  word's  import,  may  be  involved.  Nor 
will  the  result  differ  in  principle,  if  the  class-name  selected  for  exjieriment 
correspond  to  some  conception  not  capable  of  the  same  kind  of  realization — 
for  example,  the  conception  of  "virtue,"  or  of  a  "state,"  or  of  the  "bino- 
mial theorem,"  or  of  the  "  Cartesian  philosophy,"  or  of  Deity  Himself. 

When,  however,  the  demand  to  follow  iu  thought  is  made  in  such  a 
way  as  to  allow  no  time  for  the  detailed  conceptual  process  to  develop  it- 
self— as  is  the  case  iu  all  listening  to  speech,  or  in  reading  while  talking  to 
one's  self — only  a  relatively  small  number  of  the  symbols  used  have  any 
marked  individual  influence  on  consciousness.  The  gross  number  of  them, 
however,  calls  up  a  certain  complex  process  which  partially  explicates  them 
in  the  gross,  as  it  were  ;  a  great  many  of  the  individual  symbols  contribute 
little  or  nothing  to  the  total  result  in  conception,  but  only  vaguely  determine 
the  affective  "  fringes  "  of  the  stream  of  consciousness  ;  and  relatively  few 
are  either  so  dwelt  upon  in  thought  as  to  draw  prolonged  attention  to  them- 
selves, or  are  stored  as  mere  symbols  in  memory  to  be  recalled  for  future  ap- 
plication. Great,  indeed,  and  even  marvellous,  is  the  power  of  condensation 
which  the  word  possesses  !  It  may  be  thoughtlessly  spoken,  but  it  is  itself 
the  epitome  of  all  thought.  "We  call  that  complex  mentality  which  it  repre- 
sents in  the  past,  and  which  it  may  evoke  at  any  time  in  the  future,  by  the 
term  "conception." 

\  8.  The  terms  employed  by  logic  to  designate  the  different  character- 
istics, potencies,  and  results  of  the  process  of  conception,  so  far  as  they  rep- 
resent anything  psychologically  real,  all  have  their  meaning  explained  by 
the  foregoing  remarks.  Thus  concepts  are  commonly  said  to  be  collections 
or  syntheses  of  (a)  "  marks"  or  "  attributes."  That  is  to  say,  the  thought- 
processes  which  end  in  the  imparting  of  meaning  to  a  name,  have  mov(Hl 
along  the  line  of  various  properties  belonging  in  common  to  many  individual 
objects,  and  the  mind  has  recognized  that  the  name  includes  the  synthesis, 
in  all  these  objects,  of  these  same  properties.  The  properties  are  thus  rec- 
ognized as  mnrkhirf  the  concci)t.  (/;)  Concepts  are  also  said  to  have  "  con- 
tent," or  "  intension,"  and  "extension."  By  the  former  term  we  understand 
the  number  of  marks  grasped  together  in  the  synthesis  ;  by  the  latter,  the 
number  of  objects  to  which  we  know,  or  surmise,  that  the  class-name,  with  its 
concept,  may  properly  be  applied.  Thus  the  intension  or  content  of  gera- 
nium is  greater  than  that  of  i)lant ;  for  the  concei)tion  of  it  includes  more  of 
recognized  marks.  ]Jut  the  extension  of  geranium  is  less  tlian  that  of  plant; 
for  there  are  fewer  objects  tn  which  the  name  geranium  will  upiily  than  (lie 


THE   NATURE   OF  JUDGMENT  445 

name  islaiit.  lutension  and  extension  of  concepts  are  often  said  to  vary  in- 
versely ;  the  more  marks  a  concept  embraces,  the  fewer  objects  fall  under  it, 
and  the  more  objects  a  concept  embraces,  the  more  slender  the  knowledge 
wliich  it  conveys  of  any  of  these  objects.  But  this  is  true  only  in  a  limited 
way,  and  when  we  allow  of  a  selection  and  arrangement  of  marks  with  the  de- 
sign to  illustrate  this  very  rule.'  In  fact,  the  number  of  objects  belonging 
under  any  concept  is,  in  most  cases,  unknown ;  and  the  number  of  marks 
which  may  be,  or  should  be,  grasped  together  under  any  concept  as  its  con- 
tent, and  to  which  the  same  name  may  be  given,  is  variable  and  subject  to 
development,  in  the  individual  and  in  the  race,  (c)  The  potencies,  or 
"powers,"  of  a  concept  are  ordinarily  said  to  be  three — Definition,  which 
expounds  the  marks  and  so  represents  the  nature  or  specific  character  of  the 
concept  ;  Division,  which  enumerates  the  individuals  or  sub-classes  included 
under  it;  Denomination,  which  affixes  and  interprets  the  verbal  signs,  so 
that  they  may  be  correctly  applied.  Into  the  details  of  all  this,  liowever, 
logic  and  grammar,  rather  than  psychology,  are  interested  to  go. 

The  Nature  of  Judgment  is  further  understood  when  we  con- 
sider how  the  process  which  is  called  conception,  and  which 
terminates  when  the  name  is,  to  some  extent  at  least,  "  thought- 
fully ■"  emj)lo3^ed,  modifies  subsequent  thinking  itself.  It  has 
been  shown  that  the  very  essence  of  thinking  is  in  judgment, 
and  without  judgment  representative  images  cannot  be  convert- 
ed into  conceptions.  But  those  condensed  results  of  thought- 
processes  which  the  class-names  represent,  may  themselves  be 
further  combined  by  higher  forms  of  intellectual  synthesis.  The 
more  primary  activities  of  intellect  become,  as  it  were,  points 
of  departure  and  stepping-stones  for  the  further  elaboration,  the 
more  complex  unification,  of  knowledge.  Secondary  or  logical 
judgments  are  thus  formed  by  the  intellectual  synthesis  of  con- 
ceptions. It  was  seen  that,  in  the  explication  of  the  meaning  of 
words,  each  individual  passes  a  series  of  judgments  which  state 
the  results  of  previous  intellectual  processes  that  have  been 
operative  upon  material  of  presentation.  Thus  the  conception 
which  unfolds  the  name  "  lion  "  is  for  one  person  "  a  fierce  and 
strong  animal,  living  in  African  jungles ;  "  while  for  another,  it 
is  a  "  carnivorous  mammal  of  the  genus  Leo''  But  to  think  and 
say  that  a  lion  is  an  "  animal  "  fierce  and  strong,  or  a  "  mammal  " 
with  the  attribute  "  carnivorous,"  is  to  pronounce  a  complex  judg- 
ment ;  and  each  term  in  this  judgment  is  itself  entitled  to  be  con- 
sidered as  corresponding  to  a  conception  which,  in  turn,  needs  to 
be  explicated  in  other  judgments. 

While,  then,  it  is  true  (as  said  in  treating  of  primary  intellec- 
tion) that  judgment  is  involved  in  the  earliest  conscious  discrim- 

»  See  this  ancient  etatement  of  inverse  ratio  between  Extension  and  Intension,  which  is  adopted 
by  Jevons,  criticised  by  Bosanquet,  Logic,  1.,  p.  53  f. 


446  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

iuation  ;  true  also  (as  lias  just  been  said)  that  judgment  isneces- 
saiy  both  to  complete  and  to  explicate  any  conception  ;  it  is  also 
true  that  judgment  (of  this  secondary  and  more  elaborate  char- 
acter) ma}'  be  a  conscious  synthesis  of  conceptions.^  Such  judg- 
ment consists  of  a  bringing  into  relations  in  consciousness  of  the 
condensed  results  of  previous  judgments  already  equipped  with 
names.  In  order  to  understand  this  further  development  of 
thinking,  we  must  now  briefly  consider  (1)  the  Act  of  synthe- 
sis, and  (2)  the  Forms  of  synthesis,  in  so-called  "  logical  judg- 
ment." 

(1)  In  judgments  like  those  which  have  just  been  cited,  the 
proposition  states  no  newly  acquired  knowledge.  The  explica- 
tion of  the  result  of  thinking,  as  condensed  in  the  conception 
with  its  name,  represents  only  that  series  of  judg-ments  which  is 
already  implicit  in  the  same  conception.  Because  I  know,  or 
have  already  judged,  a  lion  to  be  an  "  animal,"  a  "  carnivorous 
mammal,"  etc.,  I  unfold  my  conception  by  repeating  these  judg- 
ments. The  synthesis  which  such  judgments  involve  has  there- 
fore pvevkmsly  been  established.  But  suppose  the  case  where 
some  largel}'^,  or  j^artially,  ??e?/,' object  is  brought  before  the  mind, 
whether  in  the  form  of  a  perception,  or  of  an  image  of  construc- 
tive imagination  as  guided  by  description  (oral  or  written). 
There  is  then  presented  to  the  mind  a  problem  which  may  be 
stated  in  the  question,  "  What — is — it  ?  "  (this  X^.  In  answer 
to  this  question  the  demand  is  made  for  judgments  that  shall  be 
statable  in  propositions,  and  shall  end  in  a  single  judgment — 
namely,  "  It  is  ^,"  or  "  It  is  B^'  a  new  conception  with  another 
name.  The  qualities  of  the  new  object,  not  simply  as  perceived, 
but  as  conceived  or  named,  are  thus  mentally  united  in  a  new 
combination  and  a  new  name.  The  essence  of  the  logical  judg- 
ment is,  therefore,  a  juncture  accomplished  hetween  conceptions  or 
'^condensed''''  resxdts  of  past  acts  of  judgment  rchich  are  already 
familiar  to  ^is  and  have  previously  heen  fixed  l>y  names. 

The  fact  that  the  time  occupied  by  any  one  field  of  conscious- 
ness is  never  infinitesimally  small — that  the  real  present  is  never 
a  mathematical  point,  but  is  always  an  extension  in  time  of  a 
more  or  less  manifold  content  of  consciousness,  is  necessarily 
concerned  in  the  process  of  judgment.  Logical  judgments,  con- 
sidered as  syntheses  of  so-called  conceptions  made  in  propo- 
sitional  forms,  could  never  take  place  if  such  were  not  the  nature 
of  our  time-consciousness.  Such  judgments  are  certainly  (they 
are  even  pre-eminently)  time-occupying  processes  in  the  stream  of 

1  As  payc  Snlly  (The  nnman  Mind,  I.,  p.  434  f.,  note) :  "The  expression  is  one  of  great  ambi- 
guity, and  consequently  not  easily  susceptible  of  exact  deflnition." 


FORMS   OF   SYNTHESIS   IN   JUDGMENT  447 

consciousness.  Here  the  sequence  of  words  in  every  proposition 
is  representative  of  a  sequence  in  the  conscious  processes  them- 
selves. Both  introspection  and  experiments  in  reaction-time 
(see  p.  302  f.)  demonstrate  that  this  is  so.  If  the  "  moment  "  rep- 
resented by  the  subject-conception  coincided  perfectly  v/ith  the 
"  moment"  represented  by  the  predicate-conception,  then  there 
could  be  no  judgment ;  for  judging-  is  a  process  in  time.  The 
proposition  ^1  is  B  requires  some  separation  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  A  and  of  //  But  if  what  is  represented  by  A  were 
passed  entirely  out  of  consciousness  before  what  is  represented 
by  B  appears  in  consciousness,  then,  too,  there  could  be  no 
judgment.  For  every  judgment  is  a  uniting  process.  Both  the 
morphology  of  the  conception  and  the  morphology  of  the  logi- 
cal judgment  require  us  therefore  to  regard  the  corresponding- 
processes  as  mental  growths.  The  growth  of  the  logical  judg- 
ment is,  however,  much  less  instantaneous,  much  more  explicit, 
as  it  were,  under  the  eye  of  the  conscious  subject.  Figura- 
tively speaking,  we  may  say  that  the  synthesis  of  judgtnent  is  ac- 
complished hy  a  flow,  in  determinate  direction,  of  the  stream  of  con- 
sciousness, intelligently  uniting  two  successive  waves  of  this  streunt 
so  that  they  heJong  together  under  the  laws  ivhich  govern  the  ichole. 

(2)  The  forms  of  synthesis  in  logical  judgment  are  limited 
by  the  number  of  those  fundamental  relations  under  which  the 
terms  of  the  judgment  are  capable  of  being  synthesized.  It  be- 
longs to  logic  to  classify  the  so-called  "  predicaments,"  and  to 
philosophy  to  discuss  the  "  categories,"  rather  than  to  descrip- 
tive psychology.  By  simple  inspection  of  the  different  states  of 
intellectual  consciousness,  however,  we  may  note  the  following  : 

{a)  Synthesis  under  terms  of  resemhlance  or  difference.  In 
judgments  of  this  class  we  unite  or  refuse  to  unite  two  concep- 
tions as  embodied  in  language,  because  comparison  shows  to  us 
either  a  sufficient  or  an  insufficient  amount  of  likeness.  Some 
points  of  likeness  must  serve,  however,  as  points  of  starting  if 
we  are  to  make  serious  work  of  any  attempt,  even  to  bring  tAvo 
conceptions  together  into  a  judgment.  To  judge,  for  example, 
that  "  an  asymptote  is  not  in  the  key  of  A  minor  "  would  be  to 
"  play  the  fool  "  with  intellect  rather  than  to  use  it.  But  points 
of  observed,  or  known,  or  conjectured  likeness  or  unlikeness  are 
constantly  changing  as  the  work  of  intellect  gains  in  elaboration  ; 
therefore  judgments  of  this  sort  constantly  change — and  this, 
without  necessarily  implying  change  in  knowledge  of  the  truth, 
but  only  change  in  point  of  view  or  in  the  end  to  be  served  by 
judgment.  Again,  judgments  respecting  resemblance  and  differ- 
ence may  have  to  do  either  with  quality  or  quantity.     In  the 


448  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

latter  case  what  is  affirmed  is  likeness  or  imlikeness  of  amount — 
Avhetlier  expressed  arithmetically  in  numbers  or  g-eometrically 
in  respect  of  space-extension.  Identity,  as  affirmed  of  qualities 
and  objects,  and  equality,  as  affirmed  of  quantities — psychologi- 
cally considered — belong  under  this  form  of  judgment.  When 
it  is  said  this  quality  (color  red,  pitch  a  |,  feel  of  roughness, 
sentiment  of  kindness,  or  characteristic  of  a  memory-image) 
is  identical  with  the  other,  it  is  meant  that  the  two  are  indistin- 
guishably  alike.  But  when  it  is  said  this  object  (ball,  man,  star, 
etc.)  is  the  same  as  that  I  remember  to  have  perceived  previous- 
ly, the  judgment,  besides  affirming  likeness,  affirms  also  some- 
tliing  metaphysical — a  continuity  of  real  existence,  to  which  ref- 
erence must  be  made  in  other  connections. 

(b)  In  certain  judgments  we  synthesize  conceptions  under 
consciously  recognized  relations  of  time  and  space.  For  exam- 
ple, one  event  is  declared  to  have  followed  another  or  to  have 
preceded  it ;  or  two  events  are  judged  simultaneously.  Objects 
of  sense-presentation,  or  their  representative  images,  maj^  be 
united  in  acts  of  judgment  under  all  the  different  relations 
which  belong  to  extension  in  space.  A  is  judged  to  be  "  be- 
low," "  above,"  "  inside  of,"  "  to  the  right "  (or  left)  of  B,  etc. 
But  in  all  such  judgments  there  is  involved  not  only  a  develoi3- 
ment  of  the  conceptions  of  the  events  and  objects  thus  related, 
as  having  temporal  and  spatial  properties  (enduring  in  time  and 
extended  in  space)  ;  but  also,  of  course,  a  development  of  time- 
consciousness  and  of  space-consciousness  by  the  same  intellect- 
ual activities.  Further  light  will  therefore  be  thrown  upon 
these  judgments  later  on. 

(c)  Very  early  in  the  development  of  intellectual  life  appears 
an  important  but  much  neglected  form  of  judgment,  which  at- 
tributes action  to  an  agent.  When,  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
infant,  the  proposition,  "  The  milk  is  hot,"  expresses  a  true 
judgment  as  distinguished  from  a  mere  association  of  represen- 
tative images,  it  is  this  form  which  it  assumes.  Such  a  proposi- 
tion does  not  so  much  mean,  "  That-thiug-there-whose-name-is- 
milk  has  the  quality  of  hotness,"  as  "  Tliat -milk-there  burns  (or 
will  l)uru)  me."  In  fact,  from  the  very  beginnings  of  intellect 
onward,  the  judgment — "  This  or  that  person  or  thing  is  doing 
this  or  that  "  (behaving  in  a  certain  way,  or  affecting  somehow 
another  i)orson  or  thing),  may  be  said  to  be  the  predominating 
form  of  judgment.  It  is  to  this  form  that  attention  is  attracted 
most  strongly  ;  and  around  its  truth  or  falsehood  our  interests 
cluster  most  thickly.  This  fact  is  the  analogue,  in  the  higher 
regions  of  mental  life,  of  the  fundamental  psycho-physical  fact 


JUDGMENTS   OF   PERCEPTION  440 

that  sensations  of  motion  are  relatively  effective,  even  with  low 
degrees  of  intensity  (see  p.  148  f.)- 

Out  of  this  common  root,  in  connection  with  the  preceding 
forms,  develop  those  judgments  which  may  properly  be  called 
most  "  metaphysical "  in  their  intent.  Such  are  judgments  of 
attribute  affirmed  or  denied  of  a  substance,  judgments  of  cause 
and  effect,  and  judgments  of  design  adapted  to  an  end.  Even 
those  judgments  which  are  sometimes  called  "  judgments  of  sub- 
ordination," and  in  which  species  is  brought  under  genus,  and 
parts  under  the  whole  (whether  with  the  scientific  end  of  classi- 
fication, or  with  the  .lesthetical  end  of  a  pleasing  proportion),  are 
largely  dependent  upon  the  development  of  this  form  of  think- 
ing. For  every  intellect  knows  itself  as  only  active,  as  ever 
doing  something,  as  ever  effecting  some  change  ;  and  every  in- 
tellect is  necessarily  (not  that  of  the  child  or  savage  more  truly 
than  that  of  the  man  of  science  or  the  philosopher)  anthropo- 
morphic. The  intellect  can.  understand  the  icorld  only  af>  a  system 
of  related  heings  ivhich  are  ever—each  one — doing  something  and 
having  something  done  to  them,. 

I  9.  That  judgment  in  this  biglier  and  secondary  form  enters  into  all 
perception,  as  soon  as  we  learn  the  nature  and  the  names  of  things,  is  not 
difficult  to  prove.     Suppose,  for  example,  that  one  sees  not  the  familiar  lion, 
tiger,  or  ox,  but  (for  the  first  time  and  without  knowing  its  name)  a  jaguar 
or  a  yak.     On  "minding"  the  former  attentively— that  is,  on  bringing  its 
various  perceptible  characteristics  under  various   conceptions   already  ac- 
quired— one  judges  that  it  is  like  the  tiger,  but  is  not  the  tiger — at  any  rate, 
as  already  known.     It  is  whitish  on  the  under  side  of  the  belly,  but  not  so 
extensively  as  the  tiger  ;  it  is  of  brownish-yellow  above  and  striped  faintly 
along  the  sides,  but  lacks  the  plainly  marked  black  bars  of  the  tiger  and  its 
bright  orange-yellow  ground.     The  results  of  such  elaborate  comparing  ac- 
tivity  may   then   be   summed   up   in   judgments   answering   the   question, 
"A^Tiat-is-it?"     For  example  :  This  striped-moving-thiug  is  an  animal,  is  a 
quadruped  ;  it  is  carnivorous   and  belongs   to  the  genus  felis,    etc.     And, 
finally,  this  carnivorous,  felino  animal,  with  all  these  ob^•ious  characteristics 
of  coior  and  form,  is  named  a  "  jaguar."     Or,  again,  this  other  animal  (the 
yak)  is  like,  but  is  not,  the  ox,  as  already  known.     But  it  is  a  ruminant  mam- 
mal of  bovine  tribe  ;  and  its  name  (the  word  which  will  fix  and  hereafter 
hold  the  final  synthesis  of  many  judgments  in  a  single  judgment)  is  the 
"yak"  or  "  grunting  ox  of  Tartary."     Now  all  three  stages  of  judging  ac- 
tivity are  apt  to  be  implied  in  such  elaborate  processes  of  perception,  or 
series  of  perceptive  processes  as  the  foregoing,  namely — the  primary  intel- 
lective acts  of  comparison,  the  acts  explicating  a  little  way,  at  least,  the 
meaning  of  conceptions  ali-eady  formed,  and  the  secondary  judgments  syn- 
thesizing old  conceptions  into  new  combinations.     In  such  instances  as  the 
preceding,  the  perceiving  intellect  would  undoiibtedly  indicate  and  support 
its  synthesizing  activity  by  propositions  like  the  following  :  The  animal  is 
29 


450  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

particolored ;  it  is  striped  on  the  sides  and  wliite  beneatli ;  it  has  carnivo- 
rous teeth  and  claws  ;  its  general  aspect  is  feline,  etc.  At  once  and  by  imme- 
diate percei^tion,  we  might  say,  this  object  is  known  as  "  animal ; "  pres- 
ently, and  with  few  and  easy  intervening  judgments,  it  is  known  as  colored, 
shaped,  and  striped,  so  and  so  ;  still  later,  and  as  the  result  of  more  thought- 
ful inspection,  it  is  known  as  carnivorous  and  feline,  and  as  differing  in  cer- 
tain particulars  from  the  tiger ;  and,  finally,  it  is  known  as  that  carnivorous- 
mammal,  etc.,  called  a  "  jaguar."  Now  it  is  plainly  the  j^resence  of  a  large 
amount  of  this  definite  and  namable  (or,  if  one  please,  "  talkable ")  judg- 
ment that  distinguishes  such  intellectual  activity  in  the  complex  perception 
of  new  objects  from  the  "  intellection  "  that  all  discriminating  consciousness, 
however  meagre  and  vague,  can  claim  to  show. 

^  10.  It  is  through  such  synthesis,  by  judgment,  of  conceptions  already 
formed,  into  new  conceptions,  and  then,  of  these  into  still  higher  and  more 
complex  forms,  that  scientific  knowledge  is  gained.  By  judging,  then,  the  bod}- 
of  knowledge,  both  perceptive  and  inferential,  undergoes  a  growth.  In  or- 
der more  fully  to  understand  this  matter,  however,  we  must  subsequently 
discuss  the  nature  of  inference  or  reasoning,  and  the  nature  of  knowledge. 
The  analytic  judgments  which  explicate  the  conception  are  understood  to 
tell  what  we  have  already  learned  as  true  concerning  the  nature  of  the  ob- 
jects to  which  the  name  of  the  class  may  be  applied.  But  it  is  the  synthesis 
of  conceptions  into  new  forms  of  combination  by  which  knowledge  grows. 

^  11.  The  meanings  of  the  terms  applied  by  logic  to  the  different  parts  of 
the  judgment,  and  to  the  kinds  and  potencies  of  judgments  are  all  to  be 
understood  in  the  light  of  the  foregoing  remarks. 

(a)  There  are  three  terms  in  the  proposition,  and  these  are  subject,  pred- 
icate, and  copula.  The  "subject"  is  the  term  for  that  conception  from 
which  the  synthesis  in  judging  takes  its  point  of  starting ;  it  is  that  of 
which  the  other  conception  is  affirmed  or  denied.  The  "predicate"  is 
the  term  for  that  conception  which,  following  later  in  the  stream  of  con- 
sciousness, is  united  by  the  synthesis  of  judgment  with  the  subject.  The 
"copula"  is  the  term  which  signifies  the  act  of  synthesis  itself.'  In  the 
actual  use  of  language,  as  the  expression  and  support  of  thought,  and  as 
well  in  the  actual  corresjjonding  process  of  judging,  the  order  of  the  terms 
is  not  fixed.  In  such  cases  of  perceptive  judgment  as  were  mentioned 
above,  it  is  the  predicate,  or  property  predicated,  from  which  the  repeated 
syntheses,  for  the  most  part,  take  their  start.  "  What-is-it  ?" — this  animal 
which  looks  like  a  tiger,  but  is  not.  "  Striped,"  is  it ;  •'  carnivorous,"  is  it ; 
"feline,"  is  it ;  and  "  jaguar"  is  its  name  ;  such  is  the  order,  it  is  proba- 
ble, in  which  the  successive  conscious  syntheses  really  occur. 

[b]  The  divisions,  or  kinds,  of  judgment  may  be  determined  either  by 
the  character  of  the  relation  established  between  the  conceptions,  or  by  the 
completeness  (extension)  with  which  wo  intend  that  the  conceptions  shall  be 
understood.  Under  the  first  principle  of  division  w'e  have  judgments  of 
"quality  and  com])arison,"  judgments  of  "  quantity  and  proportion,"  judg- 
ments called  "categorical,"  "hypothetical,"  and  "  disjunctive."     Only  the 

'  Says  Bosanquet  (Logic,  I.,  p.  S3) :  "  The  copula,  which  in  judgment  is  merely  the  reference 
that  marks  predication,  and  has  no  separate  conteut,  becomes  in  the  proposition  an  isolated  part 
of  speech." 


THE   KINDS   OF   JUDGMENT  451 

last  of  these  divisions  needs  a  remark  or  two.  A  categorical  judgment  (^1  is  />) 
is  said  to  "  affirm  that  one  conception  docs  or  does  not  belong  to  another  ;  " 
or  "to  affirm  the  predicate  of  the  subject  unconditionally;"  or  perhaps, 
better  still,  to  "  assert  an  actual  fact  absolutely."  However  we  may  choose 
to  express  the  relation,  it  is  plain  that  all  "grounds"  on  which  the  judg- 
ment has  been  based,  and  all  doubt  over  its  modifying  conditions  are 
sui)posed  to  be  left  out  of  the  proposition  expressing  the  judgment.  The 
hyi)othetical  judgment  (if  ^4  is  B,  then  C  is  IJ)  implies,  on  the  contrary,  a 
distinct  reference  to  grounds,  or  a  doubt  as  to  conditions,  or  as  to  validity 
of  the  alleged  case,  etc.  (Hence  the  form  of  the  hypothetical  judgment  may 
also  be  :  If  A  is,  B  is ;  or  if  A  is  B,  then  it  is  b.)  But  all  reference  to,  or 
acquaintance  with,  the  ground  of  our  judgment  is  a  matter  of  degrees ;  and 
so  is  doubt  and  its  expression.  Hence  attention  has  often  been  called  to  the 
fact  that  the  real  meaning  of  our  judgments  may  frequently  be  stated  in 
either  the  categorical  or  the  hypothetical  proposition.  For  examijle,  sup- 
pose it  has  rained  recently  and  the  question  arises,  "Is  the  grass  wet?" 
(and  so,  do  I  need  rubbers,  or  not  ?).  Then  the  judgment  uniformly  oc- 
curring to  the  mind  may  be  stated,  either  in  the  awkward  way  :  * '  Grass 
rained-on  is  grass  wet ;  "  or,  "  If  this  grass  has  been  rained  on,  then  this  grass 
is  wet."  Both  these  judgments  involve  reference  to  "  grounds  "  of  inference 
and  to  an  act  of  reasoning  from  them  ;  but  one  is  categorical  in  form,  and 
the  other  hypothetical. 

By  affirmative  and  negative  judgments  alike  tee  recognize  the  true  syn- 
thetical nature  of  all  judgment.  For  by  "  negation  "  we  do  not  mean  the 
same  mental  jirocess  as  that  called  "  affirmation  of  difference."  The  negative 
judgment  signifies  the  settlement  of  a  doubt  by  a  positive  affirmation — a 
synthesis  of  conceptions,  as  truly  as  does  the  so-called  affirmative  judgment. 
The  synthesis  brings  A  and  B  together  under  the  relation  of  difference ;  the 
negative  proposition  asserts  the  exclusion  of  B  from  A.  As  a  writer  of 
logic  has  truly  said :  "  In  fact.  Negation  is  simply  the  logical  conscious  ex- 
l^ression  of  difference." 

"What  logicians  call  the  "  extension "  of  the  conceptions  used  in  the 
diflferent  judgments  also  may  serve  to  classify  the  kinds  of  judgment. 
Hence  the  division  into  "Particular"  (sometimes  called  "Singular")  and 
"  Universal  ;  "  or  as  combined  with  the  principle  of  affirmation  and  denial, 
the  forms  of  judgment  may  be  arranged  as  follows  : 

All  X  is  Y ;  contradicted  by  Some  X  is  not  Y. 
No  Xis  Y ;  "  "  Some  X  is  F. 

[But  for  other  details  of  these  divisions  reference  must  be  made  to  treatises 
on  logic] 

(c)  By  the  "  potencies  "  of  judgments  we  mean  what  logicians  have  been 
accustomed  to  call  "  modality."  This  distinction  has  reference  to  the 
degree  of  certainty  with  which  the  judgment  is  made  and  maintained,  "  as 
being  the  mode,  or  measure,  in  which  the  mind  holds  it  to  be  true."  But 
like  all  questions  of  "degi-ee,"  this  question  cannot  be  answered  in  terms 
of  precise  formulas  ;  and,  indeed,  as  a  psychological  inquiry  it  has  rather  to 
do  with  the  manner  in  which  different  amounts  of  conviction,  or  belief,  enter 
into  the  growth  and  structure  of  our  entii'e  system  of  knowledge  so  called. 


452  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

g  12.  The  manner  in  which  the  time-e\em.ent  of  consciousness  is  related  to 
the  character  of  the  judgment  as  a  real  act  of  synthesis,  has  been  the  subject 
of  much  debate.  How— it  is  sometimes  asked — can  judgment  take  place, 
if  the  predicate-conception  in  the  mental  j^rocess  must  really  follow  the 
subject-conception,  as  the  predicate  term  in  the  proposition  certainly  follows 
the  subject-term?  But  how,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  also  asked,  can  two 
conceptions  co-exist  in  consciousness  ;  and  if  they  did  co-exist,  how  could 
they  be  kept  apart  so  as  to  form  a  true  judgment  ?  To  these  questions  the 
only  correct  psychological  answer  emphasizes  the  undoubted  fact  that  all 
judgment  is  itself  a  process — a  peculiar  character  and  ordering  of  the  flow- 
ing stream  of  consciousness.  This  process  is  sometimes  accomplished  so 
rapidly  that  it  resembles  rather  a  sudden  spring — a  "  leap  to  judgment." 
Sometimes,  however,  judgment  takes  place  so  slowly  that  we  can  discern  the 
inner  nature  of  that  evolution  of  content,  with  its  accompanying  emphasis 
of  assent,  in  which  the  process  of  judging  consists.  The  "growth  of  con- 
tent," according  to  certain  morphological  laws,  is  characteristic  of  the  nature  of 
the  process  of  judging.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  one  is  reading  a  certain 
description  of  any  complex  object  and  deciding,  or  making  up  one's  mind, 
as  to  what  it  is.  The  series  of  judgments  in  which  this  decision  will  ter- 
minate itself  consists  of  changes  from  one  content  of  consciousness  to 
another,  with  a  constant  accompaniment  of  conscious  emphasis  laid  upon  the 
relations  between  these  changing  contents.  One  judges  this  animal  called  a 
"  yak  "  in  the  book  one  is  reading  to  be  "  ruminant,"  "  bovine,"  etc.,  as  the 
different  particular  conceptions  awakened  by  the  description  are  followed 
by  the  vaguer  and  more  highly  universalized  conception  for  which  these 
names  are  already  the  familiar  terms. 

In  general,  then,  we  emphasize  anew  this  conclusion  :  What  logic  calls 
"  judgment  "  is  nothing  other  than  the  process  itself  of  judging.  We  continue 
to  speak  as  (hough  there  existed  some  timeless  mental  2)''od>ict  to  be  called  "  a 
judgment,"  because  we  can  repeat  (he  process  (in  however  sketchy  a  manner, 
and  by  way  of  bare  indication)  through  ■which  our  knowledge  of  objects  orig- 
inated ;  and  in  the  process  itself  ice  may  distinguish  the  so-called  conceptions 
that  have  fused  in  (he  judgmen(,  in  order  to  observe  their  immediate  subsequent 
fusion.  For  this  process  of  judging,  like  all  mental  processes,  is  necessarily 
"  in  time." 

The  Relation  of  Lang-uaq-e  to  Tliou^^lit  fnrnislies  a  theme  ^ 
which  may  be  approached  from  several  points  of  view  ;  promi- 
nent among-  tliese  are  the  philological,  the  philosophical,  and 
the  psycliolog-ical.  It  is,  of  course,  the  truth  discovered  from 
the  last  of  those  throe  points  of  view  which  jirimarily  concerns 
us  here.  The  general  dependence  of  both  spoken  and  written 
languag-e  upon  the  development  of  human  faculty  so  called,  and 
the  important  part  which  languag'e  itself  plays  in  this  develop- 
ment, are  beyond  doubt.     But  languag-e  is  not  the  product  of 

'  TliiK  discussion  is  introduced  here  rather  than  after  the  third  stajro  of  thinking — namely,  rca- 
eonins— in  order  to  bring  it  into  closer  relation  with  the  formation  and  expression  of  conceptions  or 
general  notione. 


EPILATION   OF   LANGUAGE   AND   THOUGHT  453 

any  one  faculty ;  nor  is  it  a  divine  g-ift  or  a  discovery  which 
appeals  to  one  faculty  alone.  So  far  as  its  origin  and  develop- 
ment can  be  explained,  they  are  dependent  upon  the  combined 
and  harmonious  action  and  evolution  of  various  forms  of  mental 
life.  In  tine,  it  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  human  languag-e 
is  the  product  of  the  entire  manhood  of  man ;  and  that,  con- 
versely, the  assertion,  preservation,  and  development  of  his  human 
nature  is  largely  involved  in  the  use  and  growth  of  language. 

It  is,  however,  the  intellect  with  its  function  of  thought  which 
feels  the  need  of  language  peculiarly,  so  to  speak,  and  this  in 
various  ways,  to  which  reference  will  be  made  later  on.  It  has 
therefore  been  customary  to  narrow  the  discussion  of  the  rela- 
tions between  language  and  psychic  life  to  the  case  of  words  and 
thoughts,  considered  as  conceptions  or  "  general  notions."  The 
psychological  problem  may  then  be  stated  in  the  following  way  : 
How  far  are  general  notions  dependent  upon  words  for  their 
formation  and  expression  ?  Connected  with  this  i^roblem  are 
such  subordinate  inquiries  as,  Can  any  of  the  lower  animals 
form  general  notions  ?  To  what  states  of  consciousness  do  the 
common  symbols  employed  by  certain  of  the  animals  corre- 
spond ? — and  other  similar  inquiries.  Such  inquiries  deal  largely 
with  matters  of  biology  and  comparative  psychology ;  thej' 
therefore  take  us  over  very  uncertain  ground.  All  investigation 
of  the  consciousness  of  the  lower  animals,  of  its  points  of  resem- 
blance to,  and  difierence  from,  our  own,  must  ahvays  remain 
comparatively  obscure.  But  especially  with  reference  to  such  a 
question  as  the  relation  of  thought  to  language,  the  uncertain- 
ties of  comparative  psychology  are  greatly  increased  by  the  dif- 
ficulty of  answering  the  similar  question  on  the  ground  of  human 
psychology.  And  until  some  definite  views  are  attained  by  the 
scientific  psychology  of  man,  there  is  only  confusion  instead  of 
clearer  light  to  be  gained  by  arguing  from  the  other  animals  to 
the  case  of  man. 

Any  inquiry  into  the  general  relation  between  thought  and 
language  depends,  of  course,  upon  the  character  of  the  phenom- 
ena to  which  we  restrict  our  terms.  Now  the  view  already  taken 
of  the  nature  of  thought  compels  us  to  recognize  the  important 
truth  that  language,  as  the  vehicle  of  thought,  must  be  favorably 
related  both  to  the  reproductive  image-making  part  of  thought, 
and  also  to  that  process  of  judgment,  based  upon  comjoarison 
and  ending  in  conception,  which  constitutes  the  more  properly 
intellectual  part  of  thought.  The  term  "  language "  itself  is, 
however,  capable  of  a  variety  of  meanings.  By  language  may 
be  understood  any  modification  of  the  motor  organism  which  is 


454  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

adapted  to  serve  as  a  "sign"  or  "  symbol"  of  some  correspond- 
ing- state  of  consciousness.  But  unless  different  states  of  con- 
sciousness, and  the  different  objects  perceived  or  remembered 
or  imagined  in  them,  were  so  similar  in  the  different  cases,  not 
only  of  the  same  individual's  psychic  life,  but  also  of  different 
individuals  of  the  same  species,  that  their  differences  could  be 
disregarded,  it  would  not  be  possible  to  "  signify  "  them  by 
means  of  any  commmi  symbol.  Similar  moditications  of  the 
motor  organism  do,  however,  naturally  go  with  similar  states  of 
consciousness;  indeed,  we  have  repeatedly  found  reason  for 
supposing  that  processes  of  sensation,  ideation,  feeling,  or  in- 
tellection, cannot  be  realized  without  involving  corresponding 
modifications  of  consciousness  on  the  side  of  action,  and  of  the 
motor  organism.  Language  may  then,  in  some  sort,  be  said  to 
be  employed  whenever  the  modifications  of  the  motor  organism 
evoked  become  of  so  fixed  and  general  a  character  as  to  serve 
the  i^urposes  of  recognition  of  similar  past  experiences — whether 
to  the  individual  whose  organism  is  moved,  or  to  others.  In 
man's  case,  for  obvious  reasons,  such  purposes  are  ordinarily 
served  only  through  two  of  the  senses — hearing  and  sight. 
Thus  the  customary  "sign,"  or  "symbol,"  makes  an  appeal  for 
recognition  to  the  ear,  or  to  the  eye,  as  something  heard  or  seen. 
But  for  many  of  the  animals  such  appeal,  if  made  at  all,  is  made 
chiefly  or  wholly  to  the  sense  of  touch  ;  and  this  is  eminently 
possible,  though  not  convenient,  in  the  case  of  man. 

Just  as  the  transitions  from  the  less  to  the  more  abstract 
ideas,  and  from  the  lower  to  the  higher  forms  of  thinking,  are 
gradual  and  subjected  to  the  laws  of  development,  so  is  it  with 
the  transition  from  the  foregoing  use  of  language  to  that  which 
is  more  peculiarly  characteristic  of  human  reason  so  called. 
Hence  we  discover  certain  stages  of  the  evolution  of  both 
thought  and  language,  in  their  intimate  natural  relation  with 
different  individuals  and  different  races.  But  even  if  more  com- 
plete data  for  tracing  the  history  of  the  subject  in  every  human 
soul  and  in  the  entire  race  of  men  were  available,  the  same  dif- 
ficulty would  probably  be  fovmd  in  drawing  exact  lines  of  demar- 
cation. It  may  fairly  be  said,  however,  that  in  the  iim'rower  use 
of  the  term,  language  begins  iclienever  modijicat'ions  of  the  motor 
organism  become  generally  accepted  (or  "  conventional ")  as  signs 
for  the  recognition  of  similar  experiences  (objects,  or  actions,  or  re- 
lations— whether  of  sense-perception  or  of  self-consciousness)  rt.s 
the  same.  But  now  the  special  relation  of  language  to  thought 
and  its  product — the  so-called  general  notion — is  at  once  ap- 
parent.    As  one  peculiar  excellence  of  man's  mental  evolution 


NO  "faculty"  of  language  455 

consists  iu  the  extent  (as  respects  both  refinement  and  corapre- 
liensiveuess)  to  wliicli  the  thinking-  processes  are  carried,  so  the 
peculiar  corresjionding-  excellence  which  makes  lang-uage  pos- 
sible for  him  consists  iu  the  superior  development  of  the  vocal 
and  auditory  organs.  In  this  system  of  vocal  and  auditory  or- 
gans the  central  nervous  apparatus  connected  Avitli  the  elaborate 
equipment  of  end-organs  must,  of  course,  be  included.  Man's 
language  is  pre-eminently  one  of  words ;  and  "  the  word,"  pri- 
maril}^  is  something  spoken  to  be  heard.  But  the  limitations 
which  time  and  sjDace  set  to  the  functions  of  hearing  favor  a  sub- 
sequent appeal  to  the  eye  for  recognition  of  that  form  of  the 
sign  and  vehicle  of  thought  which  constitutes  the  w?iften  or 
printed  word.  Since,  however,  the  principal  relations  of  spoken 
words  to  processes  of  conceptual  judgment  cover  all  the  more 
important  relations  of  language  and  thought,  we  shall  confine 
ourselves  to  this  aspect  of  the  inquiry. 

I  13.  Phrenology,  pliilology,  and  psychology  have  wasted  no  little  time  in 
discussion  of  the  "  faculty  of  language."  But  modern  cerebral  physiology 
and  experimental,  as  well  as  introspective,  psychology  make  jilain  the  ab- 
surdity of  even  talking  about  the  existence  of  such  a  faculty.  The  early 
observers  '  of  the  jDhenomena  of  aphasia  (or  those  disturbances  of  the  func- 
tions employed  in  speaking  or  writing  articulate  language  tliat  are  due  to 
cerebral  lesions)  did  indeed  speak  of  "  a  faculty  of  speech  ;  "  they  attemjoted 
to  localize  this  faculty  in  circumscribed  areas  of  the  cerebral  convolutions. 
It  is  now  known  beyond  dispute,  however,  tliat  human  speech  involves,  in  a 
complicated  and  large  way,  a  very  considerable  part,  if  not  the  whole,  of  the 
iiemispheres  of  the  brain.'  The  four  principal  recognized  types  of  aphasia — 
namely,  (1)  motor,  or  inability  to  utter  sounds  with  meaning  ;  (2)  agraphia, 
or  inability  to  write  signs  that  have  meaning  ;  (3)  word-deafness,  or  inabil- 
ity to  appreciate  the  meaning  of  spoken  words  ;  and  (4)  word-blindness, 
or  inability  to  read  signs,  by  the  eye,  that  have  meaning — doubtless  involve 
specially  localized  forms  of  the  general  diiiiculty.  But  they  all  also  involve 
impairments  of  the  complex  activities  in  particular  directions  of  expression; 
as,  for  example,  hearing  worch,  seeing  rrords,  moving  the  vocal  organs  to 
utter  u-07-ds,  etc.  The  importance  of  the  integrity  of  the  association-tracts 
between  the  so-called  cerebral  centers,  and  of  the  soundness  of  the  whole 
brain,  as  connected  with  general  intellectual  functions,  are  further  made 
apparent  by  the  same  scientific  researches.  The  old  phrenological  view, 
which  advocated  a  special  "  bump"  of  language  corresponding  to  a  fictitious 
"  facility  "  of  language,  has  thus  been  rendered  completely  untenable. 

What  the  physiology  of  the  brain  suggests,  the  study  of  the  psychology 
of  speech  confirms.  Those  refinements  of  the  iierceptions  of  the  eye  and 
ear,  of  which  man  alone  is  capable,  are  necessary  to  his  use  of  written  and 

'  For  example,  Broca  :  Snr  le  Siege  de  la  Faculte  du  Langage  articul^,  etc.  (18G1). 
'  Compare  the  author's  Elements  of  Physiological  Psychology,  p.  291  If.,  and  the  works  cited 
there ;  also  articles  by  Drs.  Mills  and  Starr,  Brain,  1S89. 


456  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

spoken  language.  In  the  opinion  of  Lotze,'  defects  in  these  directions 
wouhi  alone  prevent  the  lower  animals  (for  example,  birds  that  can  imitate 
some  of  our  words)  from  developing  speech  :  "  (1st)  Defective  sense  of  hear- 
ing ;  and  (2d)  want  of  an  organically  constituted  harmony  between  the 
mental  images  of  sound  and  the  muscular  movements  that  are  requisite  for 
the  production  of  sounds."  Man's  superiority  with  respect  to  those  sensa- 
tions and  images  of  sensations  which  are  necessary  to  the  use  of  language, 
constitutes,  then,  a  part  of  his  faculty  of  language.  But  particularly  would 
a  lack  of  imagination  and  recognitive  memory,  in  its  higher  form,  be  unfa- 
vorable to  the  origin  and  development  of  speech.  It  is,  however,  as  has  al- 
ready been  indicated,  the  superiority  of  man's  intellect,  as  judging  and  reason- 
ing faculty,  which  both  requires  language  in  the  form  of  "  movable  types" 
and  also  makes  it  possible.  All  the  principal  forms  of  mental  life  on  its 
sides  of  sensation,  imagination,  and  intellection,  are  therefore  concerned  in 
the  states  of  consciousness  correlated  with  speech. 

^  14.  The  i^sychological  origin  of  language  is  not  to  be  found  in  our 
need  to  express  the  results  of  so-called  abstract  thinking  alone.  The  rather 
is  the  more  primary  source  of  language,  in  the  broader  of  its  meanings,  to  be 
found  in  the  affective  consciousness.  Here,  in  the  realm  of  feeling,  lie  the 
springs  of  that  necessity  for,  and  tendency  toward,  expression  which  all  the 
higher  animals  so  f)lainly  exhibit.  In  many  of  their  i^articular  forms  of  ex- 
pression the  relation  between  feeling  and  its  sign  is  immediate  and  organic. 
In  this  relation  are  fixed  the  roots  of  "  natural  language  "  so  called.  This 
will  appear  more  clearly  when  we  come  to  discuss  the  nature  of  the  emo- 
tions. But,  in  general,  that  semi-chaotic  surplus  of  cerebral  excitement 
in  which  the  physiological  basis  of  feeling  was  held  to  consist  naturally 
overflows,  in  man's  case,  in  the  various  forms  of  vocalization.  Thus  it  has 
been  claimed  that  the  point  of  starting  for  human  speech  is  to  be  found  in 
the  greater  impi'essibility  of  man  in  his  wild  state  to  all  manner  of  sensa- 
tions with  their  strong  affective  accomiianiments  (some  of  -which  may  be 
unknown  to  us).^  Man's  easy  and  appropriate  "  gesture  "  under  the  influence 
of  any  strong  feeling  is  to  open  his  month  and  emit  some  correspondingly 
modulated  sound.  "  Speaking  is  the  instinct  of  man  ;  man  builds  speech, 
as  the  bird  its  nest."  But  such  instinctive  sound  [Laid)  is  not  as  yet  a 
"Word"  {Wort). 

On  the  basis  of  such  rich  utterances  of  expressive  sound  as 
man's  varied  life  of  sensation,  motion,  and  feeling-  makes  pos- 
sible, Lang-uag-o  as  the  Vehicle  of  Thoug-ht  is  constructed.  Here 
a  mere  reference  to  the  real  nature  of  tlie  thoug-ht-processes  will 
suffice  to  furnisli  the  key  to  a  true  explanation.  The  sound  be- 
comes a  word,  the  unorg-anized  variety  of  natural  vocal  sj-mbols 
becomes  a  system  of  words — a  languag-e — by  modifications  re- 
ceived through  the  activities  of  ideation  and  judgment.  These 
are  the  activities,  however,  in  which  thought  consists.  The  goal 
reached  in  this  way  is  the  formation  and  expression  of  so-called 

'  MicrocoBniTis,  i.,  p.  fiOO  f. 

'■'  Coiiip.  Volkmauii :  Lehrbiuh  d.  Psychologic,  I.,  p.  332  f. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   LANGUAGE  457 

conceptions,  or  g-eneral  notions.  Thus  arises  the  change  from 
natural  sounds  to  speech  as  the  expression  and  vehicle  of  concep- 
tions. 

In  all  development  of  language  the  relation  of  the  utterance 
to  the  image  in  its  various  stages  ^  of  abstraction  is  most  im- 
portant. When  the  representative  images  of  those  experiences 
which  have  previoiisly  excited  expressive  sounds  recur  in  con- 
sciousness, their  former  emotional  accompaniments  are,  of 
course,  largely  wanting.  The  sounds  themselves — Avhen  repro- 
duced as  mental  images  of  sounds — lose  their  former  connection 
with  the  feelings  that  called  them  forth  ;  they  thus  become  bet- 
ter adapted  for  the  conveyance  or  translation,  not  of  feelings  in 
connection  with  presentations  simply,  but  rather  of  ideas.  And 
as  the  process  of  abstraction  modifies  the  ideas,  and  they  become 
"  freed  "  from  the  concrete  and  vivid  details  of  their  more  orig- 
inal character,  the  vocal  symbols  become,  on  their  part,  adapted 
to  represent  the  changed  character  of  the  ideas.  But  speech  as 
the  correlate  of  genuine  or  conceptual  thinking  (the  word  as  the 
support  and  vehicle  of  the  general  notion)  is  achieved  only  vjhen 
the  sounds  acquire  recognition  as  conventional  ''^  inovaMe  types^ 
In  achieving  this  not  only  a  very  close  relation,  but  even  a 
pretty  strict  interdependence,  between  conceptions  and  words, 
betw^een  language  and  thought  proper,  must  undoubtedly  be  rec- 
ognized. This  mutual  dependence,  however,  is  itself  due  to  the 
fact  that,  for  the  great  majority  of  men,  oral  expression  of  con- 
ceptions has  become  the  established  form  of  svmbolism.  For 
deaf-mutes,  of  course,  some  other  established  conventional  forms 
of  motor  activity,  which  may  act  as  movable  types,  are  neces- 
sary. AVhat  is  necessary  in  all  cases,  for  any  considerable  de- 
velopment of  conceptual  thinking,  is  the  use  of  some  form  of 
motor  activity  wdiich  may  serve  the  purpose  of  a  system  of  such 
movable  types. 

In  all  cases  where  the  intellectual  processes  issue  in  the  for- 
mation of  a  genuine  conception,  it  is  the  giving  of  a  name  which, 
on  the  one  hand,  so  fixes  for  the  individual  using  it  the  mental 
act  of  synthesis  as  to  make  its  results  capable  of  recall,  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  serves  as  the  means  of  awakening  corresponding 
intellectual  jirocesses  in  others.  But  this  is  the  same  thing  as 
to  say :  the  name  is  the  support  and  the  vehicle  of  the  conceiytion. 
If  we  raise  the  question  as  to  how  the  name  thus  operates,  we 
can  answer  it  psychologically  only  by  rehearsing  the  same  men- 

"  Here  etapres  cannot  be  distinctly  marked  off  so  as  to  form  classes  of  ideas.  Striimpell,  how- 
ever enumerates  four  grades  of  ideation:  (1)  Gesammtvorstellung ;  (2)  Allgemeinvorstellu7i<j ;  (3) 
Begriff ;  (4)  Idee. 


458  THOUGHT  and  language 

tal  processes  wliicli  terminate  in  giving-  the  name,  and  -svliicli 
are  reproduced  by  thinking-  out  the  meaning  of  the  name.  For 
human  beings  who  are  capable  of  learning  to  speak,  and  who 
have  actually  learned  to  speak,  words  are  the  indispensable  sup- 
port and  vehicle  of  their  truly  conceptual  thinking.  Without 
words,  thinking  la^oses  into  a  mere  succession  of  acts  of  image- 
making  ;  or  else  it  awkwardly  strives  to  substitute  for  its  natural 
and  facile  correlate  some  other  form  of  motor  activity.  That  is 
to  say,  without  words  thinking  either  ceases  to  be  ihinl'ing,  or 
else  it  adopts  some  other  less  useful  form  of  a  movable  type. 

^  15.  The  connected  questions,  how  far  the  lower  animals  are  capable  of 
forming  conceptions,  proijerly  so  called,  and  how  far  they  can  use  any  form 
of  symbol  as  a  "  movable  type,"  have  a  certain  value  in  studying  the  psychol- 
ogy of  thought.  These  are,  however,  difficult  questions  to  answer  with  any 
great  degree  of  confidence.  Romanes,'  after  a  detailed  discussion  of  the  sub- 
ject, reaches  the  conclusion  that  some  animals,  at  least,  are  capable  of  form- 
ing "recepts"  (/.e.,  rather  highly  abstract  rej)resentative  images — Gesammt- 
bilder)  ;  but  they  cannot  form  "conceptions,"  or  general  notions,  in  the 
stricter  sense  of  these  terms.  As  to  the  second  question  the  same  writer 
concludes  :  "  that  the  verbal  signs  used  by  talking  birds  are  due  to  association 
and  to  association  only,  all  the  evidence  I  have  met  with  goes  to  prove." 
The  lower  animals  cannot,  he  thinks,  use  words  as  movable  types.  These 
two  conclusions,  of  course,  hang  together.  For  a  word,  or  other  symbol, 
is  used  as  a  movable  type  only  when  it  serves  to  mark  the  synthesis  of  con- 
ceptual thinking,  which  brings  together  the  individuals  under  a  general, 
or  class,  notion.  It  is  to  the  notion  that  the  word  answers  as  a  movable 
type  ;  for  it  may  equally  well  be  applied  to  any  one  of  the  objects  already 
known  as  having  the  characteristics  of  the  class,  or  to  any  new  object  of  pres- 
entation or  imagination  which  has  the  same  characteristics.  The  name  sig- 
nifies a  series  of  judgments  synthesizing  many  similars  as — thovght-icise — the 
same. 

However  far  we  may  be  induced  to  go  in  our  explanation  of  the  wonder- 
ful sayings  of  jjarrots,  or  the  actions  of  dogs  and  other  highly  intelligent  ani- 
mals, the  early  i>erformanccs  of  many  children  surpass  almost  immeasurably 
anything  that  the  most  intelligent  animals  can  do.  For  example,  M.  Taiue 
tells  of  an  infant  of  eighteen  months  who  had  played  hide  and  seek  with  her 
mother,  calling  out,  "  Coucou;"  and  who  had  also  been  told  when  her  food 
was  too  hot,  or  the  sun  was  very  warm,  or  the  candle  too  near,  etc.,  "  Qa 
b7'ule.'"  On  first  seeing  the  setting  sun  suddenly  disappear  behind  a  hill, 
she  cried  out,  "  A  Vide  coj(cou."  Here  finished  acts  of  conceptual  thinking 
supported  and  expressed  by  language  are  indubitable.  "  That-which-burns  " 
is  one  conception  ;  "  that-which-suddenly-disappears,"  as  one  who  calls  out 
in  playing  hideand-seek,  is  another  conception  ;  the  two  are  ;ii)ited  in  a 
judgment  applying  to  an  entirely  new  and  unexpected  event.  Yet  more  did 
the  sage  little  boy  of  whom  M.  Perez  tells,  and  who  remarked  of  certain  in- 
sects :   "  Generally  "  (iV.  /?.,  the  word) — "  generally,  but  not  always  those 

■  Mental  Evolution  in  Animals  :  comp.  Mental  Evolution  in  Man,  especially  cliaps.  iii.-is. 


DIFFERENCE   IX   LANGUAGES  459 

insects  light  on  the  leaves,"  surpass  in  conception  and  thought,  toto  cwlo, 
the  most  wonderful  performances  of  all  tho  animals.' 

g  IG.  The  amount  of  thought  proper  implied  in  any  particular  word,  or 
system  of  words,  varies  indetinitely  with  different  individuals  and  races  of 
men.  Indeed,  this  is  a  matter  which  involves  both  inclination  and  ability. 
Lazarus  -  has  acutely  remarked  upon  the  gi-eat  difference  of  individual  men, 
in  their  inclination  to  form  genuine  concepts  ;  and  he  declares  of  such  a  con- 
cept as  that  corresponding — for  example — to  the  word  "  Bible,"  that  while 
"  the  whole  is  thought  as  a  kind  of  collective  thought-content,"  it  has 
"hovering"  and  "  flitting  "around  it,  as  it  were,  a  throng  of  vaguely  ideated 
particulars.  Experiment  with  groups  of  persons,  having  in  view  to  bring 
out  the  different  conscious  processes  evoked  by  the  same  word,  shows  re- 
markable differences  in  this  regard  (comp.  p.  443  f.).  It  is  matter  of  common 
observation  that  some  persons  are  far  more  thoughtful  than  others  in  the  use 
and  appreciation  of  words ;  still  others  excel  in  the  vivid  imaginative  con- 
tent evoked  and  expressed  by  tho  language  they  employ.  The  same  differ- 
ences characterize  races  of  men  and  stages  in  the  development  of  language. 
Of  Hebrew  and  the  Shemitic  languages  generally,  the  qualities  of  seusuous- 
ness  and  concrete  imaginativeness,  as  distinguished  from  conceptual  excel- 
lence, may  be  affirmed.  Hence  the  predominance  of  the  verb  and  of  verbal 
elements  gives  a  pervasive  vitality  to  all  their  sentences.  Anger,  for  exam- 
jjle,  is  "hard-breathing,"  "tumult  of  boiling,"  "noise  of  breaking,"  "trem- 
bling," etc.  The  "  substance  "  of  anything  is  its  "  bone."  As  Renan  says  : 
"  This  primitive  union  of  sensation  and  idea  is  always  preserved."  It  has, 
furthermore,  been  jjointed  out  by  students  of  language  that  races  backward 
in  intellectual  development  show  a  corresponding  deficiency  in  general 
names.  Thus  among  the  North  American  Indians  a  term  sufficiently  general 
to  denote  a  species  like  the  oak-tree  is  seldom  found ;  and  the  Tasmanians 
are  said  to  call  the  quality  of  "hardness,"'  "  like-a-stone,"  and  a  tall  thing  or 
man  is  declared  to  have  "  long-legs."  On  the  contrary,  the  child,  in  using 
names  already  prepared  for  him  by  the  development  of  the  comm:inity  often 
aijjslies  the  general  term  inappropriately  to  some  object  which  needs  a  more 
particular  denomination.  Thus  he  may  use  the  words  "  papa  "  or  "  mama  " 
as  names  for  the  male  or  female  sex,  respectively.  Essentially  the  same  de- 
ficiency in  the  attainments  of  conceptual  thinking  and  a  correspondingly  un- 
develoi^ed  use  of  language  are  testified  to  in  all  such  cases.  For  the  culture 
of  the  relating  activity  generally  requires  both  the  noticing  and  marking, 
by  names,  of  the  more  minute  and  comi^lex  distinctions  of  objects,  and  also 
the  grasping  together  under  general  notions,  and  their  names,  of  larger  and 
larger  groups  of  objects.  Here,  again,  reasoning,  as  the  yet  more  highly 
elaborate  form  of  thought,  needs  to  be  considered.  This  toijic  follows  pres- 
ently. 

I  17.  "With  most  men  at  all  times,  and  with  all  men  frequently,  words 
largely  take  the  place  of  actual  thought-processes.  Thus  the  succession  of 
symbols  does  something  more  than  to  aid  thinking  ;  it  becomes  an  almost 
or  quite  complete  substitute  for  thinking.     How  this  can  be,  has  already  been 

'  Comp.  Prof.  James's  stories  and  Ms  acute  analysis  of  them.  The  Principles  of  Psychology, 
II.,  p.  349  f 

=  Das  Leben  d.  Seele.  iii.,  p.  234. 


460  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE 

explained  in  treating  of  the  fusion  and  condensation  of  tne  processes  of 
conception  and  judgment.  It  would  doubtless  be  an  exaggeration  to  affirm 
that  the  whole  of  any  one's  life  may  be  condensed  into  a  properly  empha- 
sized word ;  yet  the  exaggeration  would  carry  with  it  a  certain  important 
truth.  What  one  talks  over  with  one's  self,  together  with  the  way  one  says 
it  to  one's  self,  furnishes  excellent  indictee  of  the  results  of  j^ast  thinking- 
processes,  with  their  habitual  affective  accompaniments.  For  the  inner  word 
is  not  mere  talk  ;  the  rather  does  it  embody  and  convey  to  the  talker  himself 
the  resultant  of  much  previous  combined  activity  of  presentation,  memory, 
imagination,  conception,  and  will.  Hence  we  find  men  using  "  pet"  phrases 
that  are  indicative  of  judgments  formed,  and  feelings  felt,  habitually  and 
long  ago.  Moreover,  the  standard  arrangements  and  collocations  of  words 
are  determinative  of  the  thoughts  of  the  man  who  accepts  and  uses  them. 
They  represent  results  of  previous  conceptual  thinking  on  the  part  of  the 
race,  structurally  established  and  organically  propagated,  as  it  were.  So 
that  the  individual  who  uses,  for  example,  the  classic  Greek  or  the  modern 
German  or  English  language,  is  compelled,  in  some  sort  to  "think  up"  to 
the  language  he  uses.  And  yet,  as  for  thinking  his  way  into  a  thorough  and 
intelligently  appreciative  use — this  is  what  exceedingly  few  heirs  to  so  rich 
an  inheritance  of  racial  conquests  are  capable  of  doing,  or  indeed  make  any 
effort  to  do. 

^  18.  The  difficult  question  as  to  how  ".roots  "  originate  is  philological 
rather  than  i^sychological.  It  may  be  said,  however,  that  the  psycho-jahys- 
ical  and  intellectual  equipment  of  man,  is  quite  adequate  to  this  work.  That 
such  sounds  do  originate  in  the  bare  effort  to  fix  and  communicate  the  re- 
sults of  conception,  experience  abundantly  proves.  Why  they  are,  individ- 
ually, just  so  shaped  as  they  are — that  is,  the  jiarticular  psychological  history 
of  ttie  origin  of  each  word — can  by  no  means  always  be  given.  Thxis  a  child 
of  less  than  five  years  of  age  was  heard  to  ask  her  mother  :  "Why  do  you 
spranhen  your  eyes  so  ?  "  This  term  appeared  as  a  pure  invention  to  desig- 
nate a  peculiar  complex  movement  of  the  organs  of  vision.  In  similar 
manner  have  many  of  the  roots  of  the  existing  languages  been  invented. 

I  19.  The  relation  of  language  to  judgment  needs  no  separate  treatment 
from  our  present  point  of  view  ;  for  the  gi'ammatical  form  of  the  judgment 
is  not  important  in  determining  its  j^sychological  import  as  a  synthesis  of 
conceptions.  Genuine  judgments — especially  those  of  perception — may  in- 
deed be  expressed  in  single  words.  Such  grammatical  "  fusion  "  of  subject, 
copula,  and  predicate,  in  one  word,  is  psychologically  significant.  It  indi- 
cates the  truth,  anew,  that  all  thinking  is  essentially  one  in  kind  ;  and  that 
the  process  of  judging  is  the  essential  process  of  that  one  kind.  For  ex- 
ample, if  one  of  several  jiersons  all  alike  interested  in  the  day's  weather  utter 
the  word,  ' '  Rain  !  "  then  according  to  his  intonation  he  will  be  understood 
as  judging — "  The  rain  is  falling  yonder  ;  "  or  "The  rain  will  surely  soon 
fall  here  ;  "  or  "  I  fear  it  may  probably  or  possibly  rain,"  etc.  The  "  leaj)  " 
of  the  mind  to  judgment  may  be  embodied  and  expressed  in  a  single  sound ; 
and  not  only  so,  but  also  the  grounds  on  which,  as  a  species  of  reasoning, 
this  leap  supports  itself. 

[On  Conception  and  Judgment  consult :  Ward  :  art.  Psychology  in  Encyc.  Brit.  Ham- 
ilton :  Metaphysics,  lect.  xxxiv.    Taine  :  De  rintelligence.    Rabicr  :  Le(;^ons,  etc.,  I.,  Psy- 


' 


W0KK8    ON    CONCEPTION    AND   JUDGMENT  4G1 

chologie,  p.  o'J'.t  f.  Lipps :  Gruntltatsjichen  d.  Soelenlebcns,  chap.  xx.  George :  Lehrbiicli 
d.  I'sychologie,  p.  4(i3  1:.  Waitz  :  Lehrl)iicli  d.  Psychologic,  SS  •if^,  -i'J-  Lazarua  :  Loben  d. 
yeele,  iii.,  I  (^JJi  r  'I'uci).  Volkinann  :  Lcliibuch  d.  Psycliologie,  II.,  p.  'HI  f.  ;  and  various 
works  on  Logic  of  winch  the  following  arc  especially  worthy  of  mention  :  Bosaiiqnet,  the 
entire  vol.  I.  Venn:  Eniiiirical  Logic,  chaps,  i.-x.  Lotze  :  Logic,  i.,  1,  and  Microcosnius, 
Book  v.,  i).  Sigwait :  Logik,  §,^  40-44  and 'i.o-'ib.  Bradley:  Principles  of  Logic,  I.  Ueber- 
weg :  iSystem  of  Logic,  i.  ami  iv.  Trendelenburg:  Logische  Untersuchungen,  S  15. 
Wundt :  Logik,  1.,  ii.  On  the  Relation  of  Language  to  Thought,  see  Whitney  :  Language 
and  the  Study  of  Language.  Steinthal :  Abriss  d.  yjjrachwissenschaft.  Sayce  :  Intro- 
duction to  the  Science  of  Language.  Fr.  Midler :  Grundriss  d.  Sprachwissenschaft. 
Prayer  :  The  Mind  of  the  Child.     Perez :  First  Three  Years  of  Childhood,  pp.  2\Hi-2(A.] 


CHAPTEE  XX. 
EEASONING 

That  some  sort  of  Inference,  or  Drawing  of  Conclusions  from 
signs  which  serve  as  "reasons"  for  them,  enters  largely  into 
experience,  we  have  already  found  abundant  occasion  to  know. 
Such  an  effect  follows,  as  a  matter  of  course,  from  the  unity  in 
essential  characteristics  of  the  various  stages  of  the  thought- 
processes.  The  statement  is  further  verified  by  the  facts  of 
analysis — even  as  they  are  expressed  in  the  language  of  daily 
life.  In  any  case  of  perception  where  doubt  arises,  or  even 
where  the  bare  chance  for  "  reasonable  "  doubt  may  be  surmised, 
we  stand  ready  to  answer  the  question,  "  Why  ?  "  or  "  On  what 
grounds  ?  "  But  this  fact  distinctly  shows  that  the  perception 
itself  involves  a  sort  of  reasoning  process.  For  example,  I  sum 
up  the  results  of  a  perfectly  clear  and  completed  act  of  sensuous 
presentation,  in  the  affirmation :  "  I  heard  the  fire-bell  strike 
fifty-four  just  now."  Such  an  affirmation  ordinarily  would  not 
be  called  in  question,  but  accepted  as  a  matter  of  so-called  "  im- 
mediate knowledge."  Suppose,  however,  that  my  conclusion 
from  this  perception  is  announced  in  the  following  terms  :  "  There 
is  a  fire  near  the  corner  of  A  and  B  Streets."  Then  plainlj^  the 
question  is  most  pertinent,  if  not  even  demanded :  "  How  do  you 
know  that  there  is  a  fire  in  that  place  ?  "  To  this  question  the 
answer,  of  course,  would  be  :  "  By  the  list  of  fire-stations,  which 
has  the  No.  54  opposite  the  words  '  corner  of  A  and  B  Sts.'  "  But 
here  certainly  is  a  case  of  reasoning  ;  since  the  tu\i  judgments, 
"  The  fire-bell  strikes  54,"  and  "  The  striking  of  54  by  the  fire- 
bell  means  fire  near  the  corner  of  A  and  B  Sts.,"  have  contributed 
together  to  the  third  judgment :  "  There  is  now  a  fire  near  the 
corner,"  etc. 

Suppose,  however,  that  we  return  to  the  original  perception 
and,  for  some  reason  or  other,  call  upon  it  to  give  an  account 
of  itself.  This  so-called  information,  "  I  heard  the  fire-bell 
strike  fifty -four  just  now,"  itself  results  from  a  series  of  acts  of 
perception  which  may  reasonably  be  regarded  as  afi'ording  the 


INFERENCE   IN    PERCEPTION  463 

(/round  for  the  concliuling'  judg^mcnt.  Of  this  "  concluding- " 
{N.B.  the  significance  of  the  word)  judgment,  such  questions  as 
foUow  ma}''  be  asked  :  How  do  you  know  that  the  sounds  you  just 
heard  were  those  of  the  fire-bell  (of  a  Jk'U  at  all,  and  of  ihafire- 
bell  in  particular)  ?  and,  How  do  you  know  that  the  number  fifty- 
four,  and  not  some  other  number,  was  struck  ?  To  the  first 
question  the  obvious  answer  is :  Because  I  am  already  familiar 
with  the  intensity,  timbre,  and  direction  of  sounds  that  have 
previously,  on  good  grouiuh,  been  ascribed  to  the  fire-bell  as  their 
cause ;  now,  these  present  sounds  are  like  those ;  therefore,  etc. 
To  the  second  question  the  obvious  answer  is :  Because  I  counted 
the  number  of  strokes,  "five,"  then  experienced  a  longer  pause 
of  the  sounds,  and  then  again  counted  the  number  of  strokes, 
"  four ; "  and  this  series  of  sounds,  nine  in  number,  and  so  arranged 
as  respects  interval,  I  am  already  familiar  with  as  "  signifying  " 
54.  But  here  again  it  is  plain  that  both  the  main  kinds  of  rea- 
soning— deduction  and  induction — are,  in  some  sort,  involved  in 
the  series  of  thoughts  by  which  this  concluding-  judgment  is 
reached.  Indeed,  any  logician  might  draw  out  such  an  experi- 
ence into  a  very  pretty  exhibition  of  his  pet  syllogistic  formulas. 
For  example  :  All  sounds  which  have  the  comjilex  characteristics 
of  intensity,  timbre,  direction,  =  {i  +  f  +  d),  are  sounds  of  the 
fire-bell  {All  S  =  {i  +  t  +  d)  is  F.  B.).  This  particular  case  {C) 
of  a  series  of  sounds  which  I  just  heard  had  these  complex 

characteristics  {This  {s^ .  s' .  s^ .  s* .  ff' s^ .  s- .  6-'' .  s*)  is  a  case  of 

repeated  {i  -b  t  +  d)  or  S).  Therefore  this  case  is  that  of  the 
fire-bell  {C  is  F.  B.).  Such  reasoning  by  deduction,  however, 
involves  an  act  of  counting,  and  all  counting  is  a  sort  of  induc- 
tion by  simple  enumeration. 

Plainly,  however,  so  clear  and  undoubted  a  perception  as 
that  of  the  striking  of  the  fire-bell  nine  times  would  not  ordinar- 
ily be  considered  a  case  of  complex  deductive  and  inductive 
reasoning.  Plainly,  too,  the  reason  for  the  failure  to  recognize 
the  original  logical  j)rocesses  really  involved  in  this  act  of  per- 
ception is  to  be  found  in  the  speed  and  ease  which  previous 
experience  has  imparted  to  them.  Here  again,  then,  is  an  ex- 
ample of  essentially  the  same  kind  of  fusion  and  condensation 
of  the  results  of  past  thinking  as  that  A\-ith  which  the  doctrine  of 
conception  and  judgment  has  already  made  us  familiar.  But 
what  is  necessar}'^  in  order  to  distinguish  genuine  logical  reason- 
ing from  such  so-called  "  instinctive "  or  "  imconscious "  rea- 
soning ?  It  is  chiefly  necessary  that  the  intellect  should,  as  it 
were,  become  conscious  of  itself.  The  thinking  subject  reaches 
genuine  logical  inference  lahenever  tivo  Judgments  are  related  in  such 


464  REASONING 

'maimer  that  one  is  made  the  ''reason''  or  "ground''  of  the  other, 
lo'dh  a  consciousness  of  the  7'elation  thus  estahUshed  between  them. 

\  1.  How  the  presence  of  question  or  doubt  emphasizes  the  fact  that  rea- 
soning enters  into  our  jjerception  by  the  senses,  may  be  illustrated  by  innu- 
merable experiences.  It  appeared  in  the  j^revious  chapter  that  the  affirma- 
tion, "I  hear  a  carriage,"  does  really  express  a  judgment  of  perception,  even 
if  there  be  no  question  as  to  whether  it  may  not  be  a  cart  rather  than  a  car- 
riage which  I  hear  (see  p.  439).  It  may  now  be  said  that,  in  case  of  such 
question  or  doubt  arising,  the  judgment  which  solves  the  doubt  or  answers 
the  question,  is  capable  of  being  regarded  as  a  conclusion  based  on  grounds. 
The  same  mental  attitude  occurs  whenever  we  jjaiise,  as  it  were,  in  the  i^res- 
ence  of  any  series  of  sensation-comi^lexes  and  "make  up  our  mind  "as  to 
what  is  the  meaning  of  it  all.  For  example  :  Is  this  noise  the  ticking  of 
the  watch  under  my  pillow,  or  the  click  of  my  heart-valves ;  is  it  the  sing- 
ing of  a  cricket  on  the  window-sill,  or  the  ringing  produced  by  cerebral 
excitement  in  my  ears?  Indeed,  in  all  cases  of  the  perception  of  unfamiliar 
I  objects,  the  activity  which  prepares  for  the  final  synthesis  of  naming,  is  a  conclu- 
sion reached  by  reasoning.  Thus  the  natives  of  the  Pacific  Islands  reasoned 
their  way  to  the  conclusion  that  the  goats  which  Captain  Cook  brought  to 
them  were  "horned  hogs  ;  "  and  that  the  horse  was  a  "  large  dog."  As  such 
they  perceived  them.  Thus,  too,  every  student  of  the  varied  forms  of  plant 
and  animal  life  carries  about  with  him,  in  his  perceptive  brain  and  mind,  as 
it  were,  a  system  of  well-reasoned  conclusions,  condensed  into  familiar 
names  of  species,  genera,  etc.  Whenever  he  perceives  any  new  and  un- 
familiar sort  of  plant  or  animal,  by  a  series  of  intellectual  processes  involv- 
ing more  or  less  of  genuine  ratiocination,  he  ' '  concludes  "  them  under 
some  already  established  sjiecies,  or  under  another  species  which  he  has  the 
honor  of  being  first  to  name. 
>  Not  only  in  perception,  but  also  in  memory,  do  we  reason  ourselves 
'  into  the  clearness  of  reproductive  ideation,  and  into  the  accompanying  con- 
viction that  recognition  brings.  Here,  too,  numberless  questionings  and 
doubts  arise — either  as  between  the  memories  of  different  persons  or  in  the 
mind  of  the  individual,  as  to  which  one  of  several  complex  representative 
images  shall  receive  the  seal  of  conviction.  Was  it  yesterday,  or  the  day 
before,  on  which  we  met  A  ;  and  was  it  at  the  place  X,ov  at  the  place  V,  that 
we  met  him  ?  All  such  questions  of  correct  recognitive  memory  require  an  ap- 
peal to  thought  in  the  form  of  more  or  less  elabm'ate  ratiocination.  Nothing  is, 
indeed,  more  familiar  than  the  effect  of  supporting  memory  by  an  appeal  to 
other  memory  as  its  ground.  But  where  such  an  appeal  is  consciously 
made,  it  involves  processes  of  genuine  logical  thinking  that  proceed  from 
premises  to  conclusion.  And  by  condensation  of  these  processes  the  con- 
clusions of  similar  jmst  processes  enter  into  what  appears  under  the  guise 
of  our  most  immediate  knowledge.  Nor  is  the  same  use  of  elaborate 
argument  wholly  lacking  in  supf)ort  of  the  work  of  constructive  imagination. 
"  When  I  have  saved  enough  money,  then  and  therefore  shall  I  buy  me  a 
new  gown  and  take  great  pleasure  therein," — reasoned  the  imaginative  milk- 
maid. The  highest  flight  of  the  most  purely  "creative"  artistic  imagina- 
tion requires  for  its  success  that  it  shall  alight  frequently  upon  the  stepping- 


AMONG   THE   LOWER   ANIMALS  465 

stones  of  a  "  therefore"  or  a  "because."  Indeed,  it  is  characteristic  of  the 
highest  forms  of  imagination  that  they  are,  in  some  large  degree,  distinctly 
reasonable;  whilo  the  chief  office  of  scienlitic  and  philosophic  imagination 
is  to  devise  grounds  and  middle  terms,  in  order  that  the  "  leap  "  to  hypothe- 
sis may  not  be  beyond  the  realm  of  the  provable.  In  this  connection  Ave 
may  refer  to  Schopenhauer's  view,  that  the  syllogism  is  chiefly /e//. 

I  2.  Nevertheless,  the  character  of  that  kind  of  reasoning  which  stands  in 
the  same  relation  to  our  more  purely  perceptive  experience  as  that  in  which 
our  logical  judgment  stands  to  the  same  experience,  is  itself  distinctly  logi- 
cal.    As  such  judgment  involves  a  conscious  synthesis,  or  bringing  into  re-  ( 
lation  of  conceptions   (themselves  the  embodied  and  named   resultants  of 
other  more  primary  intellectual  processes)  ;  so  does  genuine  logical  reasoningj 
involve  the  conscious  establishment  of  a  recognized  relation  between  log  iced  judg* 
ments.      Thus,  in  order  to  reason,  in   the  higher  meaning  of  the  word,  I 
must  be  aware  that  my  concluding  judgment  "depends  on  "  other  judgment 
as  its  reason  or  ground.     Hence  all  reasoning  implies  a  development  of  self- 1 
conscious  mental  life — all  around,  as  it  were. 

The  foregoing  distinction  throws  needed  light  upon  the  question  as  to 
how  far  the  lower  animals  are  capable  of  acts  of  genuine  reasoning.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  many  of  their  performances  simulate  highly  elabo- 
rate forms  of  ratiocination.  But  even  the  mechanism  of  the  insectivorous 
orchids,  or  the  spinal  cord  of  a  decapitated  frog  does  this  ;  and  the  world  of 
the  lower  forms  of  life,  of  the  infusoria,  etc.,  is  full  of  specious  acts  of  rea- 
soning.' Indeed,  the  entire  field  of  animal  instinct  and  of  human  tact  is 
extremely  difficult  to  mark  off  from  that  which  gives  obvious  tokens  of  in- 
tellectual processes  resembling  those  of  perceptive  inference.  Many  of 
the  more  intelligent  animals,  within  limits  not  easy  to  assign,  shrewdly  vary 
the  means  at  their  disposal  in  adaptation  to  ends  that  seem  to  offer  new 
problems  for  solution.  These  animals  are  plainly  capable  of  recognitive 
perception  and  of  intelligent  expectation  of  results  that  the  human  intellect 
would  infer  as  sure  to  follow  from  familiar  causes.  It  is  true,  as  Leibnitz 
says,  that  "  in  a  new  juncture  which  appears  similar  to  the  preceding,  they  ex- 
pect anew  what  they  found  conjoined  with  it  before,  as  if  things  were  linked 
together  in  fact  because  their  images  are  in  memory."  But  this  is  the  very 
thing,  as  Leibnitz  himself  goes  on  to  say,  which  reason  itself  counsels  men  to 
do.  It  is  the  shock  of  surprise  at  being  disappointed  in  expectation  which 
awakens  both  man  and  brute  to  a  process  of  inquiry  and  of  reasoning. 
Whether,  however,  even  the  most  intelligent  of  the  lower  animals  ever 
reasons — in  the  meaning  of  drawing  a  conclusion  from  grounds  with  a 
consciousness  of  the  nature  of  this  peculiar  connection  thus  established  by 
the  relating  activity — is  quite  another  question.  For  example,  and  to  imt  the 
case  concretely  :  Does  the  learned  dog  which,  when  it  wishes  to  induce 
its  master  to  go  out  for  a  walk,  brings  the  umbrella,  if  it  is  raining,  but 
brings  the  cane  if  it  is  fair,  have  in  the*  stream  of  its  consciousness  any  ex- 
perience coiTesponding  to  this  language:  "The  i;mbrella  is  the  proper 
thing  because  it  is  raining ;  "  or,  "since  it  is  fair,  therefore  only  the  cane  will 
be  needed?" 

We  shall  perhaps  never  be  able  to  answer  such  questions  as  the  foregoing 
'  SeeBinet:  The  Psychic  Life  of  Micro-o- ganisms.- 
30 

'?" 

r 


466  REASONING 

with  a  comi^lete  confidence.  But  a  negative  answer  seems  mucli  tlie  more 
probable,  so  far  as  any  answer  at  all  is  justifiable.  For  conceptual  thinking 
and  its  correlated  develoi^ment  of  language  are  necessary  for  the  processes 
of  logical  inference  ;  and  these  appear  to  be  quite  beyond  the  intellect  of 
the  lower  animals.  Here,  to  multiply  instances  of  the  most  wonderful  in- 
telligence only  increases  our  scejiticism.  For  examj^le,  the  spider  of  which 
Mr.  Romanes,  borrowing  the  instance  from  Mr.  Larkin,  tells  us,'  and  which 
employed  an  ingenious  and  elaborate  system  of  guy-rojies  and  haulings  to 
raise  a  fly  that  was  too  heavy  for  a  dead-lift,  acted  like  an  intelligent  human 
being  well  versed  in  mechanical  engineering.  But  to  believe  that  the  spider 
icent  tlirougli  conscious  'processes  like  those  of  a  mechanical  engineer  in  solving 
a  similar  problem,  taxes  our  credulity  quite  too  severely.  In  general,  be- 
yond a  certain  limit,  the  more  the  deed  seems  to  require  of  genuine  logical 
inference,  the  less  inclined  we  are  to  admit  that  there  is  really  any  sucli  in- 
ference. Tlie  trouble,  for  the  cautious  psychologist,  with  the  most  startling 
instances  of  reasoning  on  the  jiart  of  the  lower  animals,  is  that  they  prove 
altogether  too  much  (if  anything  to  the  point)  to  be  trusted  at  all. 

§  3.  The  next  important  consideration  bearing  on  the  psychology  of 
reasoning  may  be  introduced  by  citing  from  several  authors.  One  writer  ^ 
affirms  that  every  conclusion  is,  psychologically  considei'ed,  a  judgment 
which  takes  place  "  through  a  mean,"  united  with  "a  consciousness  of  this 
mediation."  Hence  the  concluding  judgment  necessarily  falls  into  two  di- 
visions ;  for  sometimes  the  concluding  proposition  is  developed  only  by  op- 
position, although  in  such  a  way  as  to  show  that  it  was  mentally  accepted 
before  the  premises  for  it  were  sought.  Another  writer^  regards  "  the  con- 
clusion "  as  the  result  of  a  delayed  (or,  for  a  time,  inhibited)  fusion  of  two 
judgments.  The  psychological  reason  why  the  judgments  do  not  fuse  at 
once  is  this  :  the  middle  conception  which  appears  in  the  two  premises  can 
be,  logically,  only  a  single  conception  (otherwise  the  conclusion  woiild  l)e 
incorrect)  ;  but  the  total  psychical  picture  in  one  of  the  premises  is  different 
from  that  in  the  other  premise.  A  delay  is  therefore  necessary  until  the  con- 
sciousness of  that  "oneness,"  which  is  in  "the  two,"  can  be  developed. 
For  example,  suppose  the  conclusion  to  be  reached  is  in  answer  to  the  prob- 
lem, whether  the  crocodile  is  a  mammal  or  not.  But  I  now  learn  that  the 
crocodile  is  "a  cold-blooded  animal,"  and  I  also  remember  that  all  mam- 
mals are  "  warm-blooded  animals  ;  "  the  conclusion  therefore  follows,  that 
the  crocodile  is  not  a  mammal.  [The  principle  is  the  same,  although  the  con- 
clusion is  in  this  case  negative.  One  psychical  picture  is  that  of  "  warm- 
blooded mammal,"  the  other  is  that  of  "  not-warm-blooded  crocodile  ;  "  and 
the  middle  conception  is  "warm-blooded."  Now  the  fusion  of  the  two 
judgments,  delayed  at  first  in  order  that  inspection  of  the  common  contents 
of  the  two  may  take  place,  ends  in  a  permanent  inhibition  of  the  fusion  of 
the  conceptions  crocodile  and  mammal.]     Again,  still  a  third  author^  de- 

'  Mental  EvoluHon  in  Man,  p.  C2 ;  and  comp.  Science,  No.  58. 

"  Volkmann,  Li-hrbuch  d.  Psychologic,  II..  p  2S9.  Volkmann  not  only  affirms  that  the 
tMhiimcnw  is  the  natural  and  ordiuarj'  form  of  conclusion  ;  but  th.it,  however  logic  may  prefer  the 
"flrst  flv'iire."  thinking  bft  to  itself  naturally  takes  the  logically  horrible  "  fourth  figure  "  as  its 
accustomed  form. 

3  Ballauf,  Klcmentc  d.  Psychologic,  p.  135. 

*  Bluet,  Psychologie  du  liuisouucmeut,  pp.  136  f.,  141  f. 


AS   CONSCIOUSNESS   OF   llELATION  467 

dares  that  "  to  reason  is  to  establish  new  associations  after  tlie  pattern  of 
associations  ah'oady  made  ; "  or,  more  completely  :  "  Reasoning  is  the 
establisliniont  of  an  association  between  two  states  of  consciousness,  by 
means  of  an  intermediate  state  of  consciousness  which  resembles  the  first 
state,  which  is  associated  with  the  second,  and  which,  on  fusing  with  the 
first,  associates  it  with  the  second."  In  the  line  of  the  last  remark  is  the 
declaration  of  Boole,  that  "reasoning  is  the  elimination  of  the  middle  term, 
in  a  system  that  has  three  terms." 

The  essential  truth  of  all  the  foregoing  ways  of  viewing  the  nature  of 
the  process  of  logical  inference,  is  better  stated  in  the  terms  we  have  already 
employed.  But  there  is  one  essential  point  which  these  authors  emphasize, 
that  has  thus  far  been  only  imiilied  in  our  discussion. 

The  question  now  arises,  if  all  logical  conclusion  involves 
tlie  relating-  of  judgments  loith  a  consciousness  of  their  relation, 
and  if  the  essence  of  this  relation  is  such  that  one  of  the  judg- 
ments shall  "follow  from,"  or  "  depend  upon,"  other  judgment 
as  having  in  the  latter  its  reason  or  ground  ;  AVhat  is  meant  by 
this  very  relation  ?  What  is  it  to  be  the  "  Reason  "  from  which 
a  conclusion  follows  ;  or  the  "  Ground  "  on  which  it  depends  ? 
On  referring  to  the  views  cited  in  the  last  article,  they  are  all 
found  to  emphasize  the  "  middle  term."  Indeed,  these  authors 
speak  as  though  the  use  of  a  middle  term  were  the  essential 
thing  in  reasoning.  To  draw  a  conclusion — they  seem  to  imply 
— is  to  effect  a  synthesis  between  one  conception,  on  which 
attention  is  fastened  as  the  subject  {8^,  and  a  second  con- 
ception concerning  which  the  question  may  be  raised,  whether 
it  shall  be  attributed  to,  or  predicated  (i^)  of  this  subject, 
thronrih  a  third  conception  as  means  (J/).  That  is  to  say, — S  is 
concluded  to  be  P,  or  /^is  concluded  to  belong  to  S,  etc.,  through 
M.  This  relation,  thus  mediated,  may  be  stated  in  any  one  of 
several  ways  :  8  is  (or  is  not)  P,  hecause  it  is  (or  is  not)  M  ;  or,  If 
/iS'is  31,  then  it  is  also  P{\\\\y  ?  hecause  J/ is  P) ;  or  J/ is  /■'and  S 
is  3f,  therefore  S  is  /*— the  last  being  the  regular  syllogistic 
form  of  the  First  Figure,  as  recognized  by  logicians.  But  all 
these  ways  of  stating  this  relation  seem  alike  to  imply  a  problem 
or  question — namely.  Whether  7*  does,  or  docs  not,  belong  to  S 
— which  is  solved  by  our  finding  some  M  that  can,  as  it  were, 
mediate  between  8  and  P.  Thus,  as  the  result  of  one's  reason- 
ing which  concludes  with  the  affirmation  or  denial  of  a  relation 
of  synthesis,  of  some  sort,  between  8  and  P,  one  knows  8  the 
better  through  M;  for  the  latter  has  served  as  a  medium,  or 
"  middle  term,"  in  the  solution  of  the  problem.  Thus  far  we 
have  only  been  stating  a  fact :  the  reason  or  ground  of  every  con- 
clusion resides  in  the  premises  (judgment  or  judgments  from  which 


4C8  KEASONIISTG 

one  concludes)  only  as  these  2^remiscs  coiiiain  some  mediating  con- 
ception. Bnt  the  mere  statement  of  this  fact  does  not  answer  the 
question  as  to  what  it  is  to  be  a  reason  or  ground.  When,  then, 
psychology  simply  talks  about  "  middle  terms,"  as  though  they 
contained  the  secret  of  that  procedure  of  intellect  in  which  log- 
ical reasoning  consists,  it  is  quite  too  easily  satisfied  with  the 
vague  and  empty  terminology  of  formal  logic. 

Logical  reasoning  has  been  seen  to  require  the  use  of  a  middle 
term,  with  a  consciousness  of  the  relations  existing  between  this 
middle  term  and  both  the  subject  and  the  predicate  of  the  con- 
clusion. Thus  reasoning  does  with  judgments,  what  judgment 
does  with  conceiDtions.  Mere  judgment  implies  the  synthesis  of 
conceptions  under  conscious  terms  of  relation.  But  every  act  of 
logical  reasoning,  when  we  bring  its  process  out  into  full  con- 
sciousness, implies  a  synthesis  of  judgments  {i.e.,  a  considera- 
tion of  judgments  apart,  as  it  were,  a  discovery  of  the  possibility 
of  their  results  being  condensed  into  one  judgment ;  and  an 
actual  juncture  accomplished  between  them,  through  something 
belonging  to  both  in  common).  This  "  something  common  "  is 
obviously  the  conception  which  serves  as  the  middle  term.  So 
far,  however,  as  the  essential  psychological  characteristics  of  the 
intellectual  process  of  ratiocination  are  concerned,  it  is  the 
words  with  wdiicli  the  conclusion  is  drawn  (the  "  illative  "  terms 
rather  than  the  middle  term)  that  most  clearly  reveal  the  truth. 
These  are  the  words  "  because,"  "  therefore,"  and  the  like.  It  is 
in  the  import  of  these  words  that  psychology  takes  most  inter- 
est. The  moment  this  important  fact  is  recognized,  it  becomes 
evident  that  genuine  reasoning  implies  something  psycholog- 
ically new,  as  it  were,  of  the  greatest  importance  in  the  develoi)- 
ment  of  mental  life.  For,  all  that  acquired  knowledge — es- 
pecially of  things  remote  in  time  or  space  —  which  we  call 
science,  as  distinguished  from  mere  opinion  or  A'ague  belief, 
is  dependent  upon  reasoning  for  its  acquirement.  Whatever  the 
lower  animals  do,  or  do  not,  have  in  common  with  man,  whether 
by  way  of  actual  attainment  or  in  the  form  of  capacity  for  attain- 
ment, they  certainly  have  achieved  no  development  of  science. 
So  far,  then,  as  intellect  proper  is  the  necessary  precondition  of 
scientific  development,  it  is  this  power  of  drawing,  examining, 
and  testing,  defending  and  extending,  or  rejecting,  logical  con- 
clusions, which  differences  man  from  all  the  lower  animals. 

But  the  very  words  "  because,"  "  therefore,"  and  the  like, 
themselves  have  no  content  except  that  which  is  acquired  in  the 
course  of  experience  by  processes  of  conception,  judgment,  etc. 
This  is,  of  course,  as  true  of  these  words  as  it  is  true  of  all  words. 


MEANING   OF   ILLATIVE  TERMS  469 

It  is  even  pre-emiuently  true  of  such  words  as  these,  because  of 
their  hii^lil}^  abstract  character  and  consequently  late  intelligent 
use.  Indeed,  the  concoi)tions  wliicli  answer  to  these  words  are 
never  very  clearly  formed  by  the  great  majority  of  mankind. 
Most  men  do  not  clearly  know,  and  cannot  at  all  tell,  what  they 
mean  when  they  affirm  that  one  thing  is  so,  hecause  another  is  so  ; 
or  when  they  parade  a  "  therefore  "  in  proof  of  some  judgment  at 
which  they  have — perhaps  incontinently — arrived.  These  words 
must  then  be  received  by  descriptive  psychology  as  significant 
of  a  natural  law  of  the  intellect— as  expressing-  a  form  of  the  ac- 
tion and  development  of  man  as  a  so-called  "  reasoning  "  or 
"  log"ical  "  animal.  The  nature  of  this  action  and  development 
signified  by  the  words  will  be  further  explained,  as  itself  a  phe- 
nomenon of  conscious  mental  life,  later  on.^  But  for  the  fuller 
understanding  of  this  subject,  psychology  must  refer  to  jihiloso- 
pliy  in  its  branches  of  metaphysics  and  theory  of  knowledge. 

Certain  remarks  on  the  more  obvious  aspects  of  that  bond 
between  different  judgments,  which  is  effected  by  the  middle 
term  and  which  is  essentially  expressed  in  the  terms  called  "  illa- 
tive," are  in  place  here :  (1)  These  terms  imply  that  objects  of  ex- 
perience are  actually  related  in  a  great  variety  of  directions,  and 
under  several  main  classes  of  relations.  Objects  are  known  as 
related  directly,  and  in  ways  which  perception  can  easily  dis- 
cover ;  but  they  are  also  known  as  related  in  more  complicated 
and  obscure  ways  ;  they  are  known  as  related  throKglt  each  other 
in  an  indefinite  and  incalculable  number  of  directions.  (2) 
Knowledge  itself,  so  far  as  its  entire  inferential  branch  is  chiefly 
concerned,  consists  in  the  apprehension  of  relations.  Nothing 
can  be  known  as  unrelated  ;  and,  as  has  been  habitually  declared 
by  psycholog-ists,  "  to  know  is  to  relate."  [This  is,  however,  as 
we  shall  see  subsequently,  far  from  being  all  that  knowledge  is.] 
(3)  A  sort  of  instinctive  impulse  of  the  intellectual  order,  and  a 
dim  apprehension  of  the  great  supreme  fact  of  the  case,  are  im- 
plied in  that  natural  and  habitual  mode  of  movement  which  in- 
tellect shows,  as  soon  as  the  faculty  of  reasoning  develops. 
Keasoning  implies  that,  somehow,  things  generally  are  united 
into  a  system  ;  and  that  this  system  is  such  as  to  make  it  possible 
for  thought  to  reach  from  object  to  object,  and  from  event  to 
event,  and  to  bind  all  the  individuals  into  higher  and  yet  higher 
unities.  As  to  the  ultimate  origin  and  extra-mental  validity  of 
this  presupposition  of  the  logical  process  of  reasoning,  and  even 
as  to  its  justification  and  application  in  the  lines  of  the  differ- 

1  That  ip,  in  the  latter  part  of  this  cliapter,  in  the  two  following  chapters,  and  by  way  of  indirect 
reference,  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  book. 


470  REASONING 

eut  so-called  sciences  or  systems  of  knowledge,  tlie  science  of 
psychology  does  not  inquire.  But  j)sycliology  must,  at  least, 
note  this  implication  as  a  fact  underlying  the  rise  and  develoj)- 
ment  of  all  conscious  processes  of  ratiocination.  (4)  It  is  also 
implied  that  a  diiference  exists  between  correct  reasoning  and 
incorrect  and  iuA' alid  reasoning  ;  and  that  this  difference  depends 
upon  the  success  or  failure  of  the  relating  faculties  to  correspond 
to  the  actual  relations  of  existing  objects.  Here  again  we  un- 
cover metaphysical  questions  that  concern  the  origin  and  nature 
of  that  conviction  which  belongs  to  the  use  of  the  intellect  in  the 
elaboration  of  experience. 

§  4.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  point  out  in  detail  tlie  dependence  of 
logical  conclusion  upon  the  development  of  all  the  other  so-called  faculties 
of  mind.  As  reasoning  enters  into  all  highly  analytic  and  conceptual  per- 
ception, so  it,  in  turn,  depends  for  its  development  upon  such  acts  of  percep- 
tion having  been  already  performed.  Every  complex  object  of  perception  is 
capable  of  being  ihoughtfulli)  regarded  from  any  one  of  innumerable  points 
of  view.  Thus  the  mastery  of  any  object  requires  us  continually  to  be  de- 
vising middle  terms,  through  which  we  may  reason  our  way  into  relating 
it  to  other  items  of  our  experience.  For  example,  on  first  seeing  a  jaguar, 
we  conclude  from  its  general  appearance  (stripes  on  the  back  and  sides  with 
whitish  belly,  etc.)  that  it  is  "some  sort  of  a  tiger;  "  or,  being  more  ex- 
pert in  zoology,  from  its  serrate  teeth  that  it  is  "carnivorous,"  etc.  But 
this  very  object  of  perception  subsequently  becomes  a  suggester  and  source 
of  middle  terms  through  which  to  bring  into  relation  with  past  experience 
other  new  objects  of  perception.  Plainly,  moreover,  this  ju-ocess  of  drawing 
conclusions  through  middle  terms  requires  advanced  development  of  the 
image-making  faculty,  in  the  form  both  of  memory  and  of  imagination.  He 
who  has  no  stores  of  recoguitive  memory  has  no  source  of  middle  terms 
through  which  to  reach  conclusions  ;  to  conclude  that  the  jaguar  is  a  carnivor- 
ous animal  one  must  remember  that  *'  serrate  teeth"  are  the  mark  of  such  an 
animal.  And  the  history  of  the  mental  processes  of  every  boy  who  toils  over 
the  solution  of  a  mathematical  jjroblem,  illustrates  what  the  entire  history  of 
mathematics  shows — namely,  the  place  of  imagination  in  demonstrative  rea- 
soning. Not  only  must  imagination  work  constructively,  to  hold  the  problem 
clearly  before  the  mind,  and  so  to  set  forth  the  end  or  goal  of  the  process  of 
ratiocination  ;  it  must  also  work  inventively,  to  devise  the  various  connec- 
tions of  lines,  etc.,  which  may  serve  as  middle  terms  in  the  train  of  reasoning. 
"The  geometer's  sagacity,"  says  Professor  James,  "lies  in  the  invention  of 
the  new  lines."  Nor  is  a  high  degree  of  developed  volition  unnecessary  to 
the  drawing  of  conclusions.  For  although,  in  inductive  reasoning  especially, 
the  hypothesis  or  theory  which  includes  the  explanation  of  the  individual 
experiences  may  seem  to  thrust  itself  involuntarily  before  the  mind,  will  is 
indispensable,  with  its  trained  exercise,  to  hold  attention  upon  the  goal, 
to  make  selections  among  the  media  that  memory  and  imagination  suggest, 
and  to  direct  along  chosen  lines  the  entire  so-called  "  train  of  thought." 
\  5.   The  truth  that  the  conclusion  of  a  process  of  reasoning  presents 


KINDS   OF   REASONING  471 

itself  as  a  problem  for  solution,  or  as  a  Jouht  to  bo  set  at  rest,  is  closely  con- 
nected with  the  teleologicitl  character  of  all  reasoning.  In  general,  we  reason 
"  in  order"  to  discover  whether,  or  not,  some  relation  which  is  not  immedi- 
ately obvious  may  bo  established,  defended,  and  confirmed,  or  rejected. 
This  general  purpose  divides  itself  into  as  many  particular  puqioses  as  there 
are  problems  to  be  solved,  or  doubts  to  be  set  at  rest.  And  these  dei^end, 
for  every  man,  upon  his  past  experience  and  upon  his  hopes,  fears,  and  prac- 
tical interests.  For  each  individual  his  i)articular  end,  or  goal,  in  reason- 
ing will  be  to  know,  or  to  defend,  or  to  reject,  some  particular  proposition 
which  seems  to  him  important  or  interesting.  Thus  we  are  all  constantly 
asking  ourselves,  with  respect  to  things  which  do  not  work  as  we  wish  them 
to,  or  which  do  not  turn  out  as  we  expect  tliom  to  :  What  is  the  matter? 
Why  not  ?  and,  Why  this  way  rather  than  that  ?  All  such  questions,  how- 
ever, call  for  reasons,  for  processes  of  conclusion  based  on  grounds  and 
reached  through  middle  terms.  If  one's  shoes  will  not  draw  on  as  usual, 
one  inquires  and  concludes  as  to  the  reason  ;  just  as  Leverrier  concluded 
from  the  disturbed  movements  of  Uranus  to  the  then  unknown  planet  Nep- 
tune as  their  cause.  It  is  then  the  solution  of  the  2'>vohlem  whether  such  a 
particvlar  predicate  shall,  or  sliall  not,  be  adopted  in  our  coiicluding  jndgmeid, 
which  is  sought  in  all  acts  of  reasoning.  In  this  end  to  be  readied  lies  the 
supreme  purpose  of  the  logical  processes.  "Psychologically,  as  a  rule," 
says  Professor  James,'  "  P  overshadows  the  process  from  the  start.  We  are 
seeking  P,  or  something  like  P,"  .  .  .  And  "  if  P  have  any  value  or 
importance  for  us,  M  was  a  very  good  character  for  our  sagacity  to  pounce 
upon  and  abstract.  If,  on  the  contrary,  P  were  of  no  importance,  some  other 
cliaracter  than  M  would  have  been  a  better  essence  for  us  to  conceive  of 
^by." 

The  different  Kinds  of  Reasoning-  wliicli  logic  recognizes  all  re- 
ceive tlieir  psychological  explanation  nnder  the  principles  which 
have  been  enunciated.  The  essence  of  all  logical  conclusion  being 
the  connection  of  one  judgment  with  other  judgment  as  its  reason 
or  ground,  the  difterent  orders  of  relation  under  which  this  syn- 
thesis takes  place  furnish  the  different  principal  kinds  of  reason- 
ing. These  orders  of  relation  have  already  been  noticed  in 
treating  of  the  characteristics  of  conceptions  and  the  resulting 
kinds  of  judgment.  If  the  propositions  employed  in  the  reason- 
ing concern  relations  of  resemhlance,  or  (Uffvrence,  then  the  act  of 
inference  moves  along  the  line,  so  to  speak,  of  like  or  unlike 
characteristics.  The  general  principle  may  then  be  said  to  be  : 
objects  which  are  known  to  have  one  or  more  characteristics 
in  common  with  a  third  class  of  objects,  may  imth  reason  be  con- 
cluded to  have,  in  common  with  each  other,  a  sufficient  number 
of  characteristics  to  be  classed  together.  If  8  and  P  are  both 
like  M,  then  they  are  like  each  otlier,  and  deserve  the  same  name. 
But  of  two  objects,  one  of  which  is  known  to  have  character- 

»  The  Principles  of  rsycliology,  U.,  p.  338. 


472  REASONING 

istics  in  common  with,  and  the  other  to  have  characteristics  dif- 
ferent from,  some  third  other,  there  is  reason  to  afl&rm  that  they 
should  not  be  chissed  together ;  and  such  objects  should  have 
diflereut  names. 

Further,  inasmuch  as  all  objects  of  sense-perception  necessa- 
rily exist  in  relations  of  space  and  thiie,  and  since  all  events  in  the 
stream  of  consciousness  and  in  the  world  of  external  changes  stand 
in  relations  of  time,  propositions  affirming  or  denying  particular 
spatial  or  temporal  relations,  may  afford  grounds  for  conclu- 
sions. The  principle  here  is  that  of  "  the  apprehension  of  con- 
nections in  space  and  time."  Objects  considered  as  idealized, 
may  be  made  the  subjects  of  reasoning  under  the  general  rela- 
tion of  space.  Thus,  the  different  geometrical  forms — triangle, 
square,  etc. — may  be  considered  as  related  by  resemblance  and 
difference  into  classes  (right-angled  triangle,  obtuse-angled  tri- 
angle, etc.).  What  is  concluded,  with  good  reason,  to  be  true  of 
one  triangle  is  attributed  to  all  similar  figures.  But  so  far  as 
objects  of  sense-perception  and  of  self-consciousness  are  con- 
sidered as  coming  under  pure  relations  of  space  and  time,  they 
admit  of  another  kind  of  inference.  Hence  that  peculiar  form 
of  demonstrative  reasoning  which  is  possible  in  mathematics 
alone.  The  character  of  such  reasoning  is  due  to  the  relations 
in  which  the  objects  reasoned  about  stand  both  to  the  imagina- 
tion and  to  the  intellect.  The  elementary  objects  of  mathema- 
[tical  reasoning  are  constructions  of  the  imagination  on  a  basis  of 
the  abstracting  and  comparing  activity  of  thought.  They  can, 
therefore,  as  pure,  abstract  ideas,  be  inspected  and  intuited,  so 
as  to  make  the  whole  nature  of  their  forms  and  relations  clearly 
evident ;  and  middle  terms  can  be  devised,  such  that  the  steps  of 
inference  shall  admit  of  relatively  small  chance  for  any  omission 
or  mistake.  In  such  "  chains  "  of  ratiocination,  each  particular 
judgment  affirms  some  relation  of  quantity  between  different 
extensions  of  space  or  different  numbers  ;  S  and  P  are  thus  dis- 
covered to  he  quanta cdively  related  in  a  particidar  way  throucjh 
If,  ichich  is  some  third  magnitude  comparcd)h  to  both. 

It  is  under  the  form  of  judgment  which  attributes  action  to 
an  agent  (see  p.  448  f.)  that  inferences  in  the  line  of  cause  and  effect 
originate  and  develop.  In  essentially  the  same  form  do  we 
find  the  intellect  of  man  concluding  M^ith  respect  to  interacting 
forces  and  laws.  For  the  conception  of  force  is  inse]iarable  psy- 
chologically— at  least  in  its  origin — from  the  consciousness  of 
conative  activity.  The  conception  of  law,  too,  is  ]n-imnrily  that 
of  the  mode  of  the  b(>havior  of  some  agent.  lender  these  two 
relations  ("  force  "  and  "  law  "),  which  are  so  subtly  intermingled 


FIGURES    OF   THE   SYLLOGISM  473 

both  in  reality  and  in  mental  apprehension,  a  wide  field  of  con- 
clusions, otherwise  closed  even  to  the  mind's  entrance,  is  mas- 
tered. For  who  does  not  see  that  those  words  so  glibly  nscd  by 
physical  science,  have  reference  to  presuppositions  that  quite 
outstrij)  the  data  hitherto  discovered  in  our  description  and  ex- 
planation of  the  phenomena  of  consciousness.  Postponing,'- 
further  treatment  of  these  abstract  conceptions,  Ave  now  notice 
them  only  as  conditioning-  certain  kinds  of  inference.  When- 
ever one  sees  certain  si^ns  of  force  (movements,  chang-es),  one 
immediately  concludes  the  existence  of  an  ag-ent  with  the  force 
necessary  to  i^roduce  them  ;  when  one  believes  in,  or  knows,  the 
presence  of  an  ag-ent  with  the  necessary  force,  then  one  con- 
cludes that  signs  of  the  agent's  force  have  manifested,  or  will 
manifest,  themselves.  In  this  way  every  perceived  change  (or 
effect)  P  is  inferred  to  he  due  to  ike  action  of  some  agent  S  ;  for  the 
reason  that  M,  ichich  is  the  known  common  sign  of  S,  is  connected 
with  P ;  therefore  P — the  cause  of  which  affords  the  ijroblem  to 
the  mind — is  a  case  to  he  attributed  to  iS. 

^  6.  The  distinction  of  logic  between  an  enthi/meme,  or  single  sentence 
connecting  the  concluding  judgment  with  its  ground  by  the  words  "  there- 
fore," or  "  because"  (for  example,  "the  President  is  fallible,  because  he  is 
a  man ")  and  a  complete  si/llogism,  is  not  important  for  the  psychology  of 
reasoning.  The  enthymeme  has  been  defined,'  as  "  an  argument  in  the  form 
in  which  it  would  naturally  occur  in  thought  or  speech."  This  is  true,  be- 
cause this  form  puts  the  predicate  into  connection  with  the  subject  as  a  jn'ob- 
lem  which  has  been  solved  by  the  discovery  of  a  reason  ;  thus,  S  is,  P  because 
it  is  3L  Nor  are  the  distinctions  of  the  three  ff/urc-a  of  tlie  syllogism  psy- 
chologically important.  For  the  procedure  of  the  intellect  is  substantially 
the  same  whether  we  say : 

I.  II.  III. 

il/isP  Pis  M  Mis  P 

S  is  M  S  is  M  M  is  S 

\-SisP  .-SisP  -.Sis  P. 

In  each  of  these  cases,  it  is  alike  implied  that  there  is  something  in  the 
syntheses  of  the  two  judgments  already  incorporated  into  experience  (a  syn- 
thesis established  between  .V  and  P,  and  another  established  between  S  and 
M),  which  affords  "a  ground  "  for  a  new  synthesis;  and  this  something  is 
the  relation  they  both  sustain  to  a  third  common  something  (to  the  middle 
term  M).  Nor  is  the  nature  of  the  binding  intellectual  act  cliangod  when 
the  compound  synthesis  is  thrown  into  the  terms  of  an  hypothesis  ;  thus — 
if  M  is  P  and  S  is  3f,  then  S  is  P. 

Various  statements  have  been  adopted  by  logicians  to  set  forth  the  so- 
called  ' '  law  of  the  syllogism,"  the  nature  of  the  bond  which  makes  the  con- 

3  Thomson  :  Outline  of  the  Laws  of  Thought,  p.  240. 


474  REASONING 

elusion  valid.  According  to  Aristotle  this  law  is  the  dictum  de  omni  et  nullo; 
"  "Whatever  is  affirmed  or  denied  of  a  class  distributively,  may  be  affirmed  or 
denied  of  any  i^art  of  that  class,"  But  according  to  Kant,  who  wishes  to 
emphasize  the  intension  of  the  conceptions  in  the  judgment,  the  law  is  rather 
to  be  stated :  Xota  notce  est  nota  rei  ipsiiis  ;  while  Leibnitz,  apparently  em- 
phasizing the  extension  of  the  judgments,  would  state  the  law  thus :  Con- 
tentum  contenti  est  contentum  continentis.  Of  these  three  forms  of  statement, 
that  of  Kant  is  by  far  the  most  suggestive.  For  at  least,  that  kind  of  reason- 
ing whicli  moves  along  the  line  of  resemblances  and  dilierences  may  be  said 
to  fall  under  the  principle  :  the  "mark  of  a  mark  is  the  mark  of  the  thing 
itself."  For  example,  suppose  the  question  to  arise,  whether  the  jaguar  is  a 
carnivorous  or  a  graminivorous  animal ;  or  whether  the  lady's-slipijer  is  an 
orchid,  or  not.  Now,  the  mark  of  the  jaguar  is  to  have  serrate  teeth,  and  the 
mark  of  the  carnivorous  animals  is  to  have  the  same  kind  of  teeth.  Again,  to 
have  its  stamens  and  pistils  united  in  a  single  column,  with  the  petals  ranged 
irregularly  around,  is  one  mark  of  the  lady's-slipj^er  ;  and  to  have  small, 
round  tubers  is  another  mark  ;  but  both  these  are  marks  of  the  orchid  fam- 
ily, therefore  the  lady's-slipper  should  be  classed  as  an  orchid.  In  similar 
way,  it  should  be  noticed,  is  scientific  recognition  customarily  established ; 
and  this,  sometimes  through  a  series  of  middle  terms,  or  marks  of  marks, 
many  of  which  are  exceedingly  difficult  of  observation.  Scientific  differ- 
entiation also  consists  in  a  yet  more  difficult  and  precious  woik  of  reasoning 
along  such  lines.  Shall  nerve-commotion,  for  example,  be  classed  with  that 
form  of  motion  to  whicli  we  ascribe  the  name  electricity  ?  Thousands  of 
experiments  and  scores  of  carefully  conducted  chains  of  ratiocination  have 
attempted  to  answer  this  inquiry  ;  and  even  thus  we  have  only  partially  suc- 
ceeded in  making  the  requisite  distinctions. 

^7.  The  peculiarity  of  mathematical  reasoni»j^  depends  upon  the  natirre 
of  those  processes  by  which  conceptions  of  abstract  spatial  qualities  and 
relations,  together  with  conceptions  of  number  and  of  relations  of  numbej", 
are  formed.  These  processes,  like  all  those  which  result  in  the  formation  of 
j  so-called  "  conceiDtions,"  are  the  achievement  of  imagination  and  intellect, 
I  working  in  conjunction.'  For  example,  the  formation  of  the  concejition  of  a 
"straight  line"  begins  by  some  such  exhortation  to  imagination  as  the  fol- 
lowing :  Select  any  two  points  (a  and  b),  and  let  some  point  move  between 
the  two  in  such  way  that,  starting  from  one  of  the  two  as  its  ])oint  of  de- 
l)arture,  the  moving  point  shall  go,  witliout  deviation,  toward  the  other  as 
its  goal.  Or,  as  Kant  was  fond  of  saying :  If  you  would  know  what  a 
straight  line  is  (its  "  conception  "),  you  must  draw  it,  or  construct  it  by  imag- 
ination. Meanwhile,  the  exhortation  to  intellect  is:  attend  only  to  the 
direction  of  the  movement,  as  defined  by  the  points  a  and  b,  and  form  an 
abstract  idea  of  this  limitation  of  "  direction,"  irrespective  of  what  is  moving 
and  of  the  particular  point  of  departure  or  of  cessation  of  movement.  In 
similar  manner,  by  a  more  complex  act  of  synthesis,  in  which  both  imagina- 
tion and  intellect  take  part,  the  conception  of  a  triangle  may  be  formed. 
But  the  formation  of  this  conception  requires  counting  up  to  the  number  of 
three,  and  the  synthesis  of  so  many  straight  lines,  having  similar  relations 
to  each  other  ("  forming  angles,"  that  is  to  say),  into  a  unity.  Now,  it  is  by 
>  Comp.  Porter  :  The  Human  Intellect,  p.  45G  f. 


^'ATUUE   OF   MATHEMATICAL   REASONING  475 

straight  Hues  drawn  in  all  directions,  and  by  triangles  of  all  i^ossible  sizes  and 
shapes — both  emiiloyed  as  "  middle  terms  " — that  the  conclusions  of  mathe- 
matical reasoning,  in  the  geometrical  branch  of  it,  are  chiefly  reached.  For 
all  amounts  of  direction  -  extension  are  measurable  and  comparable  only 
by  means  of  lines  ;  and  all  superficial  extension  is  measurable  by  means  of 
the  simplest  form  of  enclosed  sui^erficies,  which  is  the  triangle.  In  the 
arithmetical  branch  of  mathematical  reasoning,  however,  the  jjrimary  con- 
ceptions are  those  of  number  ;  and  these  conceptions  arc  formed  by  "count- 
ing." The  act  of  counting  involves  both  imagination  and  intellect  proper  in 
a  developed  form  ;  since  this  act  is  really  a  series  of  acts,  or  a  iirocess,  which 
results  in  a  judgment  terminating  the  series  by  forming  some  concei^tion 
of  number  to  wiiich  a  particular  name  (as  "five"  or  "seven")  is  given. 
All  mathematical  processes  of  this  order  are  therefore  reducible  to  the  two 
forms  of  "  counting  on  "  and  "counting  off;"  and  mathematical  reasoning 
in  this  form  is  a  series  of  judgments  of  relative  magnitude,  mediated  by  a 
number  of  middle  terms.  [Thus,  the  answer  to  an  arithmetical  jjroblem  is  : 
So  many  lbs.,  or  .?,  or  per  cent.  ;  if  certain  given  conditions  are  to  be  ful- 
filled. And  in  algebra  ;  a;  =  so  much,  and  y  —  so  much,  more  or  less  than 
x,  etc.] 

In  the  early  stages  of  mathematical  reasoning  the  perception  of  concrete 
objects  is  indispensable  to  the  formation  of  conceptions,  and  to  the  drawing 
of  conclusions.  The  child  learns  to  know  what  a  straight  line  is,  only 
by  seeing  a  line  that  does  not  markedly  deviate  from  a  direct  coui'se  between 
the  two  points  which  terminate  it,  and  then  comparing  such  a  line  with  one 
that  plainly  does  not  follow  a  direct  course,  but  is  curved  or  bent.  Yet  even 
thus  the  imagination  of  the  child,  according  to  the  dictum  of  Kant,  miist 
construct  the  line — as  a  resultant  of  conij^arison  upon  a  basis  of  rejieated  acts 
of  perception — in  order  to  recognize  its  straightness,  as  such.  So,  too,  are 
grains  of  corn,  marbles,  or  the  balls  of  an  abacus,  useful  perceptions  in  en- 
couraging and  developing  the  primary  concejitions  of  number  and  of  nu- 
merical relations.  It  accords  with  known  psychological  laws  that,  just  in  jaro- 
portion  as  such  aids  are  habitually  employed,  mathematical  conclusion  loses 
its  true  intellectual  or  logical  character,  and  becomes  a  matter  of  perception 
and  ideation  according  to  the  laws  of  association.  For  examjile,  the  trades- 
man of  Japan  will  calculate  prices,  by  means  of  his  soroban,  with  almost  in- 
credible rapidity  and  with  a  high  degree  of  accuracy  ;  but  he  knows  little  or 
nothing  of  mentcd  arithmetic.  Very  simple  acts  of  genuine  mathematical 
reasoning  are  quite  beyond  him :  he  is  a  perce2)tive,  ideating,  calculating 
machine,  and  not  a  reasoner  respecting  relations  in  space  and  time. 

^  8.  An  elaborate  employment  of  reasoning  faculty  is  undoubtedly  neces- 
sary in  order  to  form  the  conception  of  "  causation  ; "  and  a  yet  higher  de- 
velopment is  marked  by  the  attainment  of  clearly  detined  notions  resjiecting 
the  meaning  of  such  terms  as  "agent,"  "self-activity,"  "doing,"  and  the 
like.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  one  principal  form  of  logical  conclusion  is 
itself  developed  along  the  line  of  this  conception.  This  is  simply  a  case  of 
the  intellect  following  the  laws  of  its  own  evolution  without  any  correspond- 
ing development  of  the  consciousness  of  the  existence  and  significance  of 
those  same  laws.  For  in  every  form  of  mental  life,  we  do,  without  knowing 
what  we  do.     Very  early  in  his  mental  growth  the  child  begins  to  explain  to 


476  REASONING 

liimself  the  more  noteworthy  events  in  his  experience  by  attributing  them 
to  the  doings  of  things  or  persons,  not  hithertq  associated  with  precisely 
these  same  events.  Such  intellectual  activity  constitutes  a  beginning  of  ratioci- 
nation along  the  line  of  causal  ivjiuence.  It  is  at  first  and  usually,  connected 
with  events  which  are  interesting  and  strange ;  for  such  events  both  excite 
and  demand  an  explanation.  In  other  words,  every  such  event  may  be  said 
to  oiTer  a  new  problem  to  the  intellect  for  its  solution.  This  problem  is  not, 
however,  statable  in  the  terms  :  ' '  What  is  it  ?  "  but  is  rather  to  be  expressed 
in  the  question:  "What  person  or  thing  did  this?"  It  is  essentially  the 
same  general  problem  with  which  all  human  science  chiefly  occupies  itself 
— namely,  "  What  are  the  causes  of  this  event  (the  forces  operative,  and  the 
laws  under  which  they  operate)  ?  " 

It  is  chiefly  by  this  kind  of  ratiocination  that  we  transcend  the  limits  of 
the  present  and  bring  its  experiences  into  j^ermanent  and  rational  connec- 
tions with  what  is  remote  in  space  and  time.  Thus  the  present  becomes  re- 
lated to  the  past,  not  merely  by  way  of  recognitive  memory  under  the  laws  of 
association,  but  as  finding  in  that  past  the  reason,  or  ground,  why  the  present 
is  as  it  is  rather  than  otherwise ;  ichat  is  present  in  time  is  explained  bi/  ichat  icas 
jjast  in  time.  Similarly,  too,  is  the  event  present  in  space  explained  by  some 
agent,  invisible  on  account  of  its  remoteness,  or  on  account  of  its  being  by 
nature  not  adaj^ted  to  aiDjireciation  by  the  senses.  For  it  is  the  same  intel- 
lect behaving  in  essentially  the  same  way,  which  puts  spiritual  "  powers"  in 
the  air,  sprites  and  fairies  in  the  green  wood,  introduces  ghosts  or  other 
"  telepathic  "  influences  to  account  for  changes  whose  causes  arc  not  sen- 
suously manifest,  and  which  theorizes  as  to  "  lumiuiferous  ether,"  "  atomic 
entities"  with  a  variety  of  "  natures,"  etc.  All  such  beings  are  alike  "  con- 
cluded to  ;  "  because  neither  perception  nor  memory  alone  enables  us  to  ex- 
plain the  present  happenings  by  agents  whose  connection  with  these  hajjpen- 
iugs  is  matter  of  presentative  experience. 

Very  early,  also,  does  the  expectation  of  the  child  take  on  an  intellectual 
character.  It  ceases  to  be  merely  an  attitude  of  mind  which  results  from 
unreasoned  past  association  :  it  becomes  more  or  less  of  an  expectation  that 
attempts  to  base  itself  upon  grounds  and  to  depend  upon  justifiable  conclu- 
sions— an  expectation  that  knows  ichy  it  exists  in  this  particular  form  rather 
than  in  some  other.  Doubtlsss  the  early  conclusions  of  human  mental  life  are 
not  genuine  logical  conclusions:  they  are  "conclusions"  only  falsely  so- 
called.  The  child  that  refuses  his  milk  or  his  bath  when  he  sees  vajior  aris- 
ing from  the  cup  or  the  tub,  is  by  no  means  necessarily  drawing  a  logical 
conclusion.  He  may  simply  be  the  subject  of  inhibition  from  a  suggested 
idea.  What  stimulates  and  guides  the  development  of  rational  expectation 
with  reference  to  the  future  is  chiefly  the  occurrence  of  interesting  and  im- 
portant exceptions.  As  said  Leibnitz  :  "Reason  alone  is  capable  of  establish- 
ing sure  rules,  and  of  su^jplying  what  is  lacking  to  those  which  are  not  sure, 
by  inserting  their  exceptions."  He  has  a  wise  and  doveloi)ed  intellect  who 
can  say  :   "Generally,  but  not  always"  (comp.  p.  458  f. ). 

The  movement  of  mind  in  this  kind  of  reasoning  may  be  illusti\ated  by 
the  following  example.  A  child  of  the  author's  acquaintance,  having  seen 
his  toy-balloon  sail  away  skyward,  after  a  malicious  boy  had  secretly  severed 
the  string,  was  asked  what  had  become  of  it  :  he  rei:)lied  that  "  God  had 


DICTA -OF    KANT   AND    ARISTOTLE  477 

ciuiicd  it  off."  Here  was  undoubtedly  a  case  of  genuine  logical  reasoning. 
The  event  was  strange,  and  the  interest  awakened  by  it  great.  If  the  balloon 
had  fallen  to  the  ground,  after  the  customary  fashion  of  things,  no  conclu- 
sion would  probably  have  been  suggested  to  the  boy's  mind.  But  so  inter- 
esting an  exception  to  ordinary  exj^erience  constituted  a  special  problem  in 
causation  ;  and  the  agent  suggested  to  serve  as  cause  was,  of  course,  that  one 
whose  powers  and  doings  had  previously  been  connected  with  events  sky- 
ward. 

g  9.  No  psychological  interest  attaches  itself  to  the  attempt  to  throw  the 
foregoing  kind  of  reasoning  into  the  form  of  a  syllogism  of  the  "  First  "  (or 
of  any  other)  "  Figure."  We  should  only  indulge  in  i^rofitless  quibbling  by 
saying  :  Major  premise, — All  cases  of  mysterious  events,  having  to  do  with 
the  sky  are  cases  of  divine  action  ;  Minor  premise, — This  is  a  case,  etc.  ; 
Conclusion, — Therefore,  etc.  For  such  a  syllogism  would  not  represent  the 
actual  movement  of  the  child's  mind.  Better  adapted  for  this  jmrpose 
would  perhaps  be  some  such  syllogism  as  the  following  :  All  events  that 
challenge  explanation,  as  exceptions  to  ordinary  experience,  require  some 
special  agent  to  account  for  them  ;  this  is  such  an  event ;  and  therefore,  etc. 
The  mental  representation  of  tlie  special  agent  in  this  jiarticular  event  may 
then  be  left  wholly  to  association.  Such  a  fictitious  major  premise  is  itself, 
however,  nothing  more  than  a  statement  of  that  law  of  the  intellect  which 
has  been  recognized  as  at  the  roots  of  all  reasoning,  and  as  the  origin  of  our 
conception  of  causation  itself. 

1 10.  While  all  three  kinds  of  reasoning  fall  under  one  essential  princijjle 
of  all  reasoning,  and  while  they  are  all  necessarily  combined  in  the  develop- 
ment of  knowledge,  they  stand  in  somewhat  different  relations  to  the  several 
branches  of  the  growth  of  knowledge.  (1)  It  is  pre-eminently  by  conclusions 
throiigh  mediated  comparison  of  the  marks  of  objects  (Kant's  dictum,  NoUi 
notce  est  nota  rei  Ipsius,  or  Aristotle's  dictum  de  omni  et  nidlo — according  as 
intension  or  extension  of  the  conceptions  is  regarded)  that  our  knowledge  of 
the  essential  qualities,  or  traits,  of  things  is  attained,  and  that  classification 
and  definition  are  advanced.  But  all  concejitions  are  growths,  not  only  for 
the  individual  but  also  for  the  race;  and  consequently  all  definition  and' 
classification  are  subject  to  change  as  knowledge  grows.  Indeed,  diiferent 
gi'oupings  of  so  called  "marks"  may,  with  equal  propriety,  be  adopted,  ac- 
cording as  the  point  of  view  changes  and  the  end  to  V)e  reached  varies  on 
the  part  of  the  conceiving  mind.  Nor  can  either  the  individual  or  the  whole 
body  of  expert  iuqiiirers  ever  be  sure  that  all  the  essentials  in  any  concep- 
tion have  been  comprehended  in  the  definition.  In  this  respect  the  logical 
distinction  between  simple  and  complex  conceptions  is  only  relative.  It  is, 
however,  by  conclusions  drawn  under  the  principle  of  "  a  mediated  likeness 
or  unlikeness  of  marks,"  that  conceptions  and  the  dependent  work  of  defini- 
tion and  classification  grow. 

(2)  In  all  forms  of  applied  physical  science,  as  well  as  in  pure  mathe- 
matics, calculation  by  means  of  arithmetical  and  geometrical  conceptions 
takes  a  most  important  part.  Even  psychology  has,  especially  recently,  been 
much  urged  to  employ  this  form  of  reasoning.  In  a  guarded  way,  and  esjie- 
cially  in  the  region  of  so-called  "psycho-physics,"  this  science  has  already 
made  profitable  use  of  the  mathematical  method.     A  largely,  or  purely, 


478  -REASOXING 

mathematical  psychology,  or  logic,  has  been  attempted ;  but  the  result 
of  this  attempt  seems  to  us  as  worse  than  a  doubtful  success.  Nor  can  we 
think  that  the  biological  and  social  sciences  will  ever  derive  their  conclusions 
cliiefly  in  this  kind  of  reasoning.  On  the  other  hand,  mathematical  reason- 
ing legitimately  enters  into  our  jirocesses  of  argument  about  all  things  and 
all  events  that  are  measurable  ;  and  measurable,  to  some  extent,  are  all 
things  and  all  events  that  belong  to  time  and  space. 

(3)  The  knowledge  that  grows  by  the  third  kind  of  inference  is,  as  has 
already  been  implied,  the  knowledge  of  causes,  of  real  forces,  and  of  laws. 
Here,  since  forces  are  measurable  and  comparable  in  terms  of  time  and 
space,  and  since  the  formulas  which  state  the  uniform  modes  of  their  action 
are  called  laws,  mathematical  reasoning  is  also  necessarily  employed. 

Processes  of  logical  reasoning  are  also  distinguislied  as  Induc- 
tive and  Deductive.  The  puzzles  suggested  by  writers  on  logic 
concerning  the  nature  of  both  of  these  kinds  of  reasoning  have 
■  been  neither  few  nor  slight.  In  fact,  however,  no  actual  process 
of  inference  consists  of  one  of  these  "  kinds  "  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  other.  On  the  conti'ary,  hidudion  and  deduction  are,  j)syclio- 
logically  considered,  in  principle  essentially  the  same  ;  hoth  alihe 
consist  in  reaching  one  judgment  as  a  conclusion,  on  the  basis  of 
other  judgment  as  its  reason  or  ground.  It  is  ordinarily  said  (and 
with  a  certain  degree  of  truth),  however,  that  in  "  induction  "  a 
general  principle  is  concluded  from  particular  instances  ;  but  in 
"  deduction  "  a  particular  case  is  concluded  under  a  general  prin- 
ciple. Or  to  say  the  same  thing  in  another  way — in  induction 
we  reason  that  because  it  is  so  in  one  or  more  cases  of  our  ex- 
perience, therefore  it  is  so  in  all  similar  cases  of  experience  (has 
been  so,  and  will  be  so — generally  or  universally).  But  in  de- 
duction we  have  already  attained  the  knowledge  of  the  general 
or  universal  principle  applicable  to  similar  cases  ;  the  problem 
of  this  particular  case  comes  before  us  ;  and  we  solve  it  by  re- 
membering, assuming,  or  showing  that  it  comes  under  the  al- 
ready known  principle.  In  induction,  then,  we  conclude  that  A  is 
B,  because  we  have  observed  that  a  and  «'  and  «-  (all  essentially 
alike  and  caioable  of  being  grouped  under  ^1)  are  B.  In  deduc- 
tion we  know,  or  assume  as  known,  that  ^1  is  B,  and  conclude 
that  «'  (which  we  have  never  met  with  before)  is  B. 

"  Inference  on  Grounds  "  is,  therefore,  characteristic  of  both 
induction  and  deduction.  As  a  suggestive  writer  '  on  this  subject 
— although  from  the  logical  rather  than  the  psychological  point 
of  view — has  declared :  "  The  distinction  .  .  .  eiToneously 
described  as  the  distinction  between  Induction  and  Deduction 
is  chiefly  a  distinction  of  aspects,  largely  based  on  a  confused 

'  Bosanquct :  Logic,  H.,  p.  US. 


GROWTH   OF   KNOWLEDGE   BY   INFEIIKNCE  479 

idea  of  Induction,  but  3'ct  in  some  degree  justified."  Further 
on,  the  same  writer :  "  AVe  may  take  Induction  as  Inference 
viewed  from  the  side  of  the  difreronces,  Deduction  as  Inference 
viewed  from  the  side  of  the  universal."  The  correct  distinction 
is,  however,  better  brought  out  from  the  psychological  point  of 
view  by  saying  that,  in  induction,  we  start  from  observed  like- 
nesses and  unlikenesses  in  individual  cases  (analysis  being  pri- 
marily involved)  and  solve  our  problem  by  concluding  that  the 
reason  is  to  be  found  in  some  general  or  universal  relation 
among"  the  individuals.  But  in  deduction  we  start  rather  with  an 
assumed  solution  of  the  problem  offered  in  the  individual  case, 
and  prove  by  inference  the  correctness  or  falsity  of  our  assump- 
tion by  relating-  the  case  to  some  generalization  regarded  as 
already  established.  The  need  of  hypothesis  in  both  so-called 
kinds  of  reasoning-,  as  well  as  their  common  use  of  inference  in 
all  its  essential  psychological  traits,  confirms  tlu^  truth  of  their 
essential  similarity.  In  both  induction  and  deduction  alike,  the 
intellect  displays  the  law  of  its  own  life  and  movement — namely, 
the  tendency  to  leap  from  observation  of  the  particular,  and  from 
the  problem  which  observation  proposes,  to  the  apprehension  of 
the  universal ;  then  to  inhibit  itself  by  regarding  the  differences 
Avliich  other  observation  reveals  ;  and  then,  finally,  to  organize 
and  to  validate  experience  by  concluding  all  its  items  under 
some  improved  form  of  the  universal. 

^  11.  Much  subtile  discussion  lias  been  indulged  in  by  treatises  on  logic 
over  the  question,  How  can  knowledge  grow  by  inference  at  all?  This 
question  may  be  asked  with  reference  to  induction  so  called,  as  well  as  with 
reference  to  deduction  in  syllogistic  form  ;  although  in  the  latter  case  it  is 
more  easily  comprehensible  and  more  impressive.  For  example,  it  may  be 
said  :  Unless  I  know  absolutely  that  all  J/ is  P,  how  can  I  infer  with  confi- 
dence that,  because  8,  in  particular,  is  3/,  therefore  S  is  P  ?  Again,  how 
am  I  thus  absolutely  to  know  that  all  lit  /.s  P,  unless  I  have  observed,  or 
learned  from  those  who  have  observed,  that  each  particular  case  of  M  {m  and 
m',  etc.,  up  to  m")  is  P.  But  if  I  already  know  P  to  be  true  of  every  case 
of  M,  then  I  know  it  of  S,  and  do  not  need  to  "  prove  "  it ;  indeed.  How 
could  I  prove  it  if  my  major  premise  were  not  first  established  ?  How,  then, 
— it  is  asked,  in  general — can  deduction  increase  knowledge?  Or,  turning 
to  the  argument  by  induction,  it  may  be  said  that  reasoning  can  never  prove 
the  universal  jn-oposition  :  All  M  is  P.  For  one  can  never  bo  sure  that  one 
has  observed  all  cases  which  properly  fall  under  ]\[  (all  the  possible  series, 
m,  to',  m",  etc.).  Therefore  all  one  is  entitled  to  say  is  :  Evei-y  m  which  I 
have  observed  J/aa  been  P.  But  how  can  this  serve,  of  itself,  as  "  proof  "  of 
my  conclusion  that  all  M  is  (has  been,  and  will  be)  P?  ^lust  it  not  be 
admitted,  then,  either  that  sure  proof  is  impossible,  or  else  that  it  is  of  no 
use? 


4S0  EEASONIISTG 

The  answer  to  such  logical  puzzles  as  the  foregoing  is,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  psychology,  not  difficult  to  find.  Briefly  stated,  we  are  led  by  such 
imzzles  simply  to  admit :  None  of  our  inferential  knowledge — our  judgments 
concluded  on  other  judgment  as  ground — is  absolutely  certain.  "Guess- 
ing," or  hypothesis,  enters  into  all  such  knowledge.  It  is  true  we  can  never 
conclude  willi  absolute  certainty  that  all  M  is  P  ;  or  that  every  other  particu- 
lar case  of  il/ which  we  shall  meet  will  also  be  P.  In  every  act  of  induction, 
if  such  act  is  genuine  induction  and  not  mere  enumeration  and  summation  of 
memory -images,  as  it  were,  a  hypothesis  is  introduced.  And,  in  fact,  science, 
and  even  ordinary  experience,  is  constantly  engaged  in  finding  out  that  all 
M  is  not  P  ;  for  science  and  experience  grow  quite  as  much  by  correcting 
mistakes  and  by  making  exceptions  to  rules  as  by  so-called  "establishing" 
of  general  or  universal  principles.  Indeed,  we  saw  (p.  466  f.)  that  all  reason- 
ing itself  implies  the  change  and  growth  of  our  conceptions.  So  cdso  in  every 
act  of  deduction — no  matter  how  firmly  established  the  major  premise  may 
seem  to  be — there  is  a  concealed  hypothesis.  Exceptions  viay  occur  ;  eveiy 
new  case,  however  obviously  it  seems  at  first  to  come  under  the  general  prin- 
ciple, viay  prove  an  exception  ;  we  may  find  in  this  particular  case  of  appar- 
ent "/S'  is  M"  a  reason  for  the  modification  of  the  premise  "  All  J/ is  P." 

The  remarks  just  made  might  be  illustrated  by  the  entire  history  of  the 
development  of  knowledge  in  the  individual  and  in  the  race.  Properly 
speaking,  all  conclusions  are  only  m,ore  or  less  highly  probable  hypotheses,  accord- 
ing as  they  stand  related  to  the  entire  organism  of  experience,  under  the  laics  of 
intellectual  life.  For  example,  no  principle  of  physics  is  better  established 
than  that  of  gravitation,  so  called  ;  popularly  expressed,  with  reference 
to  the  earth,  all  bodies  heavier  than  the  atmosphere,  if  left  unsuiiported,  fall 
toward  the  earth's  center.  But  here,  on  the  one  hand,  we  have  certain  al- 
leged cases  of  "  levitation,"  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  inquiry  of  astron- 
omy as  to  whether  all  the  stars  do  actually  come  under  this  principle. 
Again,  few  propositions  could  be  confirmed  by  a  greater  array  of  evidence, 
or  are  of  greater  practical  as  well  as  scientific  import  than  this  :  "  The  men- 
tal states  of  man  are  communicable  only  by  means  of  bodily  changes  in  one 
individual  which  act  as  signs  that  effect  the  well-known  forms  of  sense-con- 
sciousness in  other  individuals."  But  here  again  we  have  alleged  facts  and 
elaborate  theories  of  "  telepathy"  and  "rapport"  struggling  for  scientific 
recognition  and  boldly  inviting  scientific  inquiry  ;  we  have  also  certain  cu- 
rious phenomena  of  common  psychical  impulses,  or  vague  forms  of  ideation, 
simultaneously  affecting  large  numbers  of  people.  Such  merely  possible  ex- 
ceptions may  not  furnish  sufficient  evidence  for  the  reconstruction  of  ac- 
cepted principles  ;  they  may  not  jiroperly  induce  every  candid  man  to  con- 
sider the  possibility  of  such  reconstruction.  Yet  ho  who  remembers  how 
tlio  sagacious  Kant  considered  it  an  "ajviori  principle"  that  no  material 
l)ody  can  influence  another  without  contact,  or  who  is  familiar  with  the  dif- 
ficulty which  all  the  most  cherished  universal  propositions  in  science  have 
had  in  establishing  themselves,  will  recognize  the  truth  of  our  contention. 

g  12.  No  rules  applicable  in  all  cases  can  be  given  for  the  justification  logi- 
cally {i.e.,  in  view  of  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason)  of  the  act  of  induc- 
tion. A  single  significant  experience  may  justify  the  universal  proi^ositiou  : 
"  All  il/is  P"  or  "No  il/is  P  " — in  the  form  of  an  hypothesis,  to  be  more  or 


THE    METHODS    OF    INDUCTIOX  481 

less  coniitlently  accoptod,  while  waiting  for  other  cases  of  M.  The  tendency 
of  intellect  in  this  regard  is  similar  to  the  tendency  of  image-making  faculty 
under  the  inincijilo  of  association.  The  child  who  has  been  burned  by  its 
steaming  cnp  of  milk,  or  stung  by  an  insect,  or  bitten  by  a  snapinug  dog, 
not  only  experiences  the  inhibiting  image  of  associated  i)ain,  on  encounter- 
ing again  a  similar  object  ;  but — if  any  genuine  work  of  inference  is  done — 
it  also  concludes  that  all  similar  objects  ought,  for  good  and  sufficient  rea- 
sons, to  be  avoided.  And  not  a  few  important  scientific  discoveries  have 
been  made  on  a  basis  of  no  more  significant  inductive  inference.  It  is,  in- 
deed by  emphasizing  as  clews  those  likenesses  and  uulikenesses  which  have 
been  just  observed  for  the  first  time,  or  which  to  the  ordinary  observer  seem 
to  need  no  explanation,  that  superior  sagacity  manifests  itself. 

§  13.  But  guesses,  or  hypotheses,  require  confirmation,  or  they  cannot 
safely  be  accepted  as  grounds  for  other  conclusions.  The  various  so-called 
"  experimental  tests  "  which  science  emphasizes  are  simply  refinements — 
made  possible  largely  by  special  equipment  of  instruments — of  the  methods 
employed  by  every  intellect  to  render  its  reasons,  or  grounds  for  being  in- 
fluenced, sufficient.  The  word  "sufficient"  must  here  be  understood  as 
suggesting  the  satisfaction  which  the  mind  feels  in  becoming  aware  of  the 
relations  that  bind  its  experience  into  the  higher  forms  of  unity.  These 
tests  are  summarized  in  the  so-called  rules  or  "  methods  of  induction."  Of 
such  the  following  three  are  ordinarily  recognized  :  (1)  The  method  of  agi'ee- 
ment ;  (2)  the  method  of  difference  ;  (3)  the  method  of  concomitant  variation. 
It  has  already  been  shown  that  the  combined  use  of  both  the  first  two 
methods  is  made  in  all  complicated  inference.  Objects  or  events  that  are 
observed,  or  otherwise  known,  to  have  like  qualities  or  conditions,  are 
inferred  to  belong  to  the  same  classes,  or  to  be  due  to  the  presence  of  the 
same  agencies,  or  causes.  But,  in  so  far  as  objects  or  events  differ  in  im- 
portant ways,  they  must,  as  effects,  be  assigned  to  difierent  classes  and 
agencies,  or  causes ;  and,  as  causes,  they  must  give  rise  to  difi'erent  eflfects. 
Or,  if  we  can  measure  the  concomitant  variations  in  difi'erent  objects  and 
events,  and  if  we  discover  that  their  variations  have  proportional  intensities, 
then  again  we  may  infer  a  connection  in  respect  of  classes  or  causes.  Thus, 
the  gardener  concludes  :  "  Because  my  apple-tree  declines  in  vigor  as  the 
'  scale '  spreads  over  its  bark,  therefore  the  spreading  of  this  pest  is  the 
cause  of  the  tree's  declining  in  vigor." 

I  14.  The  foregoing  discussion  throws  light  on  the  relations  which  the 
process  of  reasoning  brings  about  between  the  particular  and  the  universal. 
In  their  interest  in  the  purity  of  logical  formulas  the  older  logicians  empha- 
sized the  necessary  connection  of  particular  cases  with  general  principles  as 
giving  cogency  to  the  syllogism.  Thus  I  infer  and  surely  know  that  the 
man  ^1  D  will  die  (is  mortal)  because  "all  men  are  mortal."  This  "  Figure  " 
of  the  syllogism — to  which  many  writers  on  logic  would  reduce  all  the  other 
Figures — represents  a  sort  of  universal  law  as  ruling  over  and  compelling 
the  particular  to  fall  under  it  and  obey  it.  But  mere  law  is  impotent,  mere 
form  can  do  nothing.  Neither  the  real  cause  for  particular  occurrences,  nor 
the  reason  for  the  content  of  the  conception  answering  to  an  individual 
object,  can  be  found  in  the  universal.  On  the  contrary,  the  real  reason  for 
every  law  is  the  behavior  and  the  nature  of  individual  beings.     They  dictate 

31 


482  REASONING 

the  law  ;  and  it  does  not  compel  tliem — except  as  we  choose  to  use  an  inter- 
esting but  misleading  figure  of  speech.  John  Stuart  Mill,'  in  opposition  to 
the  older  logicians,  emphasized  the  movement  of  thought  from  particulars 
to  particulars,  in  all  forms  of  natural  deductive  inference.  Of  the  proposi- 
tion that  "  the  Duke  of  Wellington  "  is  mortal  this  author  truly  says — "  it 
is  evidently  an  inference  ;  it  is  got  at  as  a  conclusion  from  something  else  ; 
but  do  we  in  reality  conclude  it  from  the  proposition,  All  men  are  mortal  ? 
I  answer,  no."  Further  on  he  adds  :  "  When,  therefore,  we  conclude  from 
the  death  of  John  and  Thomas,  and  every  other  person  we  ever  heard  of  in 
whose  case  the  exjjeriment  had  been  fairly  tried,  that  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton is  mortal  like  the  rest ;  we  may,  indeed,  pass  through  the  generalization. 
All  men  are  mortal,  as  an  intermediate  stage  ;  but  it  is  not  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  process,  the  descent  from  all  men  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington, 
that  the  inference  resides.  The  inference  is  finished  when  we  have  asserted 
that  all  men  are  mortal.  What  remains  to  be  performed  afterward  is  merely 
deciphering  our  own  notes." 

Neither  of  the  foregoing  views  implies  the  true  and  complete  statement 
of  the  psychological  nature  of  inference.  For  if  the  "  inference  is  finished  " 
by  reaching  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  mortal,  then  we  have  already 
generalized ;  we  have  already  somehow  passed  from  the  particular  to  the 
general.  When,  then,  the  question  arises,  whether  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
too,  has  died  or  will  die  (instead  of  proving  immortal),  our  confidence  that, 
in  this  case,  too,  death  is  the  fate  of  the  particular  man,  rests  upon  the 
ground  that  he  is  a  man ;  and  so  cannot  be  exempted  from  that  which 
belongs  to  all  men.  Actually,  then,  the  intellect  does  leap  from  the  partic- 
ular to  the  universal,  and  so,  hypothetically  at  first,  extend  its  knowledge  ; 
actually,  also,  it  does  conclude  from  its  acquired  knowledge  of  the  universal, 
as  to  what  will  prove  true  of  the  particular.  Induction  and  deduction  plainly 
combine  in  this  compound  process  of  inference.  As  Bosanquet  -  has  said  : 
"The  verification  of  hypothesis  has  been  considered,  from  Bacon  down- 
ward, as  an  integral  part  of  scientific  induction.  And  nothing  can  be  more 
deductive  than  the  connection  of  an  hypothesis  with  the  consequences  by 
which  it  is  verified."  Such  a  description  answers  not  to  scientific  proced- 
ure alone  ;  it  is  rather  the  universal  form  of  the  movement  of  intellect  in  all  its 
work  of  organizing,  by  lyrocesses  of  ratiocination,  the  individual  experiences 
which  constitute  the  stream  of  consciousness. 

Two  Universal  Principles  are  cnstomarilj^  affirmed  by  losfic 
to  preside  over  tlie  entire  life  of  tlie  intellect.  These  are  called 
the  Principle  of  Identity  and  the  Principle  of  Sufficient  Reason. 
As  a  complement,  or  the  other  side,  of  the  former  principh>  is  the 
Princii:)le  of  Contradiction.  In  its  bare  form,  and  abstractly' 
stated,  the  principle  of  identity  is  made  to  affirm :  "  ^  is  JL."  In 
its  complem(>ntary  form,  then,  the  principle  may  be  stated :  "  A  is 
not  both  A  and  not-A,"  or,  if  by  B  we  mean  not- A,  then  :  No  A 
is  B.     These  so-called  principles  cannot  be  conceived  of  as  re- 

'  Syptem  of  Logic  (sevcuth  ed.).  Book  II.,  Chap,  i.,  §  3. 
"  Logic,  II.,  p.  119. 


THE   PllIXCIPLE   OF   IDENTITY  483 

suiting-  from  observation  or  arg-umont ;  they  are  rather  taken  for 
granted  in  all  arg-ument.  The  Law  of  Contradiction  has  been 
said  to  "  supply  something  without  which  the  Law  of  Identitj'  is 
not  logically  complete  nor  didinctiy  intelligible."  Both  taken 
together,  however,  furnish  no  real  or  concrete  truth.  For  there 
is  no  reality  known,  or  that  may  be  conceived  of,  which  can  be 
substituted  for  ^1,  with  the  understanding-  that  such  reality  is 
absolutely  unchanging,  or  that  its  conception  is  not  subject  to 
the  principle  of  growth,  "^'hat,  then,  is  meant  by  such  a  so- 
called  "  principle  "  of  thought  ? 

The  principle  of  identity  has  7io  meaning  except  as  understood 
in  its  ax)plication  to  judgment;  and  through  judgment  to  that 
connection  of  judgments  which  we  call  reasoning.  Thus  under- 
stood, it  simply  binds  to  consistency  all  the  way  through  the 
very  sj'uthesis  in  Avhich  judgment  and  reasoning  consist.  In  the 
same  judgment  (and  all  truth  is  conceivable  and  aliirmable  only 
in  the  form  of  judgment)  the  conception  answering  to  the  sub- 
ject (that  which  "we  mean  "  by  S)  and  the  conception  answering 
to  the  i^redicate  (that  Avhich  "  we  mean  "  by  P),  as  well  as  the  re- 
lation affirmed  by  the  synthesis  itself  (that  which  "  we  mean"  by 
the  copula),  must  remain  unchanged.  S  is  S  ;  P  /*  P ;  the  rela- 
tion expressed  by  the  copula  is  that  self-same  relation  ;  neither 
must  be  changed  without  changing  all.  More  abstractly  still, 
when  you  jiidge,  yow  judge  ;  you  cannot  posit  and  negate,  affirm 
and  deny,  at  one  and  the  same  time.  And  this  comes  prett}^  near 
to  saying  simply  that  the  intellect  has  judgment  for  its  function, 
and  that  judgment  is  what  it  is — namely,  the  establishing  of  a 
relation,  by  an  act  of  synthesis,  between  S  and  P. 

I  15.  The  absurdity  of  trving  io  i^rore  the  principle  of  iclentity  is  obvious 
enough.  We  may  iutleed  amuse  ourselves  in  somewhat  the  followiug  way  : 
Let  us  suppose  that  we  try  to  argue,  either  for  or  against  the  principle  as 
stated  in  its  abstract  form.  Thus  :  The  principle  of  identity  must  be  true  ; 
for  the  A  which  stands  iu  the  place  of  the  subject  is,  by  hypothesis.  A,  and 
the  A  which  stands  in  the  place  of  the  predicate  is  also  A  ;  and,  furthei-,  the 
judgment  itself  is  but  a  statement  of  the  hypothesis  that  the  A  of  the  sub- 
ject h  the  same  as  the  A  of  the  predicate.  Or,  again,  if  the  princijile  of 
identity  be  not  true,  then  we  cannot  be  sure  that  the  .1  of  the  subject  is  in- 
deed A,  which  is  absurd  ;  the  same  thing  is  true  of  the  predicate,  and  so  on. 
But  who  does  not  see  that  h\  all  this  juggling  with  mere  abstractions  we  as- 
sume, at  every  step,  the  very  princii)le  itself  ? 

On  the  contrary,  the  changing  character  of  all  conceptions,  and  therefore 
of  the  truer  and  more  comprehensive  meanings  of  words,  forbids  us  to  sub- 
stitute any  definite  and  fixed  conceptions  for  either  the  .4  of  the  subject  or 
the  A  of  the  i:)redicate,  in  the  formula  announcing  the  principle  of  identity. 
We  may  not  affirm,  for  example,  that  the  conception,  or  the  reality,  which 


484  REASONING 

answers  to  the  term  "man,"  or  "atom,"  or  to  any  other  terms,  is  to  remain 
forever  self-same.  The  generic  man  rrtaj/ develop  so  as  not  to  be  mortal; 
the  atom  maij  be  itself  shown  to  be  a  subject  of  evolution  ;  at  least,  it 
is  the  forces  and  laws  of  reality  and  not  the  abstract  logical  principle  of 
identity,  which  provides  that  no  such  change  shall  at  any  moment  take 
place. 

The  law  of  Excluded  Middle,  which  Aristotle  expressed  by  saying,  "  Be- 
tween the  assertions  of  a  logical  contradiction  there  is  no  middle,"  is  a  sort 
of  dependent  abstraction  based  upon  the  acceptance  of  the  two  foregoing 
principles.  "  A^  is  either  B  or  not-7?,"  is  the  bare  logical  formula  for  ex- 
jjressing  the  law.  This  so-called  law  applies  to  all  strict  denial ;  and  all 
strict  denial  would  be  not  only  practically  impossible  but  logically  inconceiv- 
able, were  not  the  principle  of  identity  and  its  complementary  principle  as- 
sumed to  be  true  and  necessary.  But  what  j^articular  statements  may  be 
strictly  denied,  and  on  what  principles  we  may  separate  the  objects  of  ex- 
perience into  mutually  exclusive  classes,  or  assign  changes  to  mutually 
exclusive  causes,  only  experience  can  say  ;  and  the  evolution  of  experience 
itself  constantly  gives  the  lie  to  many  of  our  strictest  denials. 

The  principle  of  Sufficient  Reason  is — as  we  have  already  seen 
— the  one  princi^^le  which  is  distinctive  of,  and  which  gives  bind- 
ing force  to,  all  kinds  of  inference.  It  cannot,  therefore,  itself 
be  proved  by  inference ;  the  rather  is  it  itself  abstracted  from 
that  very  form  of  the  life  of  intellect  which  we  call  "  inference." 
That  is  to  say,  the  ultimate  fact  revealed  by  our  scientific  exam- 
ination of  those  phenomena  of  consciousness,  called  processes  of 
reasoning-,  when  regarded  in  their  order  and  connection,  is  this, 
— that  so,  and  no  otherwise,  do  they  always  occur.  It  is  im- 
possible, however,  to  frame  a  formula  for  this  principle  like  that 
which  logic  employs  for  the  principles  of  identity,  contra- 
diction, and  excluded  middle.  Nor  does  the  jDrinciple  of  suffi- 
cient reason  itself  give  us  the  least  information  respecting  Avhat, 
in  particular,  is  the  "  sufficient  reason  "  of  what — or  as  to  the 
connections  that  may  be  established  by  a  "  because,"  or  a 
"therefore,"  between  any  j^articular  S  and  any  particular  /*. 
Moreover,  if  we  emphasize  the  word  ''sufficient,''  and  then  inquire 
as  to  what  in  our  actual  mental  life  corresponds  to  this  word,  we 
find  that  no  definite  answer  can  be  given,  either  bef(n*e  experi- 
ence or  upon  the  grounds  of  realized  experience.  Sufficient — for 
Avhat  ?  Now  the  amount  and  kind  of  reason  which  is  sufficient 
always  depends  upon  a  variety  of  considerations ;  such  as  the 
character  of  the  ol)jects  or  events  we  are  reasoning  about,  the  end 
(either  practical  or  theoretical)  which  the  reasoning  has  in  view, 
the  opportunities  for  investigation  which  the  accumulated  stores 
of  the  experience  of  the  individual  and  the  race  affi^rd,  and  even 
the  subjective  interests  and  habits  of  the  reasoner,  etc.     In  the 


THE   TKINCIPLE   OF   SUFFICIENT   REASON  485 

stricter   sense   of  the  word,   sufficient  reason  belongs  only   to 
demonstrative  reasoning-  in  matlieniatics. 

As  to  what  is  meant  by  "  reason  " — whether  sufficient  or  insuf- 
ficient— we  shall  further  inquire  in  discussing  the  origin  and 
development  of  the  conception  of  causation.  Three  things, 
however,  may  i3roperly  be  noted  by  a  psychological  treatise, 
at  the  present  point :  (1)  13y  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason 
is  obviously  meant  the  natural  tendency  of  man,  as  a  developing 
intellect,  satisfactorily  to  explain  his  ex2)erience.  This  is  really, 
then,  not  an  abstract  i^rinciple  at  all,  as  is  the  principle  of 
identity  ;  it  is  rather,  iirimarily  considered,  an  exhortation  aris- 
ing from  the  depths  of  our  intellectual  life.  (2)  All  the  explana- 
tion, which  intellect  demands  and  pursues  in  the  interests  of  its 
own  self-satisfaction,  involves  the  relating  of  one  object  to 
another,  of  one  event  to  another,  etc.  Everything  is  explained 
hy  heing  brought  into  connection  with  something  else.  We  under- 
stand S,  only  when  we  bring  it  into  connection,  by  an  act  of  judg- 
ment, with  P;  and  since  such  relating  can  be  direct  only  to  a 
very  limited  extent,  we  explain  S  in  relation  to  P  through  M. 
Thus  S,  2r,  and  P,  all  explain  each  other ;  they  are  all  appre- 
hended as  belonging  to  one  world  of  connected  objects  and 
events.  For  (3)  the  helief  that  such  a  world  exists,  and  that  we 
may  know  it  as  it  exists,  not  only  by  becoming  immediately 
aware  of  it  in  perception  and  self-consciousness,  but  also  by 
processes  of  ratiocination,  lies,  like  a  sleeping  postulate,  beneath 
all  the  activity  of  mind  according  to  the  so-called  principle  of 
sufficient  reason.  It  belongs,  however,  to  philosophy  to  explicate 
and  defend  this  postulate. 

I  16.  The  exposition  of  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason  by  logicians 
has  often  been  almost  as  unwarrantable  as  the  use  made  of  the  allied  law  of 
causation  in  debates  over  free  will,  miracles,  etc.,  by  students  of  natural 
science  and  by  theologians.  This  so-called  "  law  of  causation  "  is  only  the 
objectification,  as  it  were,  of  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason.  Its  meaning, 
in  general,  is  to  assert  our  confidence  that  things  are  really  connected  as 
we  find  ourselves  having  reason  to  know,  or  believe,  that  they  are.  The 
iise  of  the  adjective  "  sufficient,"  as  attached  to  the  noun  "reason,"  is  sug- 
gestive ;  but  is  psychologically  of  no  importance.  It  could  strictly  apply 
only  to  those  products  of  our  actual  thinking  which  fnlly  meet  the  ideal  de- 
mands of  logic  ;  but  this  all  products  of  thinking  that  relate  to  actual  things 
and  events  fail  to  do.  The  entire  phrase,  then,  should  be  held  to  be  sig- 
nificant of  that  perpetual  develo]>nient  of  the  life  of  intellect  which  results 
in  giving  a  higher  unity  to  knowledge  ;  a  more  complex  and  well-principled 
organization  to  experience  ;  a  more  comprehensive  grasp  on  the  world  of 
known  objects  and  events,  as  a  system  of  beings  with  so-called  "  natures," 
acting  under  law,  and  possessing  "forces"  and  "powers;"  a  wider  theo- 


486  REASONING 

vetieal  and  yet  logically  defensible  outlook  over  the  invisible  realms  of  dis- 
tant times  and  spaces,  and  of  entities  that  cannot  be  made  the  objects  of 
perceptive  experience.  Thus  our  ' '  reasons  "  become  more  nearly  ideally 
"  sufficient,"  according  as  the  development  of  intellect  itself,  on  the  part  of 
the  individual  and  of  the  race,  goes  on. 

I  17.  It  is  interesting  to  note  again  the  intimate  connection  between  the 
development  of  intellect  and  the  development  of  feeling  and  will.  Appre- 
hension of  the  true  being  of  things  not  Infrequently  comes  more  through 
our  sesthetical,  or  sensitive  and  practical,  natures  than  through  our  logical. 
To  know  things,  we  must,  in  some  sort,  live  our  way  into  them.  In  matters 
of  the  so-called  practical  life  we  find  this  illustrated  in  the  action  and  influ- 
ence of  what  is  called  "  tact."  In  matters  of  sesthetical  and  even  of  scientific 
and  ijhilosophical  import,  we  find  it  further  enforced  by  manifestations 
of  what  is  denominated  "intuition"  or  "insight."  Here  the  most  well- 
reasoned  answers  as  to  what  and  why  often  seem  to  be  more  than  matched 
by  the  intellectually  obscure  but  more  feeling-full  and  rapid  apprehensions 
of  truth.  The  affective  side  of  human  nature,  of  course,  influences  the 
logical  processes  very  strongly  at  their  origin,  and  indeed  all  the  way 
through.  This  will  appear  more  clearly  on  consideration  of  the  effect  of 
intellectual  interest,  of  unrest  and  dissatisfaction  with  ignorance,  of  pure  and 
strong  desire  for  knowledge  for  its  own  sake.  Thus,  inference  is  not  only 
spurred  to  a  quick,  decisive  bound,  but  somehow — it  would  almost  seem — 
guided  so  as  to  light  upon  the  right  spot.  In  conclusion,  every  inductive  proc- 
ess, too,  originates  largely  in  a  sort  of  blind  groping  about  after  all  pos- 
sible movements  of  thought  which  may  furnish  the  satisfaction  of  desire.  He 
who  does  not  want  to  reason  is  little  likely  to  reach  any  conclusion  ;  on  the 
other  hand,  our  conclusions  are  generally — as  everybody  knows — more  likely 
to  be  the  ones  which  we  as  reasoners  want.  Such  a  feeling  of  want  also  re- 
minds us  of  the  mental  movement  necessary  to  satisfy  it ;  and,  as  that  move- 
ment follows,  we  have  the  germinal  form  of  conclusion  in  the  narrower  sense 
(the  deductive  syllogism).  Nor  is  it  unwarrantable  to  affirm  that  the  devel- 
opment of  will,  as  a  sort  of  outcome  from  desire,  is  indispensable  to  the 
higher  forms  of  ratiocination.  There  is  truth,  then,  in  the  declarations  of 
Gothe's  "Faust:"  "All  comes  at  last  to  feeling,"  and  "What  you  don't 
feel  you'll  never  catch;"  although  this  tnith  should  not  lead  lis  "to  despise 
intelligence  and  science,  the  highest  powers  accorded  unto  man." 

[Besides  the  works  referred  to  at  the  close  of  the  last  chapter,  the  following  may  be 
consulted:  Spencer:  Principles  of  Psychology,  II.,  p.  86  f.  Mill:  Logic,  Books  ii.,  iii. 
James :  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  II.,  chap.  xxii.  Carpenter :  Mental  Physiology,  i., 
chap.  6;  ii.,  chap.  12  f.] 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

SPACE,  TIME,  AND  CAUSATION 

The  peculiarity  of  the  rehition  which  certain  of  our  concep- 
tions sustain  to  our  entire  mental  life  is  made  obvious  only  by 
a  process  of  reflective  thinking'.  So  subtile  and  intricate  is  the 
development  of  this  life,  and  so  late  the  awakening-  of  critical 
interest  in  its  fundamental  laws,  that  it  is  not  strange  to  find 
different  students  holding  widely  different  opinions  as  to  the 
origin  and  significance  of  such  conceptions.  While,  of  course, 
it  is  true  of  tliese  conceptions,  above  all  others,  that  their  more 
precise  content  represents,  in  the  case  of  different  individuals, 
widely  different  degrees  in  the  development  of  thinking  faculty. 

Conceptions  of  the  kind  to  which  reference  has  just  been  made 
have  received  a  great  variety  of  names  at  the  hands  of  different 
writers  in  the  history  of  psychology  and  philosophy.'  Among 
these  the  term  "  categories  "  (or  "  i^redicaments  "  resulting  from 
the  processes  of  thinking  and  naming)  is  as  old  as  Aristotle. 
The  full  treatment  of  the  categories,  as  related  to  the  processes 
and  the  results  of  knowledge  in  a  large  and  ultimate  way,  be- 
longs to  the  philosophical  theory  of  knowledge  ;  but  regarded 
as  forms  of  real  being,  the  categories  are  of  metaphysical  import. 
It  is  enough  for  scientific  psychology  to  note  their  existence,  as 
it  were,  and  to  describe  such  of  the  mental  processes  resulting  in 
these  conceptions  as  are  most  directly  involved  in  the  history  of 
mental  development. 

It  has  just  been  said  that  the  conceptions  which  are  called 
the  "  categories  "  have  peculiar  relations  to  our  entire  mental 
life.  As  respects  their  strictly  psychological  origin  and  char- 
acter, however,  there  is  little  apparent  reason  to  speak  of  them 
as  "  peculiar."  In  one  passage  of  his  writings  Aristotle  enu- 
merates the  following  ten  :  Substance,  quantity,  quality,  relation, 
place,  time,  situation,  possession,  action,  and  suffering ;  he  ap- 
pears to  have  regarded  them  as  applying  both  to  things  and  to 
words.      But  considered  as  an  actual  mental  process  there  is  no 

>  For  a  list  of  these  terms  see  Hamilton :  Lectures  on  Metaphysics,  xxxviii. ;  and  Reid's 
Works,  note  A,  §  v.,  p.  755  f. 


48S  SPACE,    TIME,    AND   CAUSATION 

oue  of  these  ten  whose  origin  and  development  does  not  conform 
to  the  descriptions  ah-eady  given  of  the  elaboration  of  exi^erience 
through  thought-faculty.  Of  the  three  categories  whose  names 
stand  at  the  head  of  this  chapter,  for  example,  we  may  unhesitat- 
ingly declare  that  the  actual  mental  processes  answering  to  the 
names  are  performed  in  essentially  the  same  way  as  are  those 
through  which  we  pass  in  forming  all  our  other  conceptions. 
When  I  think  of  space,  or  of  time,  or  of  causation,  I  have  no 
peculiar  experience  (no  so-called  "  intuition,"  or  immediate  ra- 
tional awareness  or  insight  into  the  nature  of  things)  answer- 
ing to  these  words.  So  far  as  descriptive  psychology  goes, 
these  conceptions  arise  and  develop  in  essentially  the  same 
manner  as  do  all  other  conceptions. 

Even  from  the  predominatingly  psychological  point  of  view, 
however,  there  is  something  peculiar  about  the  relation  in  which 
all  the  true  categories  stand  to  the  development  of  mental  life. 
This  psychological  peculiarity  consists  chiefly  of  the  follow- 
ing three  characteristics  :  (1)  Regarded  as  thought  -  products 
these  conceptions  are  capable  of  reaching  a  high  degree  of  ab- 
straction ;  and  of  being  illustrated,  as  it  were,  by  a  correspond- 
ingly great  variety  of  widely  different  acts  of  the  image-making 
faculty.  For  example,  as  the  result  of  a  series  of  judgments 
based  upon  experiences  with  extended  objects  of  perception  one 
may  reach  the  bare  thought  of  the  "  possibility  of  extension  in 
general ; "  and  may  give  to  this  abstraction  the  name  of  "  space." 
On  the  other  hand,  in  "  realizing  "  to  one's  self  what  one  means 
by  space,  one  may  employ  a  variety  of  images  of  past  or  pos- 
sible extensions  and  movements  of  objects ;  and  may  say  to  one's 
self,  "  That  is  what  I  understand  by  space."  On  comparing 
such  a  compound  act  of  thinking  and  imaging  as  this  with  the 
act  which  is  performed  in  connection  with  words  denominating' 
classes  of  objects — such  as  "  man,"  "  mammal,"  or  even  "  soul  " 
and  "thing"— we  cannot  fail  to  note  the  differences  between  the 
two.  (2)  Connected  with  this  peculiarity  is  the  content-less 
character  of  the  categories.  These  conceptions,  in  their  most 
abstract  form,  have  no  variety  of  marks  which  the  synthesis  of 
judgment  grasps  together  in  giving  import  to  the  name.  It  has 
been  said^  "  the  act  of  apprehension  produces  no  content  of  idea- 
tion which  is  not  already  contained  in  the  content  of  the  being 
that  is  ideated."  For  examiilo,  if  I  conceive  of  space  as  "  pure 
mental  form,"  or  as  the  "  possibility  of  indefinite  extension  in  gen- 
eral," etc.,  my  act  of  conception  does  not  enable  me  to  add  any- 
thing to  the  actual  content  of  my  perception,  or  of  my  imagina- 

'  So  Beneke  :  Pragmatische  Psychologie,  il .  p.  175. 


NATURE  OF  THE  "CATEGORIES"  489 

tion,  or  of  my  couccption  of  any  particular  thing:  that  is  actually 
extended.  (3)  The  existence  of  these  conceptions,  when  con- 
sidered merely  from  the  psycholog-ical  i>oint  of  view,  compels  us 
to  admit  :  We  are  able  not  only  to  think  about  all  manner  of  ob- 
jects, and  put  the  results  of  thinking-  into  the  perception,  memory, 
and  imagination  of  all  manner  of  objects ;  but  we  are  also  able 
to  think  about  the  ultimate  forms  of  thought  itself.  We  can,  by 
thinking,  form  conceptions  of  the  processes  of  perception,  mem- 
ory', imagination,  and  conception — as  secondary  and  hig-hcr  prod- 
ucts, as  it  were,  of  intellectual  life.  In  some  sort,  then,  the  cat- 
egories are  realized  as  thinking  that  has  for  its  objects  the  very 
processes  of  perceiving-,  remembering,  imagining-,  and  thinking-, 
themselves. 

To  sum  up  these  characteristics  :  By  "categories"  i:>syclwlog- 
ically  considered  (that  is,  regarded  as  phenomena  of  conscious- 
ness), 2ce  mean  those  hkihly  ahstract  concejitions  tchich  the  mind 
frames  hy  refiection  upon  its  own  most  general  modes  of  behavior. 
They  are  our  own  notions,  resulting  from  co-operation  of  imagi- 
nation and  judgment,  concerning  the  ultimate  and  unanalyzable 
forms  of  our  own  existence  and  development.  In  so  far  as  our 
notions  are  correctly  formed,  and  so  are  supposed  to  represent 
the  ultimate  facts  of  mental  life,  the  categories  maj^  be  said  to  he 
the  ultimate  forms  of  mental  existence  and  development. 

?  1.  The  doctrine  of  the  categories  has  been  much  ilebatecl,  not  only 
in  treatises  on  philosoijhy  and  logic  (where  such  debate  more  properly  be- 
longs) but  also  in  writings  on  i^sychology.  The  term  most  popular  in  Great 
Britain  and  America  for  this  class  of  conceptions  has  been,  perhaps,  the  term 
"  intuitions."  But  such  a  term  is  particularly  inajipropriate  for  this  class  of 
conceptions.  To  "  intuit  "  is  to  see  jaresentatively,  face  to  face,  as  it  were  ; 
and  "  the  intuitions"  should  refer  only  to  such  classes  of  objects  as  admit  of 
being  envisaged,  or  known  with  that  immediate  awareness  of  cognition  which 
presentative  experiences,  whether  of  sense  or  of  self-consciousness,  alone 
have.  Now  I  can  thus  ("  intuitively")  know  an  extended  thing  by  sight,  or 
by  touch  ;  I  may  even  regard  myself  as,  in  a  peculiar  manner,  standing  face 
to  face  with  the  memory-picture  or  with  the  object  constructed  by  imagina- 
tion— although  psychological  classification  regards  such  objects  as  belonging 
to  the  representative  rather  than  the  presentative  gi-oup.  Pre-eminently  true 
is  it  also  that  I,  and  no  other,  have  a  face-to-face  knowledge  of  my  own  men- 
tal states  as  such — of  my  pleasures  and  pains,  my  desires  and  purposes,  etc. 
But  the  knowledge  signified  by  such  abstract  terms  as  space,  time,  causa- 
tion, and  the  other  categories,  is  the  furthest  jwssible  removed  from  any 
similar  envisogement  or  intuitive  cognition  by  the  mind.  Indeed,  it  woitld 
be  more  correct  to  say  that  every  one  has  many  intuitions  of  spaces,  times,  and 
causes;  and  then  by  a  process  of  generalization  and  reasoning  reaches  the 
ability  to  give  some  sort  of  meaning  to  the  words  "space,"  "  time,"  and 
"  causation."     But  the  really  con*ect  thing  is  to  say  that,  in  the  processes  of 


490  SPACE,    TIME,    AND   CAUSATION 

perception  by  the  senses  and  of  self-consciousness,  I  intuit,  or  envisage, 
extended  things  and  events  enduring  in  the  world  or  as  states  of  my  own 
mind,  and  relations  between  things  which  I  exjilain  causally. 

g  2.  Because  the  intellectual  develoijment  on  which  they  depend  is  capa- 
ble of  being  carried  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  and  to  a  far  greater  extent 
in  the  case  of  some  individuals  than  others,  the  conceptions  answering  to  the 
term  the  categories  are  very  different  in  different  cases.  In  no  other  con- 
ceptions are  the  effects  more  clearly  seen  of  original  or  acquired  skill,  of  the 
amount  of  attention  given  to  the  subject ;  and  even  of  age,  sex,  habitual 
modes  of  the  activity  of  the  senses,  imagination,  etc.  There  is  undoubted 
truth,  from  the  psychological  point  of  view,  in  the  statement  that  space 
is  not,  and  never  can  become,  to  one  born  blind,  what  it  is  to  all  who  have 
normal  vision.  Says  Lotze  '  in  sjieaking  of  the  sexes  :  "  Analytic  reflection 
upon  their  own  movements  is  so  little  familiar  to  them  that  one  may  affirm, 
without  fear  of  being  very  far  wrong,  that  such  expressions  as,  to  the  right, 
to  the  left,  aci'oss,  reverse,  express,  in  the  language  of  women,  not  any  mathe- 
matical relations,  but  certain  particular  feelings  which  one  has  when  in 
working  one  makes  movements  in  these  directions."  What  is  true  of  the 
subordinate  determinations  of  sj^atial  properties  and  relations,  is  even  more 
true  of  that  mental  determination  which  corresponds  to  the  sum-total,  as  it 
were,  of  such  i^roperties  and  relations.  Different  individual  conceptions  of 
space  are  far  more  variable  than  the  conceptions  of  such  sjiatial  relations  as, 
"to  the  right,"  "  to  the  left,"  etc.  What  is  true  of  space  is  just  as  true  of 
time  and  causation.  The  child's  conception  of  time,  or  that  of  the  savage, 
differs  most  markedly  from  the  astronomer's  or  the  philosopher's.  But  the 
astronomer  and  the  philosopher  do  not,  actually,  conceive  of  time  in  the 
same  way. 

Whence,  then,  it  may  be  asked,  do  these  concejitious  derive  their  peca/- 
mr  character — that  character  which  entitles  them  to  be  called  categories? 
Psychologically  considered,  the  peculiar  character  of  the  categories  consists 
chiefly  in  the  three  points  just  mentioned,  and  by  referring  to  such  differ- 
ences in  the  processes  by  which  these  conceptions  are  formed  we  may  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  the  customary  tests  of  a  category,  namely— (1)  origi- 
nality, (2)  universality,  (3)  necessity.  These  processes,  indeed,  give  token  of 
no  new  faculty  {e.g.,  so-called  reason  as  the  "  faculty  of  intuition").  These 
processes  are  rather  the  application  of  all  the  mental  faculties  to  the  very 
conditions  of  experience  itself,  with  a  view  intelligently  to  conceive  of  such 
conditions.  If,  then,  the  inquiry  be  raised,  why  does  not  the  dog — that  most 
intelligent  of  the  lower  animals — give  evidence  of  a  knowledge  of  the  cate- 
gories ;  why  does  not  it  show  tokens  of  having  intuitions  of  space,  time, 
and  causation,  as  original,  universal,  and  necessary  cognitions?  The  answer 
is  not  to  be  found  in  the  animal's  lack  of  some  one  faculty,  considered  as  a 
sort  of  storehouse  of  the  categories.  The  answer  rather  is,  that  the  dog  is, 
apjiarontly,  quite  incapable  of  performing  a  considerable  number  of  those 
intellectual  processes  which  are  indispensable  to  self-understanding.  It  be- 
longs to  man  only  to  learn  to  understand  his  own  understanding.  The  dog 
cannot  reflectively  consider  the  meaning,  or  reason  its  way  into  conclusions 
as  to  the  laws,  of  its  own  mental  life.     For  this  it  has  neither  the  necessary 

'  Microcosmus,  II.,  p.  47. 


NATURE   OF   THE   CATEGORIES  4'Jl 

imagination  nor  i-ccognitivo  (self-conscious)  memory,  nor  power  of  sustained 
thinking  and  drawing  conclusions.  Apjiurently,  also,  the  lower  animals  Lave 
no  intellectual  interests  or  other  forms  of  feeling,  and  no  will  to  pursue 
trains  of  reflective  analysis  directed  ui)on  their  own  mental  processes.  Nor 
have  wo  reason  to  suppose  that  they  are  metaphysical  as  man  is  ;  and  so  ca- 
pable of  developing  a  "reasoned  belief  "  in  reality  as  cognizable  and  repre- 
sentable  by  their  own  mental  i)rocesses. 

The  categories  are  said  to  be  "  original,"  therefore,  because  they  mark  the 
last  results  of  analytic  and  reflective  thinking  in  preparation  for  the  process 
of  conception ;  no  more  lies  beyond  for  thought  in  that  particular  direction 
from  which  we  may  derive  and  by  which  we  may  exj^lain  the  nature  of  sjiace, 
time,  causation,  and  of  the  other  categories.  They  are  "universal,"  because 
all  mental  processes  in  the  case  of  all  men  seem  to  follow  the  forms  of  ex- 
istence and  development  summarized  in  the  category  itself.  They  are 
"  necessary,"  both  because  they  are  original  and  universal,  and  also  because 
we  experience  an  irremovable  limit  when  we  seek  to  determine  our  own 
forms  of  conception  in  contradictory  directions.  All  these  tests,  however, 
— and  especially  the  latter  two — are  liable  to  be  misunderstood  and  misap- 
plied. For  example,  it  may  be  said  that  all  men  do,  and  must,  perceive  and 
imagine  sensuous  objects  as  extended  in  space,  auel  so  that  space  may  be, 
and  must  be,  conceived  of  as  the  abstract  possibility  of  the  existence  of 
extended  objects.  But  that  atoms  do  and  must  exist  as  extended  in 
space ;  or  that  there  is  any  extra-mental  existence,  ready-made,  and  spread 
out  in  three  dimensions,  which  corresponds  to  tlie  conception  of  sjjace ;  or 
that  the  conception  of  space  implies  any  such  entity  or  form  of  real  existence 
— all  these  are  propositions  which  cannot  be  loaded  upon  psychology  as 
though  they  were  defensible  by  its  scientific  study  of  the  phenomena  of  con- 
sciousness as  such.  A  fortiori,  do  similar  remarks  apply  to  the  category  of 
causation. 

§  3.  A  full  discussion  of  the  categories  would,  of  course,  include  others 
besides  those  mentioned  particularly  in  this  chapter,  some  of  w^hich  will  be 
referred  to  later  on.  But  it  is  not  our  intention  anywhere  to  attempt  such  a 
discussion.  It  will  be  seen,  however,  that  the  preceding  remarks  apply  to 
them  all,  in  so  far  as  they  are  regarded  from  the  psychological  point  of  view. 
The  so-called  logical  categories  of  "being,"  "relation,"  etc.,  for  example, 
have  plainly  the  nature  belonging  to  all  this  class  of  conceptions.  Intellect- 
ually considered  they  are  of  the  most  highly  abstract  order ;  but  considered 
as  capable  of  concrete  illustration,  they  admit  of  the  activity  of  the  image- 
making  faculty  in  an  infinitely  variable  way.  Every  thing  and  every  thought 
is,  and  is  related  to  some  other  thing  and  thought.  Therefore  my  concep- 
tions of  being  and  of  relation  are  peculiarly  content-less.  And  if  I  ask 
myself,  whence  do  these  conceptions  come  ?  the  answer  must  be,  I  have 
been  using  thought  reflectively,  with  a  view  to  discover  its  own  most  fun- 
damental forms  of  movement.  My  intellect  has  become,  so  to  sj^eak,  very 
highly  self-conscious,  and  has  framed  a  conception  of  its  own  ultimate  and 
most  unanalyzable  modes  of  behavior.  And  with  the  mysterious  metaphys- 
ical faith  which  belongs  to  all  its  operations,  it  regards  these  categories,  or 
universal  and  necessary  predicaments,  as  the  ultimate  and  necessary  forms 
of  reality. 


(( 


tJtil"^  * 


492  SPACE,    TIME,    AND   CAUSATION 

The  psycholog-ical  discussion  of  Space  considered  as  a  cate- 
gory requires  little  in  addition  to  what  has  already  been  said. 
In  our  study  of  the  development  of  perception  by  the  senses  it 
was  seen  (p.  321  f.)  that  the  XDroblem  of  lasychology  concerns  the 
stages  by  which,  and  the  conditions  on  which,  the  various  sen- 
sation-complexes become  organized  through  intellectual  activity 
into  extended  objects.  It  was  then  said  that  "for  psychology 
empty  space  is  itself  only  an  abstraction,  dependent  upon  a  devel- 
oped activity  of  the  memory,  imagination,  and  judgment,  in  con- 
nection with  presentations  of  sense  already  acquired."  The  nature 
of  this  development  of  memor}^,  imagination,  and  judgment  has 
now  been  considered  in  detail,  and  its  results  have  been  noted 
in  the  largely  changed  character  of  the  mental  processes,  the 
formation  of  faculty,  the  elaboration  of  experience,  the  construc- 
tion of  science,  and  indeed  in  the  constituting  of  self-conscious 
mind  itself.  On  the  subject  of  space,  then,  it  onl}'  remains  to 
trace  briefly  certain  main  features  in  this  process  of  so-called 
abstraction.  It  will  thus  be  seen  how  developing  intellect,  on 
the  basis  of  a  growing  experience  with  presentations  of  sense, 
draws  conclusions  as  to  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  conception 
answering  to  this  word. 

\  4.  We  resume  the  discussion  substantially  at  the  point  at  which  it  was 
left  by  Chapters  XV.  and  XVI.  Two  classes  of  perceptions,  or  rather  two 
highly  elaborate  systems  of  perceptions,  originally  belonging  to  ditferent 
classes — the  visual  and  the  tactual — are  now  regarded  as  attained  in  their 
development,  which  is  parallel  in  time  ;  they  sui3j)lement,  assist,  support,  and 
correct  each  other.  They  are  so  mutually  related  and  developed  as  that  each  is 
readily  translatable,  within  given  limits,  into  terms  of  the  other.  They  are 
synthesized  (on  what  condition  and  under  what  laws  we  shall  see  better  later 
on)  in  our  knowledge  of  ' '  things  ; "  but  by  that  same  activity  of  intellect  which 
resulted  in  this  synthesis,  we  can  discriminate  again  the  thing  seen  from  the 
thing  touched.  Vague  notions  of  direction,  primarily  assignable  to  the  or- 
gans of  hearing  and  smell,  as  the  art  of  localizing  the  sensations  of  these 
senses  is  developed  in  dependence  upon  experience  with  sight  and  touch, 
gradually  become  more  definite.  In  this  way  the  general  conception  of  space, 
as  distinguished  frovi  the  sensuous  intuition  of  extended  objects,  is  developed. 
"  Empty,"  for  the  sense-organs  of  nose  and  ear,  is  all  the  space  between  the 
object  which  emits  the  odor  or  the  sound  and  our  own  bodies.  Indeed, 
since  the  greater  number  of  our  experiences  with  sounds  and  odors  are  not 
accompanied  by  visual  or  tactual  presentations  of  the  objects  which  occasion 
them,  the  experiences  themselves  seem  to  originate  out  of  wholly  empty 
space.  As  the  air  above  us  is  empty  to  touch  but  not  to  sight,  or  the  in- 
terior of  our  own  bodies  is  empty  to  sight  but  not  to  touch,  so  is  all  space 
empty  to  smell  and  to  hearing  as  such.  Thus  the  blind  person  who  should 
be  at  the  same  time  deaf  and  deprived  of  smell,  would  necessarily  be  in- 
creasingly  limited   in   bis  means   for   forming  any  conception  of  "empty 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   SPACE-CONCEPTIONS  493 

space."  To  snch  a  one  the  world  would  i)rol)ably  have  to  be  conceived  of 
as  solid  and  constricted  in  area,  in  a  way  quite  inconceivable  by  us.  But 
what  would  empty  space  be  to  one— if  only  such  a  being  could  live  and  de- 
velop at  all — who  was  deprived  of  all  means  of  moving  his  own  body,  or  any 
of  its  members,  and  so  of  conceiving  the  existence  of  emjity  space  on  the 
basis  of  the  tactual  and  muscular  exiJerience  thus  gained  ! 

^  5.  The  princiiial  conceptions  of  spatial  properties  and  spatial  relations 
are  gained,  in  the  normal  and  more  complete  way,  by  conclusions  from  ex- 
jDerieuces  with  both  sight  and  touch.  This  statement  is  true  especially,  how- 
ever, of  the  more  purely  intellectual  elements  of  the  conceptions  of  this 
class.  On  the  other  hand,  the  more  j^urely  image-making  work  which  enters 
into  all  such  conceijtions  may  be  taken  by  one  person  chiefly  from  one  of 
these  forms  of  sensuous  experience,  by  another  person  chiefly  from  some 
other  form  of  experience.  Suppose,  for  example,  we  ask.  What  is,  considered 
psychologically, — that  is,  as  actual  mental  performance — my  conception  of 
such  spatial  relations  as  "above,"  "below,"  "  to  the  right,"  "to  the  left?"  It 
will  be  found  that  the  more  abstract  and  free  from  dei^endence  on  concrete 
processes  of  image-making  these  conceptions  have  become,  the  more  have 
the  sensuous  peculiarities  of  either  of  the  two  leading  senses  been  left  out, 
as  it  were.  To  one  person,  "  above  "  is  a  certain  direction  in  which  the  eyes 
move — this,  as  the  sensuous  basis  for  generalization.  When  we  see  one 
thing  above  another,  then  we  always  perform  this  complex  act  of  vision  by 
movement  of  the  eyes  in  one  (upward)  direction.  Our  conception,  then,  may 
become  merely  that  of  a  movement  with  the  eyes  executed  in  a  certain  di- 
rection— the  particular  character  of  the  objects  seen,  as  related,  by  this 
movement,  being  abstracted,  that  is,  not  being  considered.  But  with  another 
person  a  certain  direction  in  which  the  arms  are  moved  may  have  been  the 
chief  sensuous  basis  of  the  generalization.  If,  however,  the  conception 
answering  to  the  word  "above"  is  made  yet  more  highly  abstract,  the 
particular  organ  moved  in  the  direction  indicated  by  the  word  may,  in 
turn,  be  disregarded.  And  now  the  conception  of  this  particular  si^atial 
relation  becomes  the  conception  of  a  relation  as  indicated  by  a  certain  di- 
rection of  movement  merely ;  and  for  realizing  concretely  this  conception 
one  may  execute  or  imagine  the  movement  with  either  eye  or  hand,  as 
one  chooses.  In  similar  manner  are  our  conceptions  of  certain  other  sjjatial 
relations  attained.  If,  however,  the  conception  to  be  found  is  like  that 
indicated  by  the  words — "to  the  right,"  or  "to  the  left,"  etc. — movements 
of  the  head  and  trunk,  together  with  reference  to  the  position  of  hands  or 
arms,  are  fittest  to  serve  as  the  sensuous  data  for  generalization  ;  and  faintly 
executed  or  imagined  movements  of  the  same  corai^lex  character  would 
probably  furnish  the  needed  concrete  and  lifelike  realization  of  the  concep- 
tion. But  the  relation  of  all  this  process  of  abstraction  to  imagination,  to 
the  intellect,  and  to  language,  is  jn-ecisely  the  same  as  that  which  we  find 
in  all  our  thinking.' 

'  ConsidtT  ho-w  our  pro^rrcssive  construction  of  the  conceptions  of  space,  as  applied  to  the  body 
and  through  it  to  external  thinirs,  depend  upon  what  Hiickel  and  others  have  called  its  obvious 
"isomeric  structure."  Its  parts  have  "  Spiefrelverhaltniss."  N.  B,  the  horizons  of  the  different 
senses  differ— touch  corresponding  chiefly  to  the  dimension  of  right  and  left,  and  sight  to  those  of 
before  and  behind.  The  former  horizon  has  two  equal  halves ;  the  latter  has  two  unlike  halves 
which  are  related  as  light  to  darkness,  etc. 


494  SPACE,    TIME,    AND   CAUSATION 

I  6.  The  more  elaborate  so-called  scientific  conceptions  answering  to 
all  possible  sjiatial  properties  and  relations  are  also  formed  in  the  manner 
already  essentially  explained.  Space  for  the  astronomer  and  for  the  child  is 
the  same  ready-made  spread-out  extension,  which  might  he  perceived  \x\.  all  its 
three  dimensions  by  the  senses,  and  is  imagined  as  a  sort  of  entity  having 
limitless  expanse :  that  is  to  say,  it  is  the  space  of  sense-presentations  and  of 
sensuous  imagination.  Much  less  elementary  and  naive  is  the  sj^ace  concep- 
tion of  the  philosopher  or  the  psychologist.  But  through  the  use  of  mathe- 
matics and  the  peculiar  form  of  ratiocination  which  it  encourages  and  em- 
ploys, the  scientific  conceptions  of  spatial  jjroperties  and  spatial  relations  are 
extended  vastly  beyond  the  range  of  the  popular  conceptions.  Thus  it  is  a 
higher  than  the  ordinary  form  of  abstraction  which  resiilts  in  the  formation 
of  those  conceptions  that  geometry  employs.  The  necessity  for  some  special 
form  of  language  in  order  to  the  successful  accomplishment  of  such  high 
tasks  of  intellect  and  imagination  is  met  by  the  i^eculiar  symbolism  of 
mathematics.  By  the  exj^ert  use  of  this  symbolism  whole  groups  of  spatial 
properties  and  relations  are  summarized  under  a  single  sign ;  and  in  most 
reasoning  about  space-relations  the  mind  really  substitutes  the  mechanical 
relating  of  such  signs  for  processes  of  ratiocination  regarded  as  dealing  with 
objects  derived  from  real  experiences  of  a  sensuous  oi'igin.  But  every  call 
to  "  realize  "  the  meaning  of  the  signs  makes  it  evident  that  the  conceptual 
processes  of  which  the  man  of  science  is  capable  are  essentially  the  same  as 
those  of  his  fellow  who  has  had  no  scientific  training. 

I  7.  The  process  of  "emptying"  space  of  its  concrete  filling  with  ex- 
tended objects  has  already  been  seen  to  differ  with  the  different  senses. 
The  one  common  experience  which  most  fosters,  and  indeed  compels,  this 
intellectual  process  is  the  experience  of  moving  the  body  about  freely,  and 
of  assuming  different  relations  in  extension  to  other  bodies.  This  experi- 
ence is,  however,  constantly  assisted  by  another,  which  has  substantially  the 
same  effect,  namely,  the  experience  of  seeing  and  touching,  in  similar  spa- 
tial relations  to  the  same  bodies,  any  number  of  different  movable  bodies. 
For  example,  the  room  is  empty,  when  I  can  move  about  in  it  freely  ;  and 
all  those  extensions  are  empty,  however  comi)letely  filled  in  the  visual  field 
they  may  be,  through  which  I  or  any  of  my  bodily  members,  or  any  thing, 
can  be  made  to  move  freely.  Even  if  I  strike  against  a  chair  or  table  I  can 
myself  move  it  "  out  of  the  way ;  "  and  I  can  see  or  imagine  its  place  in  the 
system  of  related  objects  which  the  room  contains,  taken  at  another  time  by 
some  other  object.  Now  from  the  concrete  fact  nf  occupancy  by  particular  fac- 
tually discernible  objects  which  the  spaces  have,  I  may  withdraw  attention  ; 
thus  I  may  form  the  conception  of  the  mere  possibility,  as  such,  of  being  occu- 
pied by  some  object.  Or  again  I  may  make  a  sujoreme  generalization,  as  it 
were;  I  may  form  the  conception  of  the  mere  possibility  of  indefn'ile  exten- 
sion and  possible  orcitpa/icy  in  every  direction.  Finally,  I  may  employ  the 
combined  activity  of  constructive  imagination  in  its  most  highly  idealizing 
form,  and  of  intellect,  in  order  to  conceive,  as  we  say,  of  "pure  and  indefi- 
nite space."  Such  intellectual  activity  results  in  a  concluding  judgment 
which  summarizes  a  vast  amount  of  thinking  in  answer  to  the  question, 
What  is  Space?  But  in  the  effort  definitely  to  realize  the  meaning  of  this 
judgment,  one  may  summon  repeatedly  to  new  exertions  the  image-making 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE   CONCEPTION   OF   TIME  495 

faculty.  One  may  imagine  one's  self  where  the  remotest  fixed  star  is,  anJ 
more  space  lies  beyond.  One  may  imagine  one's  self  in  that  beyond  ;  and 
there  is  still  more,  farther  beyond. 

It  was  just  said  that,  "  tinally,"  we  attain  this  conception  of  pure  and  in- 
finite space  as  the  result  of  intellect  and  imagination  dealing  with  sensu- 
ous data.  These  are  not,  however,  final  words  about  space.  We  have  as  yet 
reached  only  what  Hegel  was  fond  of  calling  the  "  fignrate  conception,"  an- 
swering to  the  term  "category."  We  may  then  raise  again  the  question, 
What  in  space  ;  what  is  it  renlbf?  We  may  employ  in  the  supreme  critical 
manner  all  our  rational  faculties  to  penetrate  the  mysteries  of  the  being  of 
the  world  and  of  our  own  mental  life  ;  we  may  answer  :  Space  is  but  the  form 
of  our  own  perception  and  imagination,  regarded  as  intellectual  ;  space  is 
the  way  of  the  human  intellect  in  perceiving  and  conceiving  things.  Or  we 
may  affirm  that  space  is  some  kind  of  extra-mental  entity  ;  and  then  proceed 
to  discuss  the  question  as  to  what  kind  of  entity  this  so-called  "  space  "can 
l^ossibly  be.  But  in  even  raising  these  inquiries  we  have  already  again  jiassed 
over  from  the  psychological  domain  into  that  of  jihilosophy. 

The  mental  procedure  employed  in  the  development  of  the 
conception  of  Time  differs  in  no  essential  respects  from  that  em- 
l^loyed  in  the  development  of  space-conceptions.  There  are,  how- 
ever, two  subordinate  and  yet  important  points  of  difference : 
(1)  The  sensuous  data,  on  the  basis  of  which  the  mind  operates 
in  the  development  of  its  conceptions  of  temporal  properties  and 
relations  differ  in  kind  from  those  on  which  reposes  the  concep- 
tion of  space.  Hearing,  rather  than  touch  or  sig-ht,  has  already 
been  declared  to  be  pre-eminently  the  time-sense.  Yet  all  our 
sensuous  experiences  are  events ;  and  all  events,  as  we  sig-nifi- 
cantl}^  say,  take  place  "  in  time."  But,  for  the  reason  just  men- 
tioned, (2)  the  rang-e  of  the  applicability  of  the  category  of  time 
is  greater  than  that  of  space.  Phenomena  of  consciousness,  as 
such,  are  not  extended  ;  they  have  not  spatial  properties  and 
spatial  relations.  But  all  changes,  whether  regarded  objec- 
tively, as  changes  in  the  properties  and  relations  of  things,  or 
regarded  subjectively,  under  the  head  of  phenomena  of  con- 
sciousness, as  such,  have  ^;';;2(?-properties  and  if//??t'-relations. 

It  has  already  been  suggested  that  the  one  property — "  time- 
wise,"  as  it  were — which  all  events  are  recognized  as  possessing, 
is  duration.  All  events  endure  in  greater  or  less  degree  ;  they 
are,  therefore,  measurable  as  respects  their  particular  degree  of 
duration,  when  compared  with  some  common  standard.  The 
one  relation — "  time-wise  " — of  all  events  is  succession.  Here,  as 
in  the  case  of  space,  the  development  of  the  more  abstract  form 
of  conceptions  takes  place  as  the  result  of  the  combined  activity 
of  imagination  and  intellect  upon  a  basis  of  presentative  experi- 
ence.    Here,  also,  the  presentative  experience  itself  is  a  mixture 


496  SPACE,    TIME,    AND   CAUSATIOIS' 

of  dim  perception  and  obscure  but  stimulating  affective  phe- 
nomena. 

The  general  character  of  the  stream  of  consciousness  must, 
furthermore,  be  considered  as  giving  conditions  to  the  devel- 
opment of  the  conception  of  time.  It  is  for  this  very  reason 
that  our  different  states  or  iields  of  consciousness  are  thought 
of  as  existing  in  time-relations,  and  so  as  constituting  what  we 
figuratively  call  "  a  stream."  But  this  stream  of  conscious- 
ness, as  recognitive  memory  and  intellect  develop),  becomes 
more  and  more  a  self-cognizing  experience — a  stream  of  self- 
conscious  existence,  in  which  all  the  different  parts  are  not 
simply  actually  related  in  time,  but  are  actually  related  with  an 
accompanying  consciousness  of  their  relation  by  the  subject 
of  all  the  states  which  constitute  the  stream.  Moreover,  the 
very  character  of  the  stream  of  consciousness  is  such  as  fre- 
quently to  set  into  bold  relief  the  experiences  that  are  favor- 
able to  the  growth  of  the  conception  of  time.  For  this  stream 
is  always,  and  necessarily,  both  discrete  and  continuous.  Its 
varying  content,  its  flow  as  a  stream,  is  such  as,  at  one  instant, 
to  emphasize  the  discreteness  of  different  states  and  their  time- 
relation  to  each  other  ;  and,  at  another  instant,  to  emphasize 
rather  the  smooth  continuous  flow,  or  steady  intense  pressure, 
of  single  states.  And  here  the  manner  of  focusing  and  redis- 
tributing attention  is  all-important.  For,  as  Dr.  Ward  says,' 
"  attention  does  not  move  by  hops  from  one  definite  spot  to  an- 
other, but  by  alternate  diffusion  and  concentration,  like  the  foot 
of  a  snail,  which  never  leaves  the  surface  it  is  traversing.  .  .  . 
Thus  our  perception  of  a  period  of  time  is  not  comparable  to  so 
many  terms  in  a  series  of  finite  units,  any  more  than  it  is  to  a  series 
of  infinitesimals."  Some  forms  of  the  movement  of  attention, 
however,  are  more  favorable  to  the  conception  of  single  events  as 
enduring  "  throvf/h  time,"  and  others  are  more  favorable  to  the  con- 
ception of  the  different  relations  of  different  events,  "  in  time." 

Three  conceptions  of  the  time-relations  of  all  events  may  be 
enumerated  ;  these  are  present,  past,  and  future.  It  is  measure- 
ment and  the  development  of  the  mathematical  use  of  imagina- 
tion and  intellect  directed  to  the  duration  of  events,  which  re- 
sults in  the  formation  of  such  concei:>tions  as  longer  and  shorter, 
or  the  definitely  so  long,  in  time.  The  formation  of  these  con- 
ceptions, and  their  higher  development,  as  well  as  the  formation 
of  the  most  abstract  conceptions  of  so-called  "  empty  "  time,  are 
all  explained  iinder  psychological  principles  with  which  we  are 
already  familiar. 

'  Art.  Psychology,  Encyc.  Brit.,  p.  GC  ;  conip.  Spencer,  Psychology,  I.,  p.  403. 


THE   CONCEPTION   OF   EMPTY   TIME  497 

^  8.  The  discussion  left  off  at  the  close  of  chapter  XIV.  may  be  contin- 
ued by  assuming  the  existence  of  what  is  there  called  a  "  rudimentary  time- 
consciousness."  It  is  by  the  same  combination  of  imaging  and  thinking,  in 
wliich  every  conceptual  process  consists,  tliat  the  vague  consciousness  of  a 
"still-there"  is  converted  into  the  conception  of  "  the  jiresent ;"  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  "now-going"  or  "just  gone,"  into  the  concciition  of 
"  the  past ;  "  and  the  consciousness  of  the  "  not-yet-there,"  with  its  affective 
accompaniment  of  expectation  or  dread,  into  the  conception  of  "  the  future." 
In  the  earliest  development,  however,  no  definite  concei^tion  of  either  pres- 
ent, past,  or  future,  in  general  ;  and  no  conception  of  time,  at  large  and 
equipped,  as  it  were,  with  its  three  qualities,  is  presupposed.  In  the  ordi- 
nary waking  life  of  any  child,  the  succession  of  presentations  of  sense, 
mingled  witli  memory-images  and  with  i^rocesses  of  constructive  imagination 
anticipatory  of  coming  events,  flows  on  at  a  tolerably  uniform  rate  of  suc- 
cession. Such  a  complex  field  of  consciousness,  then,  really  contains  past, 
present,  and  future  within  itself.  But  at  one  time  the  child  so  buries  itself 
in  the  content  of  some  single  experience — of  peculiar  interest,  and  without 
marked  reference  beyond  itself — that  the  preaent  is  brought  to  a  "  sharper 
point,"  •  as  it  were,  than  is  customary.  At  another  time,  what  was  just  now 
a  presentation  of  sense,  with  all  its  accompaniments  of  feeling,  is  chiefly  noted 
as  it  fades  away  and  becomes  2x1st  before  the  mind's  attentive  eye.  At  still 
another  time,  the  prominent  object  in  the  stream  of  consciousness  is  the 
vivid  image  of  what  is  neither  now  presentation  of  sense,  nor  memory  of 
what  has  already  been ;  but  is  rather  the  expected  or  dreaded  to  be — the 
future  hovering  near.  But  all  these  forms  of  experience,  however  they  may 
receive  for  a  brief  time  the  emphasis  of  concentrated  attention,  themselves 
pass  away  and  dissolve  in  the  relations  which  bind  them  as  individuals  to 
the  contiguous  moments  of  the  onflowing  stream  of  couscioiisness.  They 
are  themselves  fitted,  then,  to  be  regarded  as  enduring  psychical  events  that 
stand  in  the  relations  of  present,  past,  or  future  to  other  psychical  events. 

Moreover,  as  respects  their  contents  simph/,  all  manner  of  events  may  stand 
in  relations  which,  as  respects  time-consciousness,  are  to  the  intellect  the  same. 
At  one  time  it  is  a  i^resentatiou  of  sense  that  is  present ;  at  another  it  is 
an  idea  that  is  present,  and  sensuous  objects  are  only  remembered  or  an- 
ticipated. Again,  it  is  feeling  that  is  remembered  or  anticipated  ;  or  yet 
again,  conation,  with  its  stress  of  effort,  is  the  present  dominant  mental  fact. 
Furthermore,  certain  prevalent  states  of  consciousness,  or  objects  of  sense 
attracting  attention,  may  remain  unchanged  while  the  subordinate  j^sychic 
elements  or  environing  objects  change  in  succession.  Here  the  duration  of 
the  former  class  of  psychoses  constitutes  a  sort  of  background  on  which 
the  succession  of  the  latter  records  itself.  For  examj^le  :  one  is  thinking 
continuously  of  home,  while  riding  in  a  railway  train  with  the  sensuous 
"  fringes  of  consciousness  "  fleeting  and  changing  at  every  second.  Or  again, 
one  is  sitting  by  the  sea  and  gazing  fixedly  at  the  same  picture  of  nature ; 
but  meantime  the  images  come  and  go  as  one  recalls  the  past,  or  builds  in 
anticipation  a  future  cottage  on  this  very  spot.  Such  experiences  afford 
stimulus  and  material  for  the  intellectual  task  of  framing  the  conceptions 

I  Zugespitzt,  as  Ilerbart  wonid  gay:  though  such  a  thing  as  a  "point"  in  the  stream  of  con- 
sciousness is  a  pure  abstraction— no  reality. 
33 


498  SPACE,    TIME,    AND    CAUSATION 

of  relations  in  time.     "  The  before"  and  "  the  after,"  "the  long"  and  "  the 
short,"  in  time  are  thus  conceived  of  and  understood. 

g  9.  The  development  of  time-conceptions  cannot  proceed  far,  however, 
without  the  assistance  of  language  in  summarizing  and  supporting  the  activ- 
ity of  intellect  and  imagination.  Recognized  objective  standards  for  the 
measurement  of  time  must  also  be  introduced.  "  You  have  already  had  that 
l^leasure  once  to-day;"  "you  did  that  same  naughty  thing  yesterday;" 
"  that  happened  when  you  were  very  young  " — by  such  complex  judgments 
do  mothers  train  the  time- consciousness  of  their  offspring.  Even  more  ef- 
fectively is  the  childish  appreciation  of  intervals  and  relations  of  time  cul- 
tivated, when  they  are  given  "just  so-much-time"  to  play,  to  pay  a  visit, 
to  be  shut  up  in  the  closet,  etc.  Nature  marks  off  for  all,  in  common  ways, 
how  they  shall  frame  certain  conceptions  of  time.  Nevertheless,  a  day  or  a 
night  is  far  from  being  the  same  thing  for  the  inhabitant  of  the  equatorial 
and  the  polar  zones  ;  and  savages  have  conceptions  of  time-relations  yet 
cruder  than  those  of  relations  of  space. 

In  biief,  all  conceptions  of  the  relations  of  time  imply  developed  activity 
of  imagination  and  intellect ;  this  development  rests  on  a  self-recognized 
continuity  of  consciousness  in  contrast  to  changeable  objects  of  j^articular 
experiences ;  and  this  recognition  is  bound  to  memory,  which  combines 
"  the  before  "  and  "  the  after  "  with  one  another,  since,  in  reproducing  what 
was  earlier,  it  holds  the  consciousness  fast  to  some  objectivity  or  other. 
Thus,  it  may  be  said,  that  the  mind  first  ijerceives  time,  then  constructs  and 
rules  time;  and  then,  as  loe  shall  ^)rese?i;!/j/  see,  projects  time  as  an  entity 
and  all-ruler  of  itself.^  Or,  as  has  been  well  said,  the  succession  of  states 
in  the  flowing  stream  of  consciousness  is  first  dimly  aj^preheuded  as  a 
time  ;  then  conceived  of  as  my  time,  or  the  time  of  my  experiences  ;  then, 
finally,  it  becomes  time  in  general,  from  whose  necessary  form  not  even  the 
Divine  Being  can  escape. 

I  10.  This  last  advance  in  the  process  of  abstraction  takes  place  in  the 
following  way.  It  is  far  more  true  of  time  than  of  space,  that  the  conception 
of  it  as  "empty"  is  a  pure  fiction.  Some  space  is  indeed  empty  to  one 
form  of  sense-presentation,  which  is  full  to  another  form  of  sense-presenta- 
tion ;  but  the  conception  of  empty  time  has  no  ground  in  any  correspond- 
ing experience.  For — we  repeat  again — all  events  are  time-enduring  ;  all 
experiences,  whether  of  sense-presentation,  or  imagination,  or  memory,  or 
thought,  are  processes  in  time.  The  consciousness  of  these  processes  is  a 
process  in  time  ;  the  time-consciousness,  however  far  developed  as  concep- 
tion, is  itself  a  process  in  time.  Our  conception  of  empty  time  is  not,  then, 
precisely  the  correlative  of  our  conception  of  empty  siiace.  We  have  certain 
experiences,  however,  where  a  moderate  monotony  and  todiousness  charac- 
terizes the  subjective  series  ;  while  some  objective  standard  marks  off  into 
regular  divisions  the  time  during  which  the  series  lasts.  At  the  end  of  such 
a  period  we  may  sum  up  the  whole  experience  as  so  much  time  (measured 
by  some  objective  standard)  during  which  ire  have  thought  and  felt  little  or 
nothing — time,  that  is,  which  we  cannot  remember  to  have  been  filled  with 
any  ]iarticnlar  content  of  experience.  Thus  we  wake  from  the  dull  day- 
dreaming, from  the  condition  of  dolce  far  niente,  from  the  prolonged  loaf- 

'  Comp.  George,  Peychologie,  p.  283. 


THE    CONCKPTION    OF    INFINITE   TIME  49d 

ing  by  the  sca-shoro,  with  the  exclamation  :  "  How  much  more  time  than 
I  thought  (than  seems  conteut-f ul)  has  gone  ! "  The  same  mental  represen- 
tation is  heightened  when,  on  waking  after  a  good  night's  rest,  we  perceive 
by  objective  signs  how  much  time  has  lapsed,  but  can  supjily  no  content 
from  the  stores  of  memory  with  which  to  occupy  it.  A  yet  higher  degree  of 
developed  imagination  enables  us  to  project  into  the  future  the  picture  of 
time  running  on  and  on,  as  wo  say — so  many  myriads  of  years ;  and  yet 
we,  perhaps,  as  a  stream  of  consciousness  not  filling  it  up  with  experi- 
ences like  those  remembered  from  our  i:)ast.  In  this  way  a  vague  conception 
of  mere  time,  of  time  that  is  simply  time,  and  content-less,  may  be  framed. 
It  is,  of  course,  a  psychological  fiction,  and  the  very  reverse  of  the  psycho- 
logical reality,  to  regard  such  empty  time  as  though  it  were  either  the  actual 
or  the  logical />ri«s  of  our  time-experience. 

The  actual  mental  process  which  answers  to  the  words  "infinite  time," 
is  a  still  more  abstract  and  purely  negative  form  of  concei:)tion.  For  here 
the  thought-element  of  the  process  consists  in  judging  that  vo  end  is  to  be 
predicated  of  this  time ;  while  the  element  of  imagination  consists  in  repeat- 
edly ideating  some — as  objectively  measured — immense  stretch  of  time  ;  and 
then  another,  and  yet  another,  and  so  on.  The  resulting  conception  (?) 
of  infinite  time  is  a  final  return  to  negative  judgment,  with  vague  aflfective 
accompaniments  of  exhaustion,  impoteney,  and,  perhaps,  also  incomprehen- 
sible sublimity,  etc.  Indeed,  what  is  called  the  coucejition  of  the  "  infinite," 
whether  as  applied  to  space  or  to  time,  is  very  largely  a  semi-;esthetical 
feeling,  or  vague  sentiment,  as  it  were. 

^  11.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  observe  again  the  very  powerful  influence 
which  feeling  has  over  all  our  conceptions  of  time.  How  time  "  gallops 
with  the  thief  to  the  gallows,"  and  "stays  still  "with  the  lawyer  during 
vacation,  poets  and  philosophers  have  not  been  the  only  ones  to  notice. 
Science  even  is  obliged  to  recognize  the  influence  of  feeling  on  all  its  most 
carefully  guarded  estimates  of  time.  Indeed,  without  the  means  of  check- 
ing and  limiting  these  eflfects  by  increased  accuracy  in  the  application  of 
objective  standards,  such  a  thing  as  modern  science  could  scarcely  exist 
at  all. 

In  dependence  npon  conceptions  of  space  and  time,  certain 
other  subordinate  conceptions  undergo  a  corresponding-  devel- 
opment. Most  important  among  these  are  the  conceptions  of 
Motion  and  Number.  Both  these  conceptions  involve  both 
space  and  time.  Sensations  and  primary  perceptions  of  motion 
are  among  the  earliest  products  of  the  activity  of  the  psycho- 
physical organism  ;  without  them  it  is  not  simply  true  that  in- 
tellectual advance  is  impossible  ;  it  is  rather  true  that  existence 
itself  is  impossible.  But  for  the  development  of  the  more  defi- 
nite and  complex  conceptions  of  motion — of  the  direction, 
amount,  and  time-rate  of  change  of  place — both  space-conscious- 
ness and  time-consciousness  must  advance  with  nearly  equal 
step.  Number,  again,  is  a  conception  which  requires  for  its  de- 
velopment the  higher  activities  of  both  imagination  and  intellect ; 


500  SPACE,    TIME,    AND   CAUSATION 

and  of  these  faculties  as  dealing  with  both  space-relations  and 
time-relations.  The  one  essential  process  here  is — as  we  have 
alread}"  remarked  (p.  475) — counting-.  What  is  counted,  however, 
must  be  regarded  as  separable,  discrete,  in  space  and  time. 
One  thing  is  in  this  place,  and  the  second  thing  is  contiguous  to 
it  in  space  ;  and  so  on.  Or,  this  event  happens  at  this  moment 
of  time,  and  the  other  and  second  event  at  another  moment  of 
time  ;  and  so  on.  Memory  and  imagination  must  bind  together 
every  spatial  series  and  every  temporal  series ;  and  both  these 
faculties  act  in  time. 

^  12.  According  to  the  veiy  interesting  view  of  Trendelenburg,'  motion 
is  a  sort  of  common  vehicle  for  all  our  conceptions  of  space  and  time.  There 
is  a  certain  truth  in  this  view.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  also  time  that  the 
conception  of  motion  itself  implies  a  certain  development  of  the  conceptions 
of  both  space  and  time.  ' '  Direction  "  of  motion  is  conceived  of  only  as  a 
generalization  from  our  experiences  of  bodies  changing  their  spatial  relations 
to  other  bodies,  in  the  succession  of  time.  All  our  conceptions  of  the  rela- 
tive amounts  of  motion — and  this  includes  all  our  standards  for  measure- 
ment of  physical  changes,  and  all  our  objective  standards  for  measuring 
psychical  events — depend  on  conceptions  of  both  space  and  time.  With  this 
is,  of  course,  connected  the  question  of  time-rate. 

In  considering  the  develoj^ment  of  genuine  conceptions  of  number,  as 
distinguished  from  sensuous  and  intuitive  estimates  of  gross  amount  (see 
p.  299),  it  is  interesting  to  notice  how  the  mind  proceeds.-  As  we  measure,  we 
count.  In  the  simpler  forms  of  measurement,  we  lay  down  a  rule,  repeatedly, 
beside  the  thing  to  be  measured  ;  or  we  pace  it  off;  or  we  ajiply  our  fingers 
or  fore-arms  to  it,  or  mark  it  off  with  the  eye.  Every  time  we  rej^eat  the 
application  of  the  standard  of  measurement,  we  note  down  (either  mentally, 
or  with  chalk  or  pencil)  a  imit ;  and  then  we  synthesize,  and  judge  "  so 
many  "  to  be  the  result.  In  each  of  these  processes,  some  development  of 
both  classes  of  conceptions,  those  of  spatial  properties  and  relations,  and 
those  of  duration  and  succession  in  time,  are  plainly  involved. 

It  has  long  been  customary  for  psj^chology  and  philosophy 
to  treat  the  Conception  of  Causation  as  though  it  were  a  simple 
and  unanalyzable  conception,  like  the  conception  of  time  or  of 
space — a  "  category,"  in  the  sense  in  which  they  are  categories. 

The  bearing  of  this  mistake  upon  one's  theory  of  knowledge 
and  iipon  one's  i^hilosophy  of  ethics  docs  not,  of  course,  concern 

'  Loffische  Unterpuchungen,  I.,  chaps,  v.  and  viii. 

"  Thin  distinction  tnay  be  illustrated  by  the  way  in  which  adult  experience  often  vacillates  be- 
tween more  or  less  vuKue  impressions  of  number  and  definite  acts  of  countin<:.  For  example,  the  clock 
has  struck  four  times,  and  1  have  heard  but  have  not  counted.  The  terminal  condition  of  con- 
sciousness fliffcrs,  in  case  the  clock  has  struck  only  once,  from  that  induced  by  two  strokes,  or  by 
ten  strokes,  of  the  same  clock.  By  immediate  though  trained  self-consciousness  I  can  analyze 
this  terminal  stiito.  and  then  know  hoxc  man;/  times  the  clock  has  struck.  Or,  suppose  I  have  kept 
count  of  the  strokes  ;  here  the  process  is  plain.  Or  both  :  suppose  I  began  to  count— say  "  four,"' 
with  the  impression,  derived  from  my  complex  of  sonnd-conscioosuess,  that  the  clock  had  already 
struck  three  times,  etc. 


CONCRETE  VIEW  OF  CAUSATION  501 

US  here.  But  its  refutation  ou  psycholog-ical  grounds  is  in- 
dubitable. Let  it  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  the  psycho- 
logical question  is  not.  What  is  it  to  be  a  cause  ?  or,  Are  things 
really  causally  related  ?  but  rather,  AVhat  are  the  actual  proc- 
esses in  consciousness  which  answer  to  the  so-called  conception 
of  cause ;  and  how^  do  we  decelop  this  conception  ? 

Now,  the  conception  which  answers  to  the  term  causation 
is,  on  analysis,  actually  found  to  be  a  very  complex  conception. 
Causation  is,  psychologically  considered,  not  so  much  a  single 
category  as  it  is  significant  of  conclusions  that  involve  the 
foundation  and  mental  grouping  together  of  a  number  of  con- 
ceptions, each  one  of  which  is  often,  separately  considered, 
called  a  category.  By  this  it  is  not  meant  simply  that  differ- 
ent minds  concretely  realize  this  concei^tion  in  widely  different 
ways,  as  is  the  case  with  the  conceptions  of  space  and  time.  On 
the  contrary,  so  far  as  image-making  activity  enters  into  the 
conception  of  causation,  the  form  of  such  activity  is  pretty 
strictly  alike  for  all  individuals.  And  this  common  form  of  im- 
aging the  so-called  category  of  cause  is  instructive,  as  respects 
the  nature  and  origin  of  the  conception  itself.  Now,  what  we  do 
all  actually  experience  in  trying  to  get  a  "  life-like  idea  "  of  the 
meaning  of  our  judgment — "A  is  the  cause  of  B,"  is  Die  process 
of  mentally  representing  our  own  experience,  xohenemv  self-conscious 
conation,  ivith  its  feeling  of  effort,  is  followed  hy  ohserced  changes 
in  our  presentations  of  sense,  in  a  regular  icay.  That  is  to  say, 
it  is  consciousness  of  the  sequence  of  willing,  saturated — as  it  is 
— with  its  accompanying  sensations  and  feelings  of  both  jDcriph- 
eral  and  central  origin,  which  is  evoked  by  the  wish  to  realize 
the  meaning  of  the  word  "  cause."  And,  in  truth,  no  other  w^ay 
can  be  found  of  accomplishing  the  wish  to  make  life-like  this 
particular  idea.  On  the  contrary,  we  have  already  remarked  in 
what  a  variety  of  waj's  the  relations  of  space  may  be  imaged. 

But,  if  the  imaginative  and  sensuous  basis  of  the  conception 
of  causation  is  comparatively  simple  and  uniform,  its  more 
purely  intellectual  elements  are  exceedingly  complex.  To  test 
this,  suppose  we  endeavor  to  express  in  separate  judgments  the 
conception  we  have  formed  of  causation,  as  such.  If  causation 
were  a  genuine  category,  as  space  and  time  are  categories,  this 
would  be  impossible.  Of  space  and  time  we  cannot  say  I  judge 
that  "to  be  space  "  or  "  to  be  time,"  is — etc.  ;  that  is  to  say,  we 
can  neither  describe  nor  define  space  and  time  bj^  other  notions. 
But  we  may  say  (whether  perfectly  correctly  or  not,  we  do  not 
now  inquire),  I  judge  that,  "  to  be  a  cause,"  is  for  one  being  to 
act  in  such  a  way  as  that  a  change  in  some  other  being  follows. 


502  SPACE,    TIME,    AND    CAUSATION 

the  latter  occurring'  in  dependence  upon  the  former  for  its  ex- 
planation or  gTOund.  But  what  a  nest  of  complex  conceiitions  is 
involved  in  such  a  judgment  as  this !  Some  of  them,  at  least,  are 
much  more  nearly  fundamental  and  simple  than  is  the  concep- 
tion of  cause.  For  example,  the  conceptions  of  Being,  Action, 
Relation,  Time,  and  Reason  or  Ground,  are  all  plainly  involved 
in  the  foregoing-  judgment.  Others,  such  as  Unity,  Identity,  and 
even  contiguity  in  space,  and  priority  in  time,  seem  also  to  be 
involved.  But,  as  Dr.  Ward  ^  has  correctly  maintained :  "  Action 
is  a  simpler  notion  than  causation  and  inexplicable  by  it." 
Now,  of  course,  action,  without  a  being  that  acts,  is  an  absurdity. 
Being,  too,  then,  would  seem  a  simpler  notion  than  causation. 
Moreover,  Relation  (whether  causal,  or  merely  in  space  or  in 
time)  is  also  a  simpler  notion  than  that  of  causation.  Nor  will  it 
do  to  say  that  the  notion  of  "  standing  in  the  relation  of  Reason 
or  Ground  "  is  identical  with  that  very  simple  and  unanalyzable 
notion  of  causation  which  we  seek ;  for  we  have  already  seen 
that  this  notion  is  itself  abstracted  from  the  form  of  intellectual 
movement  in  all  ratiocination.  Moreover  it  applies  to  relations 
between  conclusions  and  their  major  and  minor  premises,  where- 
as the  relation  of  causation  applies  to  changes  in  real  beings. 
The  notions  of  ground,  and  dependence  on  ground,  are  then 
also  simpler  and  more  fundamental  than  the  conception  of  cau- 
sation. 

The  fact  is  that,  in  trying  to  account  for  the  origin  and  devel- 
opment of  the  so-called  category  of  causation  we  have  to  draw, 
as  it  were,  upon  all  the  areas  of  experience.  The  conception 
arises  and  develops  as  the  resultant  of  all  our  efforts  to  explain 
experience.  The  only  thing  distinctively  categorical  (that  is,  origi- 
nal, universal,  and  necessary)  about  the  conception  of  causation  is 
Just  this  7iatlve  and  essential  impulse  of  intellect  to  eo'plain.  Explain  ! 
and  yet  further  explain  ! — this  is,  indeed,  the  law  of  our  develop- 
ment as  reasoning  beings.  It  is  our  experience  with  ourselves 
as  active  and  passive,  an  experience  that  is  most  immediate  and 
most  interesting,  which  offers  itself  as  an  analogy  fit  for  all 
explanation.  When  we  act,  by  way  of  conscious  conation  and 
muscular  effort,  then  changed  presentations  of  sense  follow  ;  and 
vice  versa,  when  certain  presentations  of  sense  indicative  of  cer- 
tain relations  of  other  beings  to  us  occur,  then  %oe  suffer  certain 
conspicuous  changes  in  the  content  of  consciousness.  It  is  the 
projection  <f  oiir  exj^erioice  loith  onrselves  into  the  world  of  related 
things,  under  the  impulse  ofths  intellectual  demand  for  explanation, 
which  results  in  the  general  notion  of  causation.     All  this  takes 

'  Article  Psychology,  Eucyc.  Brit.,  p.  82. 


SCIENTIFIC   VIEW    OF   CAUSATION  503 

place  long-  previous  to  any  suspicion  even  that  we  are  ai^pre- 
liendiug-  a  universal  law  of  the  Avorlcl  of  real  events. 

The  superstructure  of  so-calhul  a  priori  knowleclg'e,  or  as- 
sumption, which  modern  science  has  built  upon  the  principle  of 
causation  is,  at  least  psychologically  considered,  utterly  inde- 
fensible. We  do  not  naturally  or  necessarily  believe — much  less 
know — either  the  permanency  of  matter  or  of  force  in  the  physi- 
cal universe,  or  the  truth  of  the  judi^inents  ; — "Every  event  must 
have  a  cause."  But  we  do,  as  reason  develops,  seek  constantly 
more  adequately  to  explain  ;  and  we  explain  on  a  hypothesis 
which  results  from  our  attributing-  to  the  world  of  things  the 
same  kind  of  relations  which  we  perceive  ourselves  sustaining  to 
it.  To  be  a  cause  is  "  for  one  being-  to  do  something-  to  some 
other  being,"  as  we  might  popularly  say.  Conceptions,  like  those 
of  the  universal  reign  of  law,  of  the  unity  of  matter  and  force,  or 
the  regularity  and  uniformity  of  nature,  etc.,  are  all  a  later  and 
yet  more  highly  complex  development.  These  never  are,  and 
never  can  be,  psychologically  considered,  anything  more  than 
hypotheses  introduced  by  intellect  in  the  interests  of  a  more  com- 
plete unification  of  experience. 

Finally,  that  conception  of  causation  which  modern  science 
has  enabled  us  to  develop  is  still  less  life-like  as  a  matter  of 
imagination,  and  still  more  abstract  as  a  matter  of  intellect.  The 
scientific  study  of  nature  induces  the  feeling  that  we  are  unwar- 
ranted in  attributing  to  things  a  kind  of  relation  which  we  can 
concretely  realize  only  in  terms  of  our  own  conation  and  feeling 
of  effort,  followed  regularly  by  changes  in  presentations  of  sense. 
This  is  to  regard  nature,  we  are  told,  in  altogether  too  "anthro- 
pomorphic "  a  fashion.  What  science  then  does  is  to  extend  the 
more  purely  thought-elements  of  this  conception.  In  doing  this, 
however,  we  are  in  some  sort,  no  less  anthropomorphic.  Only 
?/;6  now  attrihnte  the  laws  of  iniellection — that  is,  the  forms  of 
thinking  which  connect  conclusions  with  judgments  as  finding 
in  them  their  "  reason  "  and  "  ground  " — to  ike  hehavior  of  things. 
Treated  thus,  the  conception  of  causation  loses  all  its  concrete 
life-likeness,  and  becomes  a  pale  abstraction  which  answers  to 
some  such  postulate  as  that  "  every  event  follows  som5  other 
event  according  to  some  uniform  rule."  Yet  even  here,  however 
much  the  effort  may  be  made  to  escape  it,  conceptions  which 
have  their  origin  in  our  universal  experience  with  ourselves 
constitute  all  the  reality  of  that  thinking  which  answers  to  the 
Principle  of  Causation.  In  how  far  these  psychological  facts 
bear  valid  testimony  to  the  general  postulate  or  conclusion,  that 
the  real  world  is  indeed  rational,  and  that  reality  answers  to 


504  SPACE,    TIME,    AND    CAUSATION 

linman  reason  in  its  constitution — it  belongs  to  philosophy  to 
inquire. 

§  13.  Only  scant  study  of  consciousness  is  needed  to  reveal  the  baffling 
complexity  of  men's  thinking,  when  they  so  glibly  use  that  cluster  of 
expressive  terms  which  is  connected  with  the  term  causation.  This  fact  is 
most  evident  with  those  who  are  farthest  advanced  in  the  conceptions  which 
enter  into  the  modern  developments  of  the  natural  sciences.  The  jihysicist 
is  far  less  able  to  tell  what  that  is  real  he  means,  when  he  speaks  of  energy 
as  "conserved"  and  "correlated,"  or  the  chemist  when  he  declares  that 
atoms  of  one  element  "attract"  those  of  another  element,  than  is  the  un- 
scientific observer  when  he  speaks  of  the  "  influence  "  which  one  thing  has 
"  over"  another,  or  of  the  "action"  of  one  thing  "upon"  another.  In  all 
cases  of  alleged  causation  it  is  evident  that,  psychologically  considered,  we 
are  dealing  with  the  results  of  the  entire  complex  growth  of  knowledge  ; 
and  thus  our  attention  is  called  to  the  important  truth,  that  it  is  impossible 
to  speak  of  the  conception  of  causation  without  imi^lying  that  the  stage  of 
knowledge — as  the  complex  resultant  of  the  development  of  ail  faculty — has 
already  been  attained.  For  it  is  real  beings,  as  k/iown  to  exist  and  to  behave 
in  manifold  relations  of  time  and  space  toward  each  other,  that  are  conceived 
of  as  causally  connected.  As  we  shall  see  later  on,  it  is  our  beliff  in  such 
connected  and  interdependent  existences,  which  is  chiefly  necessary  in  order  that 
thinking  may  end  in  knowledge. 

'Certain  lower  and  non-intellectual  activities  of  the  mind  may  be  consid- 
ered as  subservient  to  the  development  of  the  complex  conception  of  causa- 
tion ;  although  of  themselves  unable  to  account  for  its  development.  This 
is  true  even  of  the  instinctive  imitative  and  the  sensory-reflex  classes  of 
psycho-physical  activities.  By  such  activities  our  own  psychoses  are,  both 
actively  and  passively,  connected  together  in  consciousness  ;  and  these,  as 
known  in  self-consciousness,  are  connected  with  those  psychoses  which  we 
have  learned  to  attribute  to  other  beings  than  ourselves.  Esjieeialh'  does 
every  painful  or  pleasurable  sensory-motor  exi^erience  stimulate  our  inquiry 
and  interest  in  drawing  conclusions  as  to  its  cause.  The  sensations  of  the 
pricking  pin,  the  chafed  skin,  the  cold  milk,  set  agoing  in  the  infant  a 
variety  of  motor  reactions,  some  one  of  which  may  result  in  either  relieving 
or  increasing  the  pain.  Every  such  experience  emphasizes  a  connection 
between  doing  something,  or  not  doing  it,  and  certain  definite  pleasurable 
or  painful  consequences.  Growing  intelligence — that  is  memory,  imagina- 
tion, and  thought — jiuts  the  child  in  jiossession  of  jirecisely  what  to  do,  or 
what  not  to  do,  in  order  to  gain  i:)leasure  or  to  avoid  and  relieve  pain.  Thus 
all  its  awakening  desires  serve  as  a  sort  of  interior  pressure  upon  the  motor 
organism  ;  they  constitute  an  almost  ceaseless  invitation  and  comjjulsion  to 
the  doing  or  to  the  avoiding  of  this  or  of  that.  Imitation,  too — at  first  blind 
and  instinctive,  and  afterward  more  purposeful  and  intelligent — establishes 
other  connections  between  what  is  done  by  the  child  and  what  is  more  pas- 
sively experienced.  Thus  it  is  that  one  chief  impetus  to  establish  regular 
connections  arises.  Indeed,  it  is  in  the  use  of  the  muscles,  as  dependent  njion 
conation  and  in  assnriulion  irith  the  feeling  of  effort  a)id  n-ith  various  forms  of 
pleasurable  and  pairful  feeling,  that  the  conception  of  causation  has  its  birth- 


CAUSATION   AS   SELF-ACTIVITY  505 

place,  so  to  speak.  Certainly,  mere  observation  of  the  uniform  sequences  of 
images  under  the  laws  of  association  of  ideas  would  never  sei-ve  to  develoj) 
this  conception  ;  only  as  being  ourselves  self-conscious  agents  and  suffereis 
do  we  come  to  argue  about  "  energy  "  and  "  causation  "  in  the  world  of 
things.  Hero,  as  so  frequently  in  other  directions,  psychology  has  hitherto 
greatly  iiuderestimated  the  significance  of  motor  consciousness,  and  its  con- 
nection with  the  system  of  striated  muscles,  together  with  the  accomi)ani- 
ment  of  bodily  feelings  having  tones  of  pleasure  or  of  jjain.' 

^  14.  All  the  language  of  child-life  and  of  the  common  people  confirms 
the  truth  of  our  view  of  the  so-called  category  of  causation.  It  is  only  when 
the  child  has  developed  a  somewhat  complex  knowledge  of  itself  as  a  being 
that  can  do  something,  and  by  doing  can  attain  its  purposes  in  changing 
the  relations,  to  itself  and  to  one  another,  of  external  things,  that  it  begins 
to  use  terms  imiilyiug  the  dawning  conception  of  causation.  The  develop- 
ment also  of  this  conception  is  dependent  upon  the  develoj^ment  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  Self.  In  proof  we  adduce  the  following  lengthy  quotation  from 
Preyer  : "  "  Another  important  factor  is  the  perception  of  a  change  produced  bi/ 
one's  own  activity  in  all  sorts  of  familiar  objects  that  can  be  taken  hold  of 
in  the  neighborhood  ;  and  the  most  remarkable  day,  from  a  psycho-genetic 
point  of  view,  in  any  case  an  extremely  significant  day  in  the  life  of  the 
infant,  is  the  one  in  which  he  first  experiences  the  connection  of  a  movement 
executed  by  himself  icith  a  sense-impression  following  upon  it.  The  noise  that 
comes  from  the  tearing  and  crumi^ling  of  paper  is  as  yet  unknown  to  the 
child.  He  discovers  (in  the  fifth  month)  the  fact  that  he  himself  in  tearing 
paper  into  smaller  and  smaller  pieces  has  again  and  again  the  new  sound- 
sensation,  and  he  repeats  the  experiment  day  by  day  and  with  a  strain  of 
exertion  Tintil  this  connection  has  lost  the  charm  of  novelty.  At  jsresent 
there  is  not,  indeed,  as  yet  any  clear  insight  into  the  nexus  of  cause  ;  but 
the  child  has  now  had  the  experience  that  he  can  himself  be  the  cause  of  a 
combined  perception  of  sight  and  sound  regularly,  to  the  extent  that  when 
he  tears  the  pai)er  there  appears,  on  the  one  hand,  the  lessening  in  size ;  on 
the  other  hand,  the  noise.  The  patience  with  which  this  occuiwtion— from 
the  forty- fifth  to  the  fifty-fifth  week  especially — is  continued  with  pleasure 
is  explained  by  the  gratification  at  being  a  cause,  at  the  perception  that  so 
striking  a  transformation  as  that  of  the  newsjiaper  into  fragments  has  been 
effected  by  means  of  his  own  activity.  Other  occupations  of  tliis  sort,  which 
are  taken  up  again  and  again  with  a  persistency  incomprehensible  to  an 
adult,  are  the  shaking  of  a  bunch  of  keys,  the  opening  and  closing  of  a  box 
or  purse  (thirteenth  month)  ;  the  pulling  out  and  emptying,  and  then  the 
filling  and  pushing  in  of  a  table-drawer ;  the  heaping  up  and  strewing  about 
of  garden-mould  or  gravel ;  the  tearing  of  the  leaves  of  a  book  (thirteenth  to 
nineteenth  month) ;  digging  and  scraping  in  the  sand  ;  the  carrying  of  foot- 
stools hither  and  thither  ;  the  placing  of  shells,  stones,  or  buttons  in  rows 
(twenty-first  month)  ;  pouring  water  into  and  out  of  bottles,  cups,  watering- 

1  Horwicz  (Psychologische  Analysen,  ii.,  p.  S2)  holds  that  the  act  of  will  by  means  of  which  our 
muscles  contract  is  the  earliest  object  of  onr  cosn^ition.  This  act  of  will,  with  the  movement  willed 
which  follows  upon  it,  is  the  center  and  germ  of  copnition.  and  the  kernel  of  causality,  although 
not  the  developed  concept  of  causality.  In  its  purest  form,  therefore,  the  relation  of  causality  is 
given  in  the  relation  of  sensation-movement. 

2  The  Mind  of  the  Child,  U.,  The  Development  of  the  Intellect,  p.  191  f. 


506  SPACE,    TIME,    AND   CAUSATION 

pots  (thirty-first  to  tliirty-third  month)  ;  and,  in  the  case  of  my  boy,  the 
throwing  of  stones  into  the  water.  A  little  girl  in  the  eleventh  month  found 
her  chief  pleasure  in  '  rummaging '  with  trifles  in  drawers  and  little  boxes. 
Her  sister  '  played '  with  all  sorts  of  things,  taking  an  interest  in  dolls  and 
pictures  in  the  tenth  month.  Here,  too,  the  eagerness  and  seriousness  with 
which  such  apparently  aimless  movements  are  performed  is  remarkable. 
The  satisfaction  they  aflbrd  must  be  very  great,  and  it  probably  has  its  basis 
in  the  feeling  of  his  own  power  generated  by  the  movements  originated  by 
the  child  himself  (changes  of  place,  of  position,  of  form)  and  in  the  proud 
feeling  of  being  a  cause." 

^  15.  The  next  stage  in  the  development  of  the  conception  of  causation 
is  chiefly  dependent  upon  experience  with  those  beings,  other  than  himself, 
which  promptly  react  upon  the  child  and  cause  him  feelings  of  pleasure  or 
pain.  One  important  class  of  such  beings  is  the  animals — especially,  of 
course,  the  domestic  animals  with  w^hich  he  becomes  most  familiar ;  and 
above  all,  his  fellow  human  beings.  The  bearing  of  such  experiences  is 
made  plain  in  sentences  like  the  following  :  "I  kicked  the  dog  and  the  dog 
bit  me;"  "  I  hit  the  boy  and  he  hit  me  back,"  etc.  Here  "the  principle 
of  causation  "  is  illustrated  in  double  form,  as  it  were — both  as  conscious- 
ness of  motive  and  consciousness  of  energy,  followed  by  important  changes 
in  presentation-exi^erience.  In  such  experiences  the  basis  in  sense  and  im- 
agination for  that  act  of  intellectual  projection  which  creates  out  of  the  ob- 
ject of  sense  an  acting  agent  like  myself  is  abundantly  supplied.  From  such 
experiences  it  is  but  a  step  to  the  attribution  of  causal  agency  to  all  things 
that  manifest  signs  of  life.  Feelings  and  desires  are  ascribed  to  inanimate 
objects  as  inner  viotifs  for  their  changes  as  presentations  of  sense.  Not  only 
the  animals,  but  even  the  plants,  are  sympathetically  apprehended  as  agents 
that  exert  themselves  and  produce  effects  upon  one  another.  Next  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature,  like  thunder  and  lightning,  or  volcanic  eruptions,  or  sud- 
den pestilence,  are  assigned  to  unseen  agents  imagined  to  exist  and  to  act 
after  the  pattern  suggested  by  the  self-knowledge  already  obtained.  The 
psychical  life  of  children  and  of  savages  abounds  in  illustrations  of  such  "  an- 
thropomorphic "  causal  conceptions.  Inorganic  things  that  act  promptly 
and  intensely  upon  us,  or  by  the  use  of  which  as  instruments  we  etiect  our 
ends,  are  similarly  regarded.  "  The  poker  makes  the  fire  burn  ;  "  and,  if  the 
poker  is  of  wood,  "  the  fire  burns  the  poker  up  ;  "  but  if  the  pokor  is  of  iron, 
then  "  the  fire  makes  it  red,"  etc.  To  quote  again  fi-om  Dr.  Ward  :  '  "  When 
we  say  A  causes  this  or  that  in  B  we  project,  or  analogically  attribute  to  A 
what  we  experience  in  acting,  and  to  B  what  we  experience  in  being  acted 
upon  ; "  and  this  "  long  before  we  suspect  that  this  relation  is  a  permanent 
one  or  must  recur  again." 

^  16.  It  is  by  the  development  of  experience  under  the  princii)le  of  the 
association  of  ideas  that,  in  large  part,  we  are  determined  as  to  wJ/af  cluoiges 
in  B  shall  bo  attril)nted  to  antecedent  or  concomitant  changes  in  A,  as  their 
"causes."  It  is  under  the  same  principle  that  the  connections  of  the  past 
are  made  to  furnish  rules  for  expectation  as  to  the  behavior  of  things  in  the 
future.  All  our  concoi)tions  of  things  summarize  the  judgments  of  our  ex- 
perience with  the  individuals  of  the  class  to  which  the  things  belong.     We 

'  Art.  PBychology,  Encyc.  Brit.,  p.  82. 


THE   LAW   OF   CAUSATION  S07 

judge  things  to  belong  to  classes,  and  to  bo  entitled  to  names,  according  as 
they  have  behaved  themselves  in  definite  relations  to  other  things.  The 
child's  conception  of  a  dog  is  largely  made  u^j  of  what  the  dog  can  do ;  and 
this  is  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  the  dog  is  known  as  a  cause  of  various 
agreeable  and  disagreeable  experiences.  New  experiences  constantly  confirm, 
or  break  up  and  readjust,  the  old  associations ;  but  the  law  of  associative 
reproduction  remains  the  same  throughout  all  our  development.  Thus,  in- 
stead of  stating  the  so-called  law — "  Like  causes  have  like  ellects  " — it  would 
accord  with  the  facts  of  consciousness  better  to  say  :  "  The  same  beings 
may  be  expected  to  behave  in  the  same  way  under  similar  circumstances  ;  " 
or,  more  doubtfully,  "New  and  unknown  things  may  be  expected  to  behave, 
under  the  same  circumstances,  in  a  way  similar  to  those  known  things 
which  they  most  resemble."  "  Associations  remain  what  they  are  so  long  as 
they  remain  at  all."  '  Upon  some  such  impression  as  this  concerning  the 
"uniformity  of  nature"  our  safety  and  very  life  daily  depend.  The  im- 
pression maybe  said  to  be  "  rubbed  in  "  to  the  very  texture  of  skin  and 
muscles  and  joints  and  bones.  Beware  of  snarling  dogs,  of  falling  stones, 
of  blazing  fire,  of  sharp  knives,  of  bright  lightning,  of  deej),  swift  currents, 
etc.  ;  one  experience  with  these  agents  is  enough  to  know  what  they  will  do  ; 
custom  established  by  repetition  is  not  necessary  here. 

^  17.  But  association  of  ideas,  working  ui^on  the  basis  of  our  experience 
with  ourselves  as  agents,  and  resulting  in  an  analogical  projection  of  this  ex- 
Ijerience  upon  all  other  things,  is  not  alone  a  satisfactory  guide  in  determin- 
ing what  changes  in  A  cause  this  or  that  particular  change  in  B.  This  is 
rather  an  inquiry  in  which  intellect,  as  applied  to  reality,  chiefly  exercises 
itself ;  and  it  is  conducted  by  those  processes  of  reasoning  which,  if  success- 
fully concluded,  result  in  science  as  explanatory  of  the  world  of  events  in  their 
causal  relations.  In  this  way  all  events  are  regarded  as  having  their  ground 
in  other  events,  and  these  other  events  in  still  others — under  the  influence  of 
that  demand  far  explanation  in  the  interests  of  a  jirogressive  unification  of 
experience  ichich  is  the  law  of  the  very  life  a7id  grou-th  of  intellect  itself.  It 
is  this  intellectual  necessity  to  explain— we  repeat— that  gives  to  the  so- 
called  law  of  causation  the  necessity  with  which  it  appears  to  rule  the  world 
of  things.  At  any  rate,  such  is  the  last  word  which  psychology  can  utter 
upon  the  subject.  It  must  be  left  to  philosophy  to  show  that  in  its  supreme 
scientific  form  the  conception  of  causation  implies  the  confidence  of  the 
mind  that  the  world  of  real  things  and  real  events  is  an  intellectual  order  ; 
and  that,  in  knowing  it  under  the  general  principle  of  causation,  mind  is 
recognizing  its  own  forms  of  behavior  in  the  behavior  of  things. 

[On  Space  and  Time,  see  the  works  already  referred  to  in  the  chapters  on  Perception. 
Also  Hodgson  :  Time  and  Space,  chaps,  ii.-iv.  Nichols  :  The  Psychology  of  Time.  Vier- 
ordt :  Der  Zcitsinn  ;  and  articles  in  Mind,  by  Montgomery,  x. ,  pp.  227,  377,  and  512 ;  by 
Hall,  iii.,  p.  i">3 ;  by  Sully,  iii.,  pp.  1  and  1()7.  On  the  psychological  development  of  Cau- 
sation, see  especially  the  article  of  Ward,  already  referred  to,  Encyc.  Brit.,  xx.,  p.  82  f. 
Hoffding  :  Psychology,  v.,  4.  Porter:  The  Human  Intellect,  p.  5(59  f.  Venn:  Empirical 
Logic,  chap.  ii.  Further  philosophical  discussion  of  these  topics  has  an  almost  unlimited 
bibliography.  ] 

1  Comp.  Lipps,  Gnmdtatsachen  d.  Seelenlebens,  p.  433. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

THE  KNOWLEDGE  OP   THINGS  AND  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF 

SELF 

The  complex  resultant,  as  it  were,  of  all  forms  of  mental  de- 
velopment, considered  cliiefly  on  tlie  side  of  intellection  and 
logical  conclusion,  is  called  "  Cog-nition  "  or  "  Knowledge."  But 
knowledge  may  be  regarded,  from  tlie  psj^cliological  point  of 
view,  as  either  a  process  or  a  product.  Wlien,  however,  we 
speak  of  knowledge  as  "  product,"  we  enact  a  fiction  in  speech 
with  which  we  have  already  become  sufficiently  familiar.  What 
is  really  only  a  process  is  described  as  a  mental  entity.  Since 
we  may  condense  into  an  almost  instantaneous  process,  into  a 
brief  moment  of  thoughtful  perception  or  familiar  conclusion, 
stated  in  a  verbal  proposition,  the  results  of  long  processes  of  ob- 
servation, inquiry,  and  reasoning,  we  may  call  such  a  condensed 
process  the  product  of  knowledge.  It  is  only  as  a  complex  psy- 
chosis, a  state  of  consciousness  resultant  from  the  combined 
activity  of  various  developed  so-called  faculties,  however,  that 
scientific  psychology  studies  the  phenomena  of  cognition. 

We  are  forced  to  recognize,  at  the  outset,  the  fact  that  all 
our  psychological  inquiry,  as  thus  far  conducted,  has  assumed 
the  existence  and  the  validity  of  knowledge.  We  have  been 
building  up  a  science  of  psychology  on  the  basis  of  an  assumed 
knowledge  of  certain  facts  and  laws.  But  the  present  object  of 
special  psychological  investigation  is  knowledge  itself  ;  we  now 
seek  to  know  what  knowledge  is.  As  says  Professor  James  : ' 
"  The  relation  of  knowing  is  the  most  mysterious  thing  in  the 
world.  .  .  .  Knowledge  becomes  for  him  (the  psychologist) 
an  ultimate  relation  that  must  be  admitted,  whether  it  be  ex- 
plained or  not,  just  like  difference  or  resemblance,  which  no  one 
seeks  to  explain."  We  may  partially  agree  with  some  sucli 
statement  as  the  foregoing  ;  but  we  cannot  sym]iatliize  with  an>' 
effort  to  discharge  psychology  from  the  obligation  to  treat 
those  psychoses,  or  complex  mental  ])rocesses,  which  deserv(> 
the  name  of  knowledge,  just  as  all  other  psychoses  are  to  be 

'  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  I.,  p.  21G. 


COGNITIVE   STATES   OF   CONSCIOUSNESS  509 

treated.  This  treatment  involves  the  analysis  of  knowledge 
into  its  more  elementary  processes,  and  the  tracing-  of  its  gene- 
sis and  development  under  the  general  conditions  of  all  mental 
life. 

Two  important  general  considerations  —  almost  uniformly 
overlooked  b^*  psychologists — concern  the  scientific  description 
of  cognitive  states  of  consciousness  :  (1)  They  are  reached  as 
the  result  of  a  course  of  development.  From  the  psychological 
point  of  view  knowledge  is  a  developy/ient.  It  has  a  growth  and  a 
descriptive  history  of  such  growth.  Such  a  statement  applies, 
not  simply  or  chiefly  to  the  evolution  of  the  higher  stages  or 
more  elaborate  forms  of  knowledge,  but  to  all  knowledge  and 
to  the  very  faculty  of  knowledge  as  such.  Human  mental  life 
does  not  begin  with  knowledge  ;  it  not  only  grows  in  knowl- 
edge, when  knowledge  is  once  attained,  but  it  grows  into  knowl- 
edge only  when  certain  conditions  are  fulfilled.  The  stages  and 
conditions  of  this  development  may  be  made  the  subjects  of 
scientific  investigation.  (2)  This  particular  deceJop>me7it,  which 
we  call  "  knowledge"  involves  all  the  activities  of  the  mind.  It 
involves  them  all,  in  a  develoj^ed  form  of  exercise,  and  in  a  cer- 
tain natural  harmony  of  their  coetaneous  action.  To  be  sure, 
the  terms  we  employ  lay  emphasis  chiefly  on  one  of  the  three 
fundamental  aspects  of  mental  life,  to  the  relative  exclusion  of 
the  other  two  ;  on  that  account  it  is  quite  too  frequently  as- 
sumed that  feeling  and  willing  are  not  necessary  and  integral 
processes  in  knowledge,  but  that  knowledge  is  an  afi'air  of 
intellect  alone.  This,  however,  is  not  true.  Were  man  not  a 
being  of  so  peculiar  aftective  and  conative  consciousness,  and 
were  not  the  so-called  faculties  of  feeling  and  willing  devel- 
oped in  some  sort  ^>(^</'i  passu  with  the  development  of  primary 
intellection,  human  knowledge  would  never  come  into  existence 
at  all. 

1 1.  There  are  two  equally  false  and  misleading  ways  of  considering  the 
i:)henomena  of  knowledge  in  relation  to  the  doctrine  of  evolution.  On  the  one 
hand,  it  may  be  assumed  that  mere  analysis  of  the  so-called  content  of  an 
act  of  knowledge,  or  description  of  the  processes  of  sensation  and  ideation 
which  develop  in  natural  order,  afford  a  solution  of  "  the  mystery  of  knowl- 
edge." Then  psychology  would  leave  notliing  for  philosophy  to  do.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  may  be  assumed  that  knowledge  actually  breaks  forth  in 
the  mind  of  the  child  by  a  sort  of  miraculous  birtli — that  it  is,  as  resjDects 
nature,  simple,  indecomposable,  and  so  not  capable  of  scientific  explanation 
at  all.     Both  assumjitions  are  indefensible. 

That  the  amount  of  knowledge  belonging  to  any  individual,  or  to  the 
race  at  any  particular  epoch,  is  a  matter  of  development,  there  is  no  need 
to  prove.     But  that  all  knowledge,  as  such,  implies  development  is  a  truth 


510  THE   KNOWLEDGE   OF   THINGS   AND   OF   SELF 

not  sufficiently  emphasized  by  i^sycbology  liitherto.  It  is  a  truth,  however, 
which  is  popularly  recognized  by  any  observer  who  remarks  that  babies 
"do  not  know  anything."  For,  indeed,  at  first  and  for  a  considerable  but 
indefinite  time  after  birth,  the  child  has  no  such  development  of  any  faculty 
as  to  make  knowledge  possible.  To  it  there  is  no  "  Thing  "  known  ;  to  it 
there  is  no  "  Self  "  as  an  object  of  knowledge.  This  is,  however,  far  from 
affirming  that  the  child  has  no  states  of  consciousness  whatever — no  sensa- 
tions, no  mental  images,  no  feelings,  no  conation  and  motor  consciousness. 
Even  a  considerable  development  of  discriminating  consciousness,  as  the 
inseparable  accompaniment  and  indispensable  condition  of  all  mental  de- 
velopment, may  take  place  before  the  first  act,  or  process,  worthy  to  be 
called  knowledge  is  reached.  The  fact  that  this  development  into  knowl- 
edge is  so  subtile,  and  comes  by  such  stages  as  to  make  it  impossible  ordi- 
narily to  trace  the  first  act  of  knowledge,  is  a  fact  which  favors  rather  than 
contradicts  the  view  of  all  knowledge  as  the  result  of  development. 

{  2.  There  is  no  generally  recognizetl  word  to  cover  all  that  "  aspect "  of 
consciousness,  that  side  of  mental  activity  and  development  which  is 
neither  feeling  nor  will.  The  word  "  knowledge"  has  itself,  indeed,  been 
ixsed  in  this  way.  The  phrase  "  primary  intellection  "  has  been  used  thus 
far  by  us  as  expressive  of  all  processes  ending  in  I'ecognition  of  the  sim- 
ilar and  in  discernment  of  the  different.  But  "intellect  "  has  also  been  used 
in  a  more  restricted  way,  as  the  faculty  of  thinking,  and  especially  of  draw- 
ing logical  conclusions. 

Now  the  very  fact  that  knowing  is,  by  modarn  psychology,  so  commonly 
correlated  with  feeling  and  willing,  and  that  the  three  are  held  to  exhaust 
all  the  aspects  of  all  our  states  of  consciousness,  shows  that  knowledge  im- 
l)lies  the  exercise  of  every  form  of  intellectual  activity.  Knowledge  implies 
the  having  of  sensations,  and  the  mental  act  of  discriminating  among  them  ; 
but  to  know  is  something  more  than  merely  to  be  sensuously  affected  in  va- 
rious discriminable  ways.  Knowledge  also  implies  memory  and  imagina- 
tion ;  but  to  know  is  not  merely  to  have  mental  images,  whether  identified 
or  not  with  previous  presentative  experience.  Again,  no  knowledge  is  pos- 
sible unless  the  faculty  of  judgment  is  operative  ;  unless  relating  activity, 
which  is  of  the  very  essence  of  knowledge,  is  prominent  in  the  psychical 
process.  And  yet  we  rightly  distinguish  between  the  most  elaborate 
and  highly  developed  logical  thinking,  and  what  we  call  knowledge  of 
things  or  of  self.  Not  the  simplest  act  of  knowledge  can  rest  upon  logical 
conclusion  alone.  It  is  obvious,  then,  that  corjnition  involves  the  combined 
activity  and  development  of  all  ^^  intellectiva'''  (if  this  word  maybe  used  in  so 
general  a  significance) /ac?r%. 

^3.  The  important  part  which  feeling  i)lays  in  all  knowledge  has  seldom 
received  recognition  from  students  of  j^sychology.  Knowledge  certainly  is 
not  mere  intellection ;  to  know  one  must  be  consciously  affected  with 
various  forms  of  feeling,  having  their  varying  tones  of  jilcasure  and 
pain.  By  this  it  is  not  meant  simply  that  one's  emotions  and  sentiments 
l)rofoundly  influence  one's  cognitions,  although  this  truth  is  enforced  and 
consecrated  by  innumei-able  practical  maxims,  by  the  rules  of  arti'Stic  com- 
position, and  by  our  daily  experience.  That  the  lover  cannot  see  his  mis- 
tress's imperfections,  or  the  fond  mother  the  faults  of  her  child  ;  that  poli- 


INFLUENCE   OF   FEELING   ON   KNOWLEDGE  511 

ticians,  lawyers,  and  even  judges,  are  warpctl  in  judgment  hy  feelings  of  at- 
traction and  repulsion  toward  individuals  or  by  passion-bound  adherence  to 
abstract  i)ropositious  ;  that  even  the  most  careful  scientific  observers  have 
constantly  to  guard  themselves  against  judging  that  what  they  see  through 
the  microscope  or  telescoiie  really  is  what  they  expect  or  desire  it  to  be  ;  — 
all  these  experiences  are  familiar  enough.'  Nor  does  such  feeling  always 
operate  upon  the  intellect  by  an  influence  that  is  separable  in  time.  On  the 
contrary,  the  real  and  total  fact  is  that  the  thing  is  known  to  be  what  it  is 
both  felt  and  judged  to  be.  And  how  could  this  be  otherwise,  since  it  is 
the  total  psychosis,  not  only  as  intellective  but  also  as  affective,  which  de- 
termines knowledge. 

The  influence  of  feeling  on  intellect  is  not,  then,  influence  merely  from 
one  faculty  upon  another  external  to  it,  as  it  were.  The  rather  do  the  so- 
called  facidties  of  intellect  and  feeling  bleyid  in  all  cognition,  and  the  complex 
reaidt — the  very  object  of  hiowledge — is  determined  hy  both.  This  truth  is 
further  illustrated  by  all  experimental  psychology,  which  j^oints  out  the 
etfdct  of  expectation,  surprise,  interest,  and  other  of  the  many  most  jn-imary 
forms  of  feeling,  upon  perception  and  upon  the  association  of  ideas.  Stimu- 
lations of  sense,  essentially  similar  as  respects  their  piirely  sensuous  char- 
acter, result  in  difi'erent  objects  being  known,  according  as  fear,  or  hope, 
or  joy,  or  grief,  or  anger,  are  dominant  in  the  mind.  The  jisychology  of 
hypnotic  subjects  is  full  of  illustrations  of  the  same  principle.  Not  only 
does  the  hallucination  i)roduced  by  suggestion  stir  the  proj^er  accompani- 
ment of  feeling,  but  the  feeling  when  itself  stirred  by  suggestion  directs 
and  determines  the  hallucination.  Thus  the  feeling  of  helplessness  makes 
the  weight  to  be  perceived  heavy ;  the  feeling  of  disgust  or  shrinking  makes 
the  object  to  be  known  as  ugly  or  fearful ;  the  feeling  of  expectation  of  a 
sour  or  inky  taste,  of  unbearable  heat  or  cold,  etc.,  "realizes"  itself,  as  we 
so  exjiressively  declare.  It  is  of  no  use  to  say,  in  the  effort  to  break  the 
force  of  this  argument,  that  we  are  here  dealing  with  phenomena  of  illu- 
sion and  hallucination  rather  than  of  knowledge,  and  with  the  activity  of 
imagination  rather  than  of  intellect.  Psychologically  considered,  the  extra- 
mental  validity  of  the  act  of  knowledge  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
our  question  ;  for  from  the  psychological  point  of  view  all  knowing  is  sub- 
jective, is  considered  to  be  "state  of  consciousness,  as  such," — even  that 
which  tliinks  itself  entitled  to  universal  acceptance  as  scientifically  most 

1  How  thoronsrhly  feeling  is  apt  to  penetrate  and  influence  even  thope  preliminary  processes 
of  the  •'observation  of /aci.s- ( ?)  "  on  which  the  cherished  theories  of  science  repose,  is  illustrated 
in  a  very  forceful  way  by  the  investigations  of  Professor  Alpheus  Hyatt  into  the  fossils  of  the 
sand-pits  of  Steinheim.  Dr.  Hilgendorf  and  other  German  authorities  had  found  in  these  fossils 
such  a  complete  series  of  genetically  connected  forms,  so  airanged  in  the  succeeding  strata,  as  to 
seem  to  constitute  "  a  perfect  demonstration  in  the  concrete  of  the  theory  of  the  transmutation 
of  species."  Tliis  demonstration  Professor  Hyatt  hoped  and  expected  to  find.  But  on  taking 
pains  "to  avoid  seeing  by  preference,  and  involuntarily  selecting  the  things  which  were  forecast 
in  his  own  mind,"  tiie  '-facts  "  themselves  were  found  to  be  far  different  from  what  they  liad  "  hon- 
estly "been  misrepresented  as  being ;  and  the  observer  found  himself  "  rightly  and  legitimately 
disappointed  "  in  his  hope  of  a  demonstration  of  current  theory.  "  My  Steinheim  worlc  convinced 
me."  says  Professor  Hyatt  (1  quote  from  a  written  communication),  "  that  even  the  honest  observer 
might  be  misled  into  picking  out  specimens  favorable  to  his  own  views,  if  the  exceptions  were 
rare  enough  Ui  be  diflicult  to  find  or  lost  in  a  multitude  of  forms  that  were  forecast  in  the  ob- 
server's mind."  The  bearing  of  this  upon  the  true  psychological  theory  of  knowledge  is  obvious 
enough. 


512  THE   KNOWLEDGE   OF   THINGS   AND   OF   SELF 

couclusive.  Nor  are  trained  men  of  science  without  tlieir  hallucinations 
due  to  the  suggestion  of  feeling  :  witness  the  physicist  who  perceived  the 
really  light-weight  metal  potassium  to  be  very  heavy ;  or  the  one  who  dis- 
tinctly heard  the  clock  ticking  through  the  vacuum  because  his  old-fash- 
ioned theory  of  sound  led  him  to  wish  it  so ;  or  the  other,  who  observed 
the  products  of  spontaneous  generation  in  a  thoroughly  sterilized  medium  ! 
Neither  knowledge  by  immediate  j^erception,  nor  knowledge  by  carefully 
guarded  inference,  can  be  wholly  freed  from  the  results  of  that  emotional 
energy  which  is  put  into  it.  Moreover,  the  assumption  that  knowledge,  if  it 
could  be  purified  from  all  feeling,  would  give  us  the  reality  of  things,  is  a 
fallacious  assumption.  Mathematics  (especially  such  as  is  technically  called 
"pure")  is  of  all  the  sciences  most  completely  freed  from  any  mixture  of 
affective  accompaniment.  At  the  same  time  this  science  is  most  removed 
from  all  real  knowledge — in  a  most  important  meaning  of  the  word  "  real." 
By  pure  mathematics  alone,  and  its  "unfeeling"  observation  and  ratiocina- 
tion, we  never  come  to  know  any  real  "  Thing,"  much  less  our  real  "Self," 
How  necessaiy  feeling  is  to  an  understanding  of  the  lower  animals  and  of 
men  (even  as  objects  of  the  most  "objective"  kind  of  knowledge)  it  is  not 
difficult  to  show.  "Art,"  it  has  been  said,  "knows  the  animals  as  they  are; 
science  only  as  they  appear."'  We  have  already  seen  (p.  490)  that  Lotze 
maintains  the  knowledge  of  spatial  relations  which  women  possess  to  be 
largely  a  matter  of  feeling.  But  to  similar  considerations  we  shall  return 
when  speaking  of  "  tact ; "  and  to  philosophy  we  commend  the  inquiry 
whether  the  real  world  is  any  less  a  matter  of  feeling  than  it  is  of  force,  law, 
order,  and  other  similar  predicates. 

^  4.  Pre-eminently  true  is  it  that  we  must  strive  and  do,  must  Avill  and 
realize  the  results  of  conation,  if  we  are  to  gain  and  to  develop)  knowledge. 
The  psychology  of  attention  (see  p.  75  f.)  as  the  determiner  and  director  of  all 
knowledge,  suggests  this  truth.  The  modern  principle  of  i3edagogy  which 
attaches  so  much  importance,  in  developing  the  child's  knowledge,  to  the 
aroiisement  and  discipline  of  striated  muscle  and  motor  consciousness,  em- 
phasizes the  same  truth.  Any  one  of  us  may  experience  it  concretely  by 
answering  the  challenge  which  every  real  object  of  sense-perception  offers  to 
us  :  "  Do  you  wish  to  know  (not  opine,  or  guess,  or  speculatively  think)  that  I 
am  and  what  I  am  ;  then  come  and  try  your  will  against  mo"  (comp.  p.  343  f.). 
The  same  thing  is  true  of  self-knowledge.  As  says  Gothe  :  "  How  can  a 
man  learn  to  know  himself?  By  reflection  never,  only  by  action."  Pale 
images  and  dreams,  or  abstract  thoughts  about  such  dreamlike  things,  is  all 
that  sensation  and  intellect  could  give  us,  if  we  were  not  beings  of  will 
standing  in  immediate  relations  to  a  complicated  muscular  system.  In- 
deed it  is  Inrgeb/  if  not  chiefly/,  hy  willing  and  experiencing  the  reactionary 
effects  of  willing,  that  we  have  any  To^oxdedge  of  either  Things  or  Self. 

But  there  is  a  mysterious  form  of  mentality  involved  in  the 
existence  and  development  of  knowledofe,  to  which  it  is  particu- 
larly difficult  to  q-ive  scientific  treatment.  Indeed,  it  is  difticult 
even  to  find  a  satisfactory  name  for  this  mental  procedure  ;  or  if 
some  name  is  agreed  upon,  to  ag-ree  upon  the  class  of  mental 

>  Comp.  BallauflE :  Elemente  d.  Peychologie,  p.  189  f. 


THE   BELIEF   IX   REALITY  513 

plienomena—tLinking-,  feeling,  or  Avilling- — to  Avliicli  it  belongs. 
To  si)eak  of  it  as  d  thought,  a  feeling,  d  volition,  would  seem  to 
imply  the  possibility  of  comparing  it  with  other  particular 
thoughts,  feelings,  or  volitions.  And  yet  it  is  necessary  for 
psychology  to  recognize  its  presence,  while  to  philosophy  it  af- 
fords problems  for  seemingly  endless  debate.  We  shall  speak 
of  this  form  of  mental  procedure  as  a  Belief  in  Reality  ;  and 
shall  regard  it  as  more  nearly  akin  to  feeling  than  to  either 
thinking  or  willing. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  fact  that  knowledge  involves 
belief  in  reality  ;  and  it  is  just  this  which  chiedy  distinguishes 
knowledge  from  mere  imagining,  remembering,  or  thinking,  as 
such.  "When  we  hioio  any  object,  it  is  not  merely  as  "  object  " 
for  the  knowing  process,  but  as  a  "  being "  existing  in  some 
state,  that  we  know  it.  When  the  belief  or  conviction  attaching 
itself,  as  it  were,  to  the  reality  of  the  being  becomes  sufficiently 
clear  and  strong,  then  one  may  say  :  I  know  the  object ;  and 
may  say  this  with  an  emphasis  bearing  some  proportion  to  the 
strength  of  the  belief.  If,  then,  it  were  our  purpose  to  treat  of 
knowledge  philosophically,  we  might  go  on  to  show  how 
Knowledge  and  Being  are  necessary  correlates  ;  and  to  examine 
critically  the  nature  of  knowledge  and  the  conception  of  reality 
in  order  to  discover  how  each  implies  and  validates  the  other. 
But  the  merel}^  j^sychological  treatment  of  knowledge  leads  us 
to  note  how  knowledge  differs  from  all  other  more  partial  and 
individual  psychical  processes,  in  that  it  not  only  involves  them 
all,  but  also  involves  this  fundamental  belief  in  reality'.  The 
specific  character  of  this  belief,  in.  contrast  with  other  beliefs, 
may  be  brought  out  by  calling  it  "  metaphysical."  And  since  it 
is  not  a  particular  acquired  belief,  but  belongs  to  the  very  nat- 
ure of  knowledge,  as  such,  it  may  be  called  "  rational "  and  in- 
stinctive. In  brief,  then,  vAtliout  litis  7'ational  and  yet  instiiic- 
tive  (f)  metaphysical  belief,  psychological  analysis  shoics  that 
I'noicledge  is  irnpossihle  ;  but  the  nature  of  that  belief  which  is 
necessary  to  all  cognition,  will  be  better  understood  in  the  light 
of  the  following  propositions  : 

(1)  All  intense  and  vivid  experiences  tend  to  evoke  and  con- 
firm the  belief  in  reality  which  characterizes  knowledge.^  As 
such  belief  itself  grows  clear  and  strong,  the  mind  passes  over, 
as  it  were,  from  states  of  opinion  {mere  "  belief,"  in  the  more 
popular  meaning  of  the  word)  or  thinking,  into  states  of  knowl- 
edge. Whatever  we  sense,  imagine,  think,  or  even — within  cer- 
tain limits — feel,  or  will,  intensely,  in  the  reality  of  that  do  we 

1  On  this  point  corap.  James  :  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  11.,  p.  293  f. 
33 


514  THE   KNOWLEDGE   OF   THINGS   AND    OF   SELF 

tend  to  believe.  (2)  This  metapliysical  belief  is  called  into 
consciousness  as  the  result,  particularly,  of  inquiry  or  doubt. 
But  the  denial  of  the  real  existence  of  any  object,  imagined  or 
thought,  implies  knowledge  and  its  characteristic  belief  as  truly 
as  affirmation  does.  This  form  of  mentality  might  then  be 
called  a  "  belief  i?i  respect  of  reality,"  rather  than  a  "  belief  i?i 
reality."  (3)  If  we  speak  of  this  belief  as  "  instinctive  "  (with  a 
confessedly  loose  use  of  that  word),  it  is  with  the  intention  to 
note  the  following-  facts  :  (a)  The  belief  appears  in  the  develop- 
ment of  mental  life  unaccompanied  by  any  intelligent  recogni- 
tion of  its  own  existence  or  of  the  end  it  serves  ;  {h)  it  belongs  to 
the  psychical  species,  man,  as  necessarily  entering  into  all  his 
hioicing  functions  ;  {c)  it  cannot  be  explained  as  the  result  of 
the  development  of  the  individual,  but  is  rather  necessary  to  be 
assumed  as  itself  affording,  in  part,  the  explanation  of  the  de- 
velopment of  all  knowledge.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  this 
belief  is  spoken  of  as  "  rational,"  it  is  meant  to  emphasize  the 
peculiar  connection  which  it  sustains  to  all  the  higher  develojD- 
ment  of  cognition  in  man. 

(4)  Inasmuch  as  knowledge  is  the  resultant  of  all  the  funda- 
mental psychical  activities  of  man — a  matter  of  feeling  and  will 
as  well  as  of  intellection — it  is  not  strange  that  the  belief  which 
helps  to  constitute  knowledge  should  itself  be  regarded  as  a 
forthputting  of  intellect  or  of  will,  as  well  as  an  affair  of  feeling. 
And,  indeed,  belief  in  reality  takes  hold  on  all  the  psychical 
nature  of  man.  What  is  believed  to  be  real  (and  so  said  to  be 
known)  is,  indeed,  mainly  a  matter  of  intellection  ;  but  it  is  also 
a  matter  of  both  feeling  and  will.  In  respect  of  all  the  higher 
intellectual,  a3sthetical,  ethical,  and  religious  realities,  feeling 
and  choice  largely  determine  knowledge  through  the  depend- 
ence of  this  belief  upon  them.  Yet  we  have  spoken  of  this 
belief  as  feeling,  not  because  it  is  a  special  form  of  affective 
phenomena,  but  because,  as  "  conviction  " — having  that  warmth 
of  coloring  which  the  word  implies — it  ma}'  be  regarded  as  a 
sort  of  universal  affective  accompaniment  of  the  inteUcctual  and  vol- 
tmtary  aspects  of  all  knowledge.  Finally  (5),  this  belief  in  reality 
attaches  itself  in  different  degrees,  as  it  were,  to  the  different 
acts  of  knowledge  and  to  the  different  objects  of  knowledge. 
All  inferential  knowledge  involves  faith  in  the  thinking  faculty 
itself — the  indestructible  self-confidence  of  reason.  But  in  all 
immediate  knowledge— whether  of  perception  by  the  senses  or 
of  self-consciousness — this  belief  cannot  be  said  itself  to  rest  on 
grounds.  It  is  an  ultimate,  unanalyzablo,  inexplicable  fact — it- 
self the  guarantee  of  all  such  knowledge  as  does  rest  on  grounds. 


THE   BELIEF    IX    IIKALITY  515 

In  maintaining  that  a  metaphysical  faith  lies  at  the  basin  of  all 
the  existence  and  development  of  human  knowledge,  we  only  state 
afacfds  seie/itifc  ps//ch(jl()gyf/ids  it,  and  is  obliged  to  leave,  it  for 
pidlosopliy — if  possible — to  cplain. 

I  5.  As  Sully  '  lias  said  :  "  Psychology  requires  a  single  term  to  denote 
all  varieties  of  assurance  fi'om  mere  conjecture  up  to  reasoned  certainty,  and 
the  word  belief,  in  English  psychology  at  least,  has  come  to  be  used  in  this 
sense."  The  use  of  this  word,  then,  is  not  pecidiar  to  our  view  of  the  nature 
of  knowledge.  But  it  may  be  asked,  "Is  not  knowledge,  when  attained, 
exclusive  of  mere  belief  ;  "  and,  "  Do  we  not  opi^ose  knowledge  to  belief, 
rather  than  recognize  belief  as  necessary  to  knowledge  ?  "  Such  inferences 
or  objects  of  imagination  as  do  not  indubitably  connect  themselves  with  our 
acts  of  knowledge  may  indeed  be  popularly  spoken  of  as  "  believed  "  rather 
than  "known."  But  that  "belief  in  respect  of  the  reality  "of  the  object 
— whether  this  object  be  perceived,  imagined,  or  thought — is  necessary  to 
knowledge,  all  our  ordinary  language  also  makes  clear.  In  common  speech, 
knoidedje  is  cliaracterized  by  an  immediate  c07iviction  tcith  respect  to  real  beings 
and  their  relations  to  each  other. 

The  dependence  of  knowledge  on  intensity  and  vividness  of  experience, 
and  the  tendency  to  believe  in  the  reality  of  all  objects  which  are  presented 
or  inferred  with  intensity  and  vividness,  may  be  illustrated  variously.  Thus, 
if  men  are  in  doubt  as  to  what  the  "  real  "  sense-qualities  of  objects  are,  their 
actual  color,  feel,  taste,  smell,  etc.,  they  demand  that  they  shall  be  affected 
by  these  objects  with  unmistakable  sensations  of  the  required  order.  On  the 
contrary,  what  they  cannot  recall  in  the  form  of  a  "life-like"  memory- 
image,  that  they  are  in  doubt  about,  as  to  whether  they  know  it  by  memory 
as  it  really  was.  The  difficulty  of  producing  at  will  a  life-like  iniaginaiy 
picture  of  any  alleged  entity,  or  relation,  always  stands  in  the  way  of  our  at- 
taining a  so-called  knowledge  of  such  being  or  relation.  This  result  applies 
even  to  hypothetical  entities  like  atoms,  or  luminiferous  ether,  and  to 
such  spatial  relations  of  atoms  as  the  chemistry  of  the  atomic  constitution 
of  bodies,  or  the  physiology  of  the  "  iDsychic  nerve-cells,"  invites  us  to 
imagine.  But  whatever  imagination  brings  into  consciousness  in  a  vivid 
and  life-like  way,  that  all  men  are  inclined  to  believe  to  be  real,  and  to  affirm 
knowledge  of,  in  a  convincing  way.  Not  only  are  illusions  and  hallucina- 
tions occasioned  in  tliis  way  ;  but  knowledge,  with  its  belief  in  respect  of 
reality,  is  determined  in  this  way. 

The  same  truth  is  further  illustrated  by  the  physical  and  mental  empha- 
sis given  to  propositions  that  put  our  knowledge  into  the  form  of  language. 
Note  with  what  bodily  warmth  men  "  lay  it  down"  that  the  truth  is  thus  and 
so.  What  //l»07/-— especially  if  it  is  questioned  by  another,  or  if  it  has  been 
gained  by  myself  after  inquiry  and  doiiht— that  I  assert  vifh  emphasis.  Gest- 
ures even  are  psychologically  significant  here  ;  when  telling  what  they  know, 
men  commonly  bring  down  the  fist  upon  the  table,  or  stamp  the  foot  upon  the 
ground,  or  pounce  upon  the  very  words  of  their  proposition.  And  upon  what 
particular  part  of  the  proposition  do  they  lay  the  emphasis  expressive  of  that 

»  The  Human  Mind,  I.,  p.  4S3. 


516  THE   KNOWLEDGE   OF   THINGS   AND   OF   SELF 

belief  wliich  is  an  integral  part  of  knowledge?  Upon  the  copula  ("It  /s  a 
jaguar  and  not  a  tiger  ")  if  it  be  a  question  of  afHrmative  or  negative  judg- 
ment ;  but  upon  the  noun  ("it's  ajagunr  and  not  a  tiger")  if  it  be  a  ques- 
tion of  giving  a  correct  name  ;  and  upon  the  adjective  or  the  preposition,  if 
it  be  a  question  of  an  actual  quality  or  a  real  relation.  But  all  such  empha- 
sis, wherever  placed,  shows  how  belief,  as  a  sort  of  "  feeling  allied  to  the 
emotions,"  must  accompany  thought  in  order,  by  thinking,  to  attain  knowl- 
edge. Nor  can  it  be  maintained  that  in  science  and  jjliilosophy  "  jjure 
thought"  is  responsible  for  knowledge  to  the  exclusion  of  all  belief.  The 
man  of  science  and  the  philosopher,  as  truly  as  the  jjolitician,  the  artist,  or 
the  woman,  has  to  unite  the  warm  conviction  of  reality  with  his  ratiocination 
in  order  to  beget  the  product  of  knowledge.  Witness  the  heat  of  assertion 
with  which  contested  propositions  are  made,  or  the  fine  scorn  shoWn  when, 
in  the  name  of  "  exact  "  knowledge,  he  "  coolly  "  (?)  refuses  to  discuss  so  self- 
evident  a  matter. 

g  6,  Psychologists  have  too  often  confused  inquiry  as  to  the  nature  of 
that  belief  which  is  necessary  to  knowledge,  with  inquiry  as  to  its  gen- 
eral dependence  upon  the  varying  kinds  and  intensities  of  the  three  funda- 
mental forms  of  psychoses.  S^^ch  belief  has  its  intellectual  conditions  and 
its  voluntary  conditions ;  it  is  also  undoubtedly  greatly  influenced  by 
various  feelings,  as,  for  example,  by  our  fears,  and  hoiies,  our  expectations, 
interests,  desires,  and  prejudices.  But  it  by  no  means  follows  that  the  be- 
lief itself  is  a  "  compound  of  three  factors — intellectual  representation,  feel- 
ing, and  active  impulse."'  '■'■\  feel  perfectly  sure"  is,  in  popular  speech, 
strictly  equivalent  to  the  declaration,  "  I  ktioio"  whenever  the  alleged  knowl- 
edge can  be  thought  of  as  called  in  question  or  subjected  to  doubt.  Hume, 
Bagehot,  and — in  a  somewhat  vacillating  way — James,  and  others,  have  as- 
signed this  belief  to  the  life  of  feeling.  "  In  its  inner  nature,"  says  the  last  of 
these  three,  "  belief,  or  the  sense  of  reality,  is  a  sort  of  feeling  more  allied 
to  the  emotions  than  to  anything  else."  Mr.  Bagehot,  indeed,  speaks  of  the 
"  emotion  of  conviction"  as  equivalent  to  this  belief.  Other  writers  call  our 
attention  to  the  dependence  of  such  belief  on  imagination.  The  belief  is 
conditioned  upon  imagination,  but  it  is  not  an  act  of  imagination.  The  pain 
which  Balzac,  when  a  boy,  could  produce  in  any  jjart  of  his  own  body 
through  which  he  pictured  himself  as  thrusting  his  penknife,  was  no  less 
real  because  it  owed  its  origin  to  an  act  of  imagination.  Belief  in  respect  of 
reality  is  favored  by  intense  and  life-like  imagination,  and  such  belief  is 
necessary  to  knowledge ;  but  the  belief,  as  such,  is  rather  of  the  nature  of 
feeling  than  of  either  thought  or  imagination. 

The  principal  Kinds  of  Knowledge  may  be  distinguished  by 
adopting-  either  one  of  two  points  of  view:  we  may  consider 
either  (1)  the  processes  of  consciousness,  through  which  knowl- 
edge is  chiefly  attained ;  or  (2)  the  classes  of  objects  known  in 
and  l)y  the  processes.  Thus  knowledge  is  either  Immediate  or 
Inferential :  or  else  it  is  the  knowledge  of  Things  or  the  knowl- 
edge of  Self.     The  former  division  lays  emphasis  on  the  ques- 

>  So  Solly :  The  Homau  Mind,  I.,  p.  485. 


IMMEDIATE   AND    INFERENTIAL   KNOWLEDGE  517 

tion,  How  do  I  know  ?  the  latter,  on  the  question,  What  do  I 
know  ?  But  on  subdividing"  immediate  knowledge  into  Percep- 
tion and  Self-consciousness,  both  principles  of  division  are 
recognized  ;  for  perception  may  be  understood  as  the  immediate 
knowledge  of  things,  and  self-consciousness  is  the  immediate 
knowledge  of  self. 

Immediate  knowledge  and  inferential  knowledge  differ,  as 
forms  of  knowledge,  in  an  important  way  ;  because  they  lay  em- 
phasis upon  the  ijredoniinance  of  ditierent  activities  of  the  mind. 
In  the  former  that  "  envisagement,"  or  awareness  of  the  object 
face  to  face,  as  it  were,  Avhich  developed  consciousness  attains,  is 
the  characteristic  of  knowledge.  In  the  latter  it  is  the  faculty  of 
thought,  or  especially  the  logical  drawing  of  conclusions,  Avhich 
bring-s  about  the  state  of  conviction  when  knowledge  is  attained. 
But  there  is  no  perception  so  immediate  that  the  act  is  not  a 
process  in  time  ;  or  so  much  of  a  complete  "  envisagement "  that 
judgment  does  not  enter  into  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  most 
complicated  and  length}^  processes  of  reasoning  cannot  result  in 
k'tiowledye,  however  logically  conducted  they  may  be,  unless  they 
start  from  immediate  perception  and  self-consciousness,  and  sup- 
port themselves  at  every  stei?  on  such  immediacy,  with  the  con- 
viction of  reality  obtaining  all  the  way  through.  In  imme- 
diate knowledge,  the  object  is  present  as  some  Thing  known,  or 
as  some  state  of  the  Self  known  ;  in  inferential  knowledge  the 
existence  of  some  object  is  concluded  (known  by  the  process  of 
logical  thinking)  as  having  its  "  ground  "  or  "  reason  "  in  other 
inferential  knowledge  ;  or — finally — in  immediate  knowledge. 
The  sphere  of  immediate  knowledge  is  thus  covered  by  what  we 
envisage  in  sense  -  perception  or  in  self  -  consciousness  ;  the 
sphere  of  inferential  knowledge  includes  all  that,  concerning  the 
being  and  relations  of  things  and  minds,  which  Ave  can  connect, 
under  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason,  with  any  immediate 
knowledge. 

I  7.  The  more  special  psychology  of  these  two  kiiuls  of  knowledge  has 
ah-eady  been  treated  at  considerable  length ;  but  the  relation  to  them  both 
of  that  "  belief  in  respect  of  reality  "  which  enters  into  all  knowledge  de- 
serves some  further  notice  at  this  point.  Plainly,  our  "metaphysical"  be- 
lief does  not  stand  in  precisely  the  same  relation  to  inferential  knowledge 
and  to  immediate  knowledge.  With  respect  to  the  beings  and  relations 
which  I  know  infcrentially,  an  appeal  to  reasons  is  always  considered  jus- 
tifiable. For  example,  I  am  always  liable  to  be  asked  :  How  do  you  know 
that  the  medulla  oblongata  is  the  reflex  and  automatic  center  connected  with 
the  vaso-motor  and  resi)iratory  functions  ;  or  that  the  region  about  the  fis- 
sure of  Eolaudo  is  the  sensory-motor  cerebral  region  for  the  control  of  the 


618  THE   KNOWLEDGE   OF   THINGS   AND    OF   SELF 

upi^er  and  lower  limbs  ?  Or  again  :  How  do  you  Tcnow  that  it  rained  last 
night ;  or  that  it  is  colder  to-day  than  it  was  a  year  ago  ;  or  that  an  attempt 
has  been  made  to  assassinate  the  Czar  of  Russia  ?  In  all  such  cases  a  ques- 
tion recognizes  the  fundamental  fact  that  it  is  necessary  to  the  very  life 
of  the  intellect  for  conviction  to  justify  itself  by  giving  the  grounds  on 
which  it  rests.  But  the  grounds  on  which  the  conviction  rests  are  reason- 
able only  if  they  are  such  grounds  as  justify  the  conclusion  when  logically 
considered.  Otherwise  one  must  say :  I  feel  pretty  sure,  or  very  sure,  but 
I  do  not  positively  know  ;  and  this  is  equivalent  to  saying,  I  cannot  validate 
the  concluding  proposition  as  inferential  knowledge.  We  do,  indeed,  argue 
such  questions  as  this:  "Is  yonder  form  that  of  a  child  or  a  man?"  or, 
"  Was  it  our  friend  X,  or  the  newly  arrived  stranger  Y,  who  passed  us  on 
the  street  just  now?  " 

Suppose,  however,  that  in  the  course  of  any  argument  the  facts  of  im- 
mediate knowledge  are  found  to  be  the  same  in  the  minds  of  both  parties  to 
the  dispute,  while  one  holds  that  these  facts  constitute  "  a  sufficient  reason  " 
for  a  certain  conclusion,  but  the  other  draws  an  opposite  conclusion.  Then 
the  meaning  of  the  question.  How  do  you  hww?  is  changed.  Each  party  to 
the  dispute  begins  to  suspect  the  other's  "conviction "  of  being  "  irrational," 
of  reposing  on  no  "sufficient  grounds  ;  "  or  of  being  feigned,  or  prejudiced, 
in  fact.  Claims  may,  indeed,  be  set  up  to  hiow  things,  which  are  only  inferen- 
tially  known  in  the  ordinary  working  of  human  minds,  by  some  mysterious 
so-called  "tact,"  "intuition,"  or  "insight."  Such  claims  are  even  now  being 
extended  over  the  vague  and  doubtful  realm  of  clairvoyance,  telepathy,  etc. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  meet  to-day  everywhere  with  the  psychologically  inter- 
esting phenomenon  of  distrust  of  all  alleged  knowledge,  accompanied  by  the 
greatest  confidence  in  the  power  of  the  intellect  to  criticise  negatively  its 
own  operations.  Thus  men  abound  who,  like  the  Count  Kostia  whom  Cher- 
buliez  depicts,  "  expend  much  logic  to  demonstrate  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  logic,  either  in  nature  or  in  man" — sceptics  that  "  pass  their  lives 
reasoning  against  reason." 

The  psychological  lesson  from  all  this  is  to  the  effect  that  so-called 
knowledge  from  inference  is  a  matter  of  infinitely  varied  degrees  and 
shades  ;  and  that  it  is  subjectively  dependent  upon  the  amount  and  charac- 
ter of  the  belief  in  reality  which  enters  into  it.  Xot  by  bare  ratiocination 
but  by  the  manifold  life  of  Jcnowledge  do  ice  reach  into  and lyrogressively  conq"f.r 
the  actual  world  of  beings  and  events.  Let  us  suppose,  however,  that  inquiry 
regarding  the  reality  of  some  object  of  immediate  sense-iiercejition  has  been 
reduced  to  its  ultimate  terms  ('•ultimate,"  that  is,  psychologically  consid- 
ered). For  example,  let  the  question  whether  yonder  form  is  that  of  a  man 
or  a  child,  be  narrowed  down  to  this  :  IToin  do  I  know  that  the  object  which 
I,  distinctly  and  persistently,  now  perceive  thus  and  so,  is  really  as  I  perceive 
it  ?  Doubtless,  in  any  such  case  of  dispute  we  should,  if  possible,  appeal  to 
the  bystanders.  If  common  consent  wore  on  our  side,  we  should  feel  the 
conviction  that  our  knowledge  was  immediate  and  indubitable,  in  a  degree 
confirmed.  This  appeal  itself  would,  however,  at  most  establish  by  infer- 
ence what  appeared  to  us  to  be  more  certain  than  anything  that  inference 
could  establish.  But  here,  what  has  been  sliown  to  be  true  with  respect  to 
the  amount  of  judgment,  and  even  of  condensed  syllogistic  reasoning,  which 


DISTINCTION   BETWEEN   SELF   AND    THINGS  519 

enters  iuto  our  complex  developed  acts  of  iierception,  must  be  recalled.  In 
the  last  resort,  however,  we  may  describe  our  experience  in  some  such  terms 
as  follow  :  "At  any  rate,  so  I  here  and  now  see,  or  feel,  this  object  to  be. 
However  all  tlie  rest  of  the  world  may  know  it,  and  whether  they  know  it 
at  all  or  not,  I  now  certainly  know  it  to  be,  for  me,  thus  and  so."  We 
should  then  seem  to  ourselves  to  have  reached  an  ultimately  certain  knowl- 
edge. In  general,  the  belief  in  the  reality  of  the  object  ^^  immediateh/'''  knoini 
is  an  irresistible  conviction,  resting  on  no  grounds  oidside  of  itself ;  it  is  itsef  <i 
primary  and  iinanalyzable  datum  belonging  to  the  very  nature  of  all  immediate 
knowledge. ' 

As  respects  its  objects,  Knowledge  is  either  of  Things  or  of 
Self.  This  distinction  between  "  Self  "  and  "  Things  "  becomes, 
only  as  a  result  of  the  development  of  cognition,  so  clear  and  so 
fundamental  that  it  appears  to  ordinary  thinking  to  be  original 
and  to  belong  to  the  very  conditions  of  experience,  as  well  as  to 
the  nature  of  reality.  The  sane  adult  never  confuses  himself 
with  things  ;  the  very  question,  how  he  came  to  make  and  main- 
tain so  consistently  this  distinction,  seems  to  him  to  savor  of  ir- 
rationality. For  how  could  it  possibly  be  that  the  distinction 
should  not  be  made  ;  since  it  lies  at  the  very  base  of  all  cogni- 
tion of  reality  ?  On  the  contrary — as  we  must  once  more  remind 
ourselves — all  objects  of  knowledge,  psychologically  considered, 
are  alike  to  be  regarded  as  states  of  consciousness  ;  all  states  of 
consciousness  are  time-processes  in  the  onflowing  stream  of  con- 
sciousness. This  is  as  true  of  things  perceived  by  the  senses  as 
it  is  of  the  self-known  in  self-consciousness.  Moreover,  all  proc- 
esses of  knowledge  imply,  because  they  involve,  the  develop- 
ment of  mental  life ;  and  the  study  of  perception  by  the  senses, 
as  well  as  the  study  of  self-consciousness,  shows  that  the  clear 
distinction  between  things  and  self  is  something  which  itself  re-  | 
suits  from  this  very  course  of  development. 

It  is  incumbent,  then,  upon  psychological  science  to  raise 
the  question  as  to  how  this  progressive  "  bi-partition "  (we 
might  say  "  diremption,"  if  the  word  were  not  obsolete  and  did 
not  suggest  a  violent  process)  of  psychoses  has  come  aboiit.  In 
other  words,  why  are  some  of  our  cognitions  assigned  to  the  one 
class  of  beings,  called  Things   (or — negativel}^  speaking — non- 

1  Little  more  can  legitimately  be  said  on  this  point  unless  we  avowedly  enter  upon  the  philosophy 
of  coKnition.  It  should  be  noticed,  however,  that  this  conviction  belongs  as  truly  to  the  primary  act 
of  knowledge  when  its  object  is  some  thing,  as  when  it  is  myself  iu  some  state.  Professor  James 
has  therefore  stated  ithough  well  stated)  only  half  of  the  truth  when  he  says  (IT.,  p.  297),  "our  own 
reality,  that  sense  of  our  o^\'n  life  which  we  at  every  moment  possess,  is  the  ultimate  of  ultimates 
for  our  belief."  So  Lipps,  in  the  sentence  (juoted  by  James  :  "  Mein  Jctzt  und  Uier  ist  der  Utzte 
Angelpunkt  fiir  alle  Wirklichkeit.  also  alle  Erkenntniss."  It  is  ratlier  the  reality  of  the  object, 
as  necessarily  implicated  in  tlie  very  process  of  cognition,  whether  that  object  be  some  Thing  or  My- 
self, that  series  as  the  point  to  which  the  conviction  irresistibly  attaches  itself.  As  the  theory  of 
knowledge  would  say  :    Being — concrete  and  here  and  now  given — and  Knowledge  are  correlates. 


520  THE   KNOWLEDGE   OF   THINGS   AND   OF   SELF 

egos,  not-&e\i)  and  others  of  them  assig-ned  to  our  own  being,  to 
the  so-called  Self '?  As  to  the  validity  in  reality  of  this  distinc- 
tion, j)sychology  as  a  descriptive  science  has  nothing  whatever 
to  say.^  Nor  can  science  do  otherwise  than  accej^t  it  as  an  ulti- 
mate and  mysterious  fact.  The  words,  "  consciousness,  as  such" 
implj^  the  distinction.  The  same  distinction  is  imj^lied  in  all 
special  discussions  as  to  the  facts  and  laws  of  the  life  of  sensa- 
tion and  motion. 

Psychology  is  bound,  then,  to  note  the  distinction  between 
Things  and  Self,  as  objects  of  cognition,  fundamentally  opjiosed 
as  they  are  by  the  development  of  mental  life  itself.  But  it  is 
only  bound  to  tell,  as  far  as  possible,  the  reasons  or  grounds  of  the 
distinction  so  far  as  they  lie  in  differences  of  psychical  phenom- 
ena. And,  indeed,  this  has  already  been  partly  done,  particular- 
ly with  reference  to  the  knowledge  of  things.  For  such  knowl- 
edge is  gained  by  percei^tion  with  the  senses  ;  and  we  have 
already  discussed  the  elementary  psychoses,  and  laws  of  the  com- 
bination of  psychoses,  which  characterize  the  rise  and  growth  of 
jjerceptive  knowledge.  It  remains,  then,  chiefly,  to  trace  some- 
what more  in  detail  the  development  of  the  knowledge  of  self. 

g  8.  Botli  the  content  of  consciousness  and  the  general  tone  of  conscious- 
ness are  "objective,"  or  externally  directed  and  focused,  as  it  were,  in  our 
knowledge  of  any  thing.  The  meaning  and  bearing  of  such  a  statement 
can  be  understood  only  by  considering  it  in  the  light  of  all  that  has  thus  far 
been  said  respecting  those  mental  processes  which  enter  into  our  so-called 
"  external "  knowledge.  For  example,  what  are  the  distinguishing  charac- 
teristics of  my  mental  states  when  I  am  examining  a  flower,  watching  a 
spectacle,  or  looking  through  a  microscope  ;  or,  again,  when  I  am  feeling  a 
surface,  lifting  a  weight,  or  pushing  a  lawn-mower?  As  resijects  content  of 
consciousness,  those  series  of  sensations — notably  of  the  eye,  and  of  touch, 
including  muscular  and  joint  sensations — that  have  a  predominating  objec- 
tivity are  determining  the  flow  of  the  stream  of  consciousness ;  attention  is 
being  concentrated  on  tlie  localized  and  projected  sensation-complexes  ;  the 
images  revived  and  fused  with  the  sensations  are  chiefly  representative  of 
past  sensations  ;  and  the  condensed  psychological  judgments  that  take  j^lace 
have  reference  to  changes,  experienced  or  expected,  in  the  sensation -com- 
plexes. Moreover,  the  more  conceptual  elements  of  the  mental  state — such 
as  the  naming  and  classifying  of,  and  concluding  about,  the  object — are 
such  as  connect  it  with  other  similar  or  unlike  things.  That  is  to  say,  it  is 
visual  (Did  tactual  sensation-complexes,  with  the  memories,  imaginings,  thoughts, 

1  Nothing  can  be  more  unscientific  and  unwarrantable  than  the  assumption  that  this  distinc- 
tion of  Rc'ing,  l)et\veen  Self  and  Things,  not  only  does  not,  but  cannot,  correspond  to  the  reality  ; 
and  yet  this  aHsumi)tion  is  current  with  a  large  number  of  psychologists  who  are  not  slow  to  arro- 
gate the  title  "  scientific  "  to  themselves  alone.  Indeed,  it  has  recently  been  proclaimed  as  a  tenet 
demonstrated  by  psychophysics  so  that  they— forsooth  !— who  do  not  accept  it.  off-hand  as  it  were, 
are  to  be  denied  all  standing  amimg  "  scientific"  psychologists.  As  to  the  philosophical  tenure  of 
this  rash  metaphysics,  this  modem  Splnozism,  we  have  elsewhere  had  something  to  say,  aud  hope 
to  have  much  to  add  iu  other  couuectiona. 


DISTINCTION   BETWEEN   SELF   AND   THINGS  521 

and  reasonings,  referring  to  sensation-experiences,  tchich  characterize  the  con- 
tent of  so-called  exleiiial  cognition.  Moreover,  the  feeling-tone,  and  couative 
activity  of  this  state  of  knowing  a  thing  diifers  markedly  from  the  affec- 
tive and  volitional  asi^ects  of  distinctively  self-conscious  states.  The  aft'ec- 
tive  accompaniments  are  not  so  much  interesting  in  themselves,  because  of 
their  pleasurable  or  paiuful  tone,  as  they  are  feelings  of  sensations — feelings 
which  assist  in  discriminating  more  effectively  the  objects  of  the  sense-per- 
ceptive activity.  Conative  consciousness  is  also  very  different  when  the  ob- 
ject of  cognition  is  some  thing  rather  than  some  state  of  the  self.  This  is 
true,  not  simply  with  resjiect  to  the  direction  of  attention  upon  the  different 
parts  and  changing  phases  of  the  perceived  object ;  it  is  also  true  with  re- 
spect to  the  entire  condition  of  dependence  upon  volition  which  is  charac- 
teristic of  the  object.  I  cannot  loill  changes  in  things,  their  relations  and 
their  qualities,  as  I  can  will  changes  in  my  own  states. 

The  knowledge  which  is  of  self  differs  from  the  knowledge  which  sense- 
perception  brings,  both  as  respects  content  of  consciousness  and  general 
tone  of  consciousness.  This  knowledge  has  its  content  not  chiefli/  in  sensations 
at  all,  hut  in  mental  images,  thoughts,  feelings,  or  volitions.  The  sensuous  ele- 
ments of  consciousness,  especially  those  of  the  most  deiinitely  localized  and 
clearly  projected  sort,  are  relatively  suppressed.  In  predominating  states  of 
self-consciousness,  the  sensations  are  of  the  vague,  unlocalized  order,  which 
are  attributable  to  myself  as  a  sentient  organism,  rather  than  to  any  object- 
ive thing.  But  especially  is  the  attention  directed  to  feelings  which  are  in- 
teresting to  me,  as  nu/  feelings,  because  of  their  tone  of  either  pleasure  or 
pain.  In  this  way,  by  the  influence  of  feeling  over  attention,  one  often 
passes  back  and  forth  between  the  objective  and  the  subjective  aspects  of  the 
same  experience.  For  example,  when  one  is  in  a  bath  one  feels  the  tempera- 
ture of  the  water  as  the  quality  of  an  external  thing ;  but,  if  it  is  greatly  too 
cold  or  too  hot,  one  becomes  aware  of  one's  self  as  suffering  with  the  pain  of 
heat  or  cold.  It  is  largely  because  of  their  ordinarily  toneless  character  as 
feelings  that  our  visual  sensation-comjilexes  are  customarily  known  as  qual- 
ities of  external  things. 

I  9.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  all  knowledge  is  based,  as  it  were,  upon  the 
"  bi-partition  "  of  our  cognitive  experiences,  there  are  forms  of  exijerience 
which  it  is  difficult  to  classify  definitely  with  either  of  these  two  great 
classes.  This  is  true  in  a  singular  fashion  with  regard  to  what  is  sometimes 
called  "  tact."  The  knowledge  (?)  reached  in  this  way  largely  resembles  a 
kind  of  objectified  self-knowledge.  Tact  is  knowledge  of  things  by  an 
eccentric  projection  of  self-feeling.  It  has  already  been  shown  that  a  feel- 
ing of  qualitative  distinctions  lies  at  the  basis  of  all  our  knowledge  of 
spatial  properties  and  spatial  relations  of  things.  But  "  feeling  of  qualita- 
tive distinctions  "  is  chiefly  subjective,  and  "knowledge  of  spatial  proper- 
ties and  spatial  relations  "  is  objective.  What  is  true  of  the  earlier  develop- 
ments of  knowledge,  is  also  true  where  developed  knowledge  has  become,  by 
familiarity,  so  much  a  matter  of  intuition  as  to  lose  its  ratiocinative  char- 
acter. Pre-eminently  true  is  this  of  all  that  knowledge  which  art  disj^lays. 
Not  only  does  the  knower  find  it  difficult  to  give  reasons  why  ;  but.  in  the 
process  of  knowing,  he  almost  seems  to  lose  the  distinction  between  himself 
and  the  thing  known.    Here,  as  we  shall  subsequently  see,  "  tact "  and  "  art," 


522  THE   KNOWLEDGE   OF   THINGS   AND   OF   SELF 

4 

ou  the  one  liand,  and  "  instinct,"  on  the  other  hand,  seem  to  come  together. 
For  example,  let  it  be  supposed  that  one  is  learning  how  to  open  a  certain 
combination-lock.  One  is  told  the  combination  is  "  three  and  a  quarter  to 
the  right,  then  six  and  a  half  to  the  left,  then  one  and  three-quarters  to  the 
right,  etc."  One  now  knows  how  to  open  the  lock ;  but  probably  one  can- 
not 02-)en  it — for  the  knowledge  is  too  markedly  objective — although  one 
gives  great  attention  to  the  lock,  to  the  counting,  etc.  But  when  the  knowl- 
edge has  become  a  matter  of  self-feeling,  one  need  pay  little  attention  to 
the  objective  thing ;  one  may  reach  the  end  of  knowledge  by  letting  this 
suggested  course  of  self-feeling  run  itself  through.  Again,  we  may  ask, 
who  best  knows  how  to  handle  the  graving  tool,  or  to  play  the  violin  ;  he 
who  clearly  distinguishes  himself  from  the  thing  which  he  voluntarily  moves, 
and  accompanies  every  movement  with  discriminp,ting  percej^tion  and  con- 
scious thinking ;  or  he  who  is  so  independent  of  such  distinctions  and  proc- 
esses of  thinking,  that  he  can  become  absorbed  in  his  own  life  of  feeling 
and  idea,  and  can  let  this  life  express  itself  in  a  sort  of  unconscious  union 
of  self  and  sensuous  object  ?  The  answer  to  such  questions  plainly  depends 
upon  the  conception  which  we  form  of  the  nature  of  knowledge. 

But  such  questions  as  the  foregoing  emphasize  the  following  important 
psychological  truths  :  (1)  The  element  of  feeling  viay  increasinglt/  prejxmderate 
in  any  process  of  so-called  Icnoivledge,  as  familiarity  and  habit  tend  to  blur 
the  oidlines  of  intellectucd  apprehension  of  the  object  of  knowledge.  The  char- 
acter of  the  knowledge  thus  becomes  more  subjective.  (2)  As  the  element  of 
feeling  becomes  relcUively  greater  in  any  act  of  knowledge,  the  distinction 
beticeen  the  two  great  classes  of  objects — things  and  self — is  submerged,  as  it 
xoere.  The  "cunning"  man,  the  "  skilful"  man,  the  "  knowing  "  man  (in 
this  narrower  meaning  of  the  word  knowledge)  is  he  who  knows  how,  as  a 
matter  of  self-feeling,  rather  than  he  who  distinguishes  what,  and  why,  he 
knows,  and  so  classifies  the  object  of  knowledge. 

§  10.  The  knowledge  of  things,  then — we  repeat  from  another  point  of 
view — both  implies  and  results  from  the  complex  development  of  all  the  so- 
called  mental  faculties.  As  immediate  knowledge  it  rests  ujjon  a  predomi- 
nating sensuous  basis ;  but  as  knowledge  it  is  not  merely  sensuous.  For  all 
knowledge,  whether  of  things,  or  of  self,  imjilies  memory,  imagination,  and 
thought,  the  elaboration  of  the  more  imrely  presentative  material.  The 
knowledge  of  things  involves  also  the  development  of  feeling  and  conation  ; 
and  it  is  in  part  because  the  affective  and  conative  elements  connected  with 
externally  originated  sensations  have  the  characteristics  which  they  possess, 
that  the  "  bi-partition  "  of  all  objects  takes  place  as  it  does,  and  knowledge 
of  Tilings  results.  But,  finally,  this  knowledge,  like  all  knowledge — as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  mere  having  of  objects  in  consciousness — implies  also 
belief  in  reality.  And  "-belief  in  reality"  is,  for  psychological  analysis,  an 
unanulyzaVile,  inexplicable  datum  of  that  form  of  developed  mental  activity 
which  we  call  "knowledge." 


The  Development  of  the  Knowledg-e  of  Self  does  not  involve 
the  possession  or  the  omployniont  of  mental  faculties  different 
from  those  ^vllich  have  already  been  described.     On  the  other 


I 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   SELF-KNOWLEDGE  523 

hand,  all  these  so-called  faculties  are  exercised  in  the  g-rowtli  of 
this  kind  of  knowledge  as  well  as  in  the  growth  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  things.  From  this  general  statement  respecting  the 
true  psychological  doctrine  of  self-knowledge,  several  imijortunt 
corollaries  follow:  (1)  In  the  earlier  stages  of  mental  life  no 
psychoses  can  be  discovered  which  are  Avorthy  to  be  called  a 
know  ing  of  self.  If  we  adhere  to  the  distinction  already  insisted 
upon  (Chap.  III.)  between  consciousness  and  developed  self- 
consciousness,  we  cannot  properly  ascribe  self-consciousness,  or 
the  "  immediate  awareness  "  and  reference  of  any  state  to  me  as 
my  state,  to  the  infant  mind.  (2)  Certain  classes  of  the  element- 
ary processes  of  mental  life  possess  characteristics  which  focus 
attention  upon  them,  and  which  stimulate  discriminating  con- 
sciousness to  set  them  apart,  as  it  were,  from  other  processes  in 
the  stream  of  consciousness.  Such  characteristics  are  furnished 
by  the  tones  of  feeling  and  the  amounts  of  conative  activity 
which  render  psychoses  subjectively  interesting.  On  this  basis 
some  states  of  consciousness,  regarded  merely  as  states,  are 
fitted  to  be  ascribed  to  the  so-called  "  Self  " — a  conception  of 
which  is  formed  on  the  basis  of  experience  chiefly,  at  first,  with 
this  very  kind  of  conscious  states.  (3)  Development  of  the 
knowledge  of  Self,  like  that  of  the  knowledge  of  things,  follows 
a  certain  general  order,  which  may  bo  said  to  be  the  order  of 
nature  and  essentially  the  same  for  all  men.  At  the  same  time 
different  men,  and  even  different  races,  differ  quite  as  markedly 
in  their  conceptions  of  self  as  in  their  conceptions  of  things. 
Nor  is  this  difference  confined  to  conceptual  and  inferential 
knowledge  of  the  Ego  alone.  What  Lotze  has  vaguely  called 
"self-feeling"  is  by  no  means  the  same,  either  in  its  complex 
qualifications  or  in  its  intensity,  with  all  individuals  or  all  races. 
Moreover,  inasmuch  as  knowledge  of  Self  is  still  Jc)ioiided(/e — 
and  so  is  subject  to  all  the  conditions  and  laws  which  make 
cognition  in  general  jaossible — the  self-knowledge  of  some  is 
more  largely  a  matter  of  intellection ;  of  others  more  largely  a 
matter  of  feeling ;  of  others,  more  largely  a  conception  suffused 
with  predominating  motor  consciousness.  And,  indeed,  if  this 
were  not  so,  the  knowledge  of  self  would  not  be  knowdedge  at 
all ;  for  it  would  not  correspond  to  the  reality.  In  some  men's 
actual  lives  the  emphasis  is  habitually  laid  upon  the  intellectual 
aspect ;  in  others,  upon  the  emotional  aspect ;  in  still  others, 
upon  the  conative  aspect  of  consciousness. 

1 11.  On  veforring  to  the  previons  discnssion  of  cnnncinunvesa,  we  find  (p. 
34  f.)  that  not  only  must  tlie  word  be  eniplovod  as  equivalent  to  iisvchosis  in 
genera],  but  also  as  "  synonymous  with  psychical  state,  regarded  as  discrim- 


524  THE   KNOWLEDGE  OF   THINGS   AND   OF   SELF 

inatecl,  however  faintly,  in  respect  of  content,  and  related,  however  imper- 
fectly, to  the  stream  of  mental  life."  When,  then,  the  development  of 
consciousness  takes  the  form  of  se/f-coiisciousness ,  and  the  object  of  knowl- 
edge is  the  so-called  Ego,  or  SeJf,  the  jarocess  and  product  of  mental  life  is 
no  whit  more  mysterious  than  when  that  object  is  some  so-called  external 
thing.  In  other  words,  self-consciousness  is  not,  properly  speaking,  a 
1  sjDecial  faculty.  It  is  rather,  as  all  knowledge  is,  the  result  of  a  complex 
and  harmonious  development  of  faculty.  Moreover,  to  speak  of  man  as 
superior  to  the  other  animals  in  the  possession  of  self-consciousness  is  only 
,  the  partial  truth.  Man's  knowledge  of  things  is  just  as  truly  superior  to  the 
/  knowledge  of  things  by  the  lower  animals  as  is  his  knowledge  of  self.  The 
sui^eriority  of  all  his  knowledge  depends  upon  the  sui)eriority  of  his  entire 
bodily  and  mental  constitution  and  develojjment.  Indeed,  we  probably 
ought  not  to  say  that  the  lower  animals  have  any  "  knowledge"  at  all  resem- 
bling human  knowledge. 

Certain  objections  to  this  view  involve  the  "  i^sychologist's  fallacy  "  in  a 
form  similar  to  that  in  which  it  has  frequently  met  us  before.  Because  I 
cannot  deliberately  make  any  state  of  consciousness  an  object  of  knowledge 
without  exercising  developed  seZ/'-consciousness,  therefore  it  is  necessarily 
so  with  all  consciousness,  with  the  infant — about  so,  in  brief,  the  objection 
runs.  As  well  might  one  say  that  because  I  cannot  open  my  eyes  ujion  a 
landscape,  and  deliberately  make  it  an  object  of  knowledge,  without  be- 
coming immediately  aware  of  trees,  houses,  men,  etc.,  therefore  it  is  neces- 
sarily so  with  all  consciousness,  and  with  the  infant.  And  to  this  fallacy 
something  is  doubtless  contributed  by  that  confusion  of  consciousness  with 
self-consciousness,  and  of  discriminating  consciousness  with  self-knowledge, 
which  has  already  been  pointed  out. 

^  12.  It  has  been  shown,  as  a  matter  of  descriptive  history,  why  some 
states  of  consciousness  get  regarded  as  my  states,  and  others  get  regarded  as 
the  qualities  of  things.  The  jirincipal  reasons  for  this  process  of  intellectual 
bipartition  have  been  found  to  lie  in  the  character  of  the  affective  and  cona- 
tive  elements  which  enter  into  the  dift'erent  states.  For  example,  let  the  in- 
fant that  has  been  following  a  moderately  bright  light  with  bis  eyes  be  sud- 
denly plunged  into  an  overheated  bath  ;  or  when  he  is  gently  moving  his 
arms  in  mid-air,  or  over  the  bedclothes,  let  him  be  firmly  and  somewhat 
painfully  gripped  and  held.  Thus  a  predominatingly  objective  asjDCct  of 
consciousness,  an  aspect  that  favors  attention  to  external  objects  and  the 
cognition  of  things,  is  changed  into  a  predominatingly  subjective  asjiect,  an 
aspect  that  favors  attention  to  the  state  of  consciousness,  as  such,  and  to  the 
cognition  of  self.  Of  course,  we  shoiild  not  truly  rei^resent  this  latter  state 
if  we  thought  of  the  infant  as  pronouncing  this  judgment :  "  I  am  fearfully 
hot,"  or,  "  This  state  of  painful  sensation,  qiioiid  painful,  is  that  of  my  ego." 
Only  as  intelligence  develops  can  such  activity  of  self-consciousness  emerge. 
The  moment,  however,  that  these  forms  of  painful  or  pleasurable  bodily  feel- 
ing (usually  connected  with  conative  conscioiisness  as  called  out  in  the  way 
of  attraction  or  repulsion  and  resulting  feelings  of  self -Activity  and  of  ef- 
fort) are  called  "  sc^- feeling,"  it  is  implied  that  a  certain  development  of 
perceptive  knowledge  has  already  taken  i)lace.  Previous  to  the  repeated  ac- 
tivity of  discriminating  consciousness,  even  sensations  with  their  so-called  ob- 


STAGES   OF   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  525 

jectivo  loferenco,  and  feelings  as  subjective,  cannot  bo  rcganled  as  divisible 
into  two  classes  of  objects. 

The  truth  is  thoroforo  important,  though  only  partial,  'which  Lotzo 
states  in  the  following  language  :  '  "  The  criislied  worm  writhing  in  pain  un- 
doubtedly distinguishes  its  own  suffering  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  though 
it  can  understand  neither  its  own  ego  nor  the  nature  of  the  external  ■world. 
But  the  consummate  intelligence  of  an  angel,  did  it  lack  feeling,  .  .  . 
would  never  learn  why  it  should  attach  any  greater  value  to  the  distinction 
between  itself  and  the  rest  of  the  world  than  to  the  numerous  differences  be- 
tween things  in  general  that  presented  themselves  to  its  notice.  Thus  self- 
consciousness  is  to  us  but  as  the  interiiretation  of  a  sense  of  self,"  etc. 
These  statements  forcefully  emphasize  the  deiiendence  upon  feeling  of  the 
very  origin  and  devclojmient  of  self-consciousness.  But  when  mere  pain  is 
represented  as  suflicient  for  distinguishing  the  suffering  self  from  the  rest  of 
the  world,  all  feeling  is  reduced  to  pleasure-pain  and  the  olHce  of  intellect  in 
the  beginning,  as  well  as  in  the  growth,  of  self-consciousness  is  depreciated, 
the  view  becomes  psychologically  indefensible.  The  "  writhing  worm  "  has 
no  germ  of  self-consciousness  simply  because  it  is  suffering  pain.  The  in- 
telligent angel  may  not  need  the  stimulus  of  pleasure-pains  "to  attach 
value  "  to  the  distinction  between  self  and  things;  and  besides,  "making 
the  distinction"  is  one  thing,  and  "attaching  value"  to  it  is  quite  another 
thing.  Nor  does  it  appear  why  the  latter  is,  from  the  jjoint  of  view  of  i^sy- 
cliology,  necessary  to  self-consciousness. 


The  Stages  of  Self-consciousness  follow,  in  general,  certain 
broadly  marked  lines.  Of  these  stages  the  consummation  of  the 
first  is  reached  when  the  sentient  body  is  distinguished  from 
other  bodies  with  which  it  stands  in  changing  relations,  and 
which  are  not  themselves  immediately  known  as  sentient.  The 
primary  intellectual  activity  involved  in  this  stage  consists  in 
discriminating  between  certain  perceived  objects  that  are  not 
felt  as  pleasurable  or  painful,  and  a  certain  one  object  that  is  not 
only  externally  perceived,  in  changing  relations  to  other  objects, 
but  is  also  painfully  or  plcasurably  felt.  It  is  plain,  then,  that 
the  knowledge  of  things  and  the  knowledge  of  self  are,  in  the 
earlier  stages  of  knowledge,  psychologically  considered,  interde- 
pendent. Hence  the  earliest  known  "myself"  is  imj  hod f/,  as 
sentient  and  under  voluntary  control — parted  oif  from  and  con- 
trasted with  other  bodies  which  are  not  sentient  or  under  volun- 
tary control.  In  other  words,  discriminating  consciousness  con- 
structs the  first  E'go  as  identical  Avith  the  entire  living  bod.y — its 
felt  pleasures  and  pains,  and  its  voluntary  movements  especially 
as  connected  with  the  satisfaction  of  desire,  the  withdrawal  of  it 
from  objects  that  give  pain,  or  the  forcing  of  it  into  contact  with 

>  MicrocosmuB,  I,,  p.  250. 


.026  THE   KNOWLEDGE   OF   TIIIXGS   AND   OF   SELF 

resisting"  things,  etc.  ;  but  it  excludes  from  this  Ego  (as  non-Ego) 
everything  which  does  not  feel  with  it,  and  follow  its  movable- 
ness,  and  manifest  itself,  as  it  were,  as  organically  connected 
with  it.' 

The  individual  acts  of  discrimination  between  the  bodily  self 
and  the  other  body,  that  is  not-self,  now  themselves  become  the 
objects  of  memory,  imagination,  and  generalization.  Thus  a 
conception  of  ihe  Self,  that  is  w^yself,  is  framed  by  processes  of 
thinking,  and  to  it  a  name — the  name  that  distinguishes  me 
from  other  bodies — is  given.  In  such  a  process  of  determining 
the  earliest  concei^tion  of  the  Self,  with  its  name,  the  inter- 
course of  the  individual  with  others  of  his  race  is  peculiarly 
important.  The  child  does  not  name  himself ;  he  is  given  a 
name,  and  thus  more  perfectly  defined,  as  an  object,  to  himself, 
in  a  manner  corresponding  to  that  of  all  other  things  by  their 
names.  As  related  to,  and  yet  contrasted  with,  other  selves — 
that  is,  bodies  that  are  like  his  own  to  external  perception  but 
are  not  interiorly  felt,  as  it  were — the  early  concei^tions  of  self 
become  further  developed.  But  at  this  stage,  and  even  far  ear- 
lier, another  modified  conception  of  the  Ego  shows  signs  of  being 
in  process  of  formation. 

I  13.  It  is  not,  of  course,  solely  upon  tlie  marked  and  abrupt  changes  of 
states  from  general  objective  to  general  subjective  tone  of  consciousness 
that  the  earliest  conception  of  Self  as  sentient  and  movable  body  is  based. 
In  this  work  of  "  bipartition  "  the  total  melange  of  bodily  feelings — or  sensa- 
tions that  are  ill  localized,  confused,  and  mixed — takes  an  important  part 
(comp.  p.  334  f.).  These  form  a  sort  of  background  or  i^latform  of  conscious- 
ness on  which  the  particular  objects  of  sense-presentation  define  themselves. 
Nor  is  it  in  the  earlier  stages  alone  of  the  development  of  self-knowledge  that 
the  somewhat  vagi;e  conception  of  ourselves  as  a  remembered  and  familiar 
comi)lex  of  bodily  feelings  is  prominent.  With  the  child  who  has  attained 
any  vivid  notion  of  his  self-hood,  it  is  the  feeling,  moving  body  that  rejire- 
sents  "  the  self ;"  and  his  most  abstract  conception  of  his  own  being  does 
not  got  far  beyond  vague  generalizations,  warm  with  emotion,  upon  the  basis 
of  bodily  experiences.  If  this  earliest  form  of  representation  of  the  Ego 
could  speak,  and  could  use  the  abstract  language  of  philosophy,  it  would  an- 
nounce itself  thus:  "  What  is  here  and  nou^  that  aml."^  In  this  regard 
the  child  would  agree  with  the  philosopher  whenever  the  latter  tries  to 
realize  his  highest  conception  of  the  self.  But  with  the  child,  "  What-is- 
here-and-now  " — "  that-which-am-I  " — is  chiefly  what  it  can  put  its  hand 
upon,  of  its  own  body  ;  or  what  it  fools  within  its  own  thoracic  or  abdominal 
cavities.  The  author  once  pressed  a  bright  little  girl  of  five  years  old  to  toll 
him  what  she  meant  by  the  "  I "  tliat  "loved  papa;  "  in  the  last  analysis 
tlie  solution  of  the  puzzle  was  announced  in  the  following  sentence :  "  Oh, 

'  Comp.  George :  Lehrbucli  d.  Psychologie,  p.  229  f. 
*C'oinp.  Uorwicz  :  Pnycholopisclic  Aualyscii,  ii.,  p.  144. 


THE   CONCEPTION   OF   SELF  627 

now  I  know  ;  it  is  my  arms,  because  I  ling  liim  with  thorn  ;  and  my  lijis,  be- 
cause I  kiss  liim  witli  them."  But  do  wo  not  find  the  Apostle  shrinking 
back  from  the  vague  and  shadowy  conception  of  an  "  iinclothed "  (ov  dis- 
embodied) iv/o.^  Indeed  the  literature  of  many  ])eoples — as,  for  examjile, 
of  the  ancient  Hebrews — raises  the  question  whether  they  had,  in  general, 
reached  the  conception  of  a  soul  as  sei)arable  from  the  sentient  bodily  or- 
ganism. 

In  this  discussion  certain  cases  of  mental  aberration  and  so  called  double 
consciousness  are  of  no  little  significance.  The  beginnings  of  similar  ab- 
normal conditions  are  laid  in  the  experience  of  all  of  us  whenever  we  are 
called  upon  to  say  :  "  I  feel  queer  to-day  ;  "  or,  "I  do  not  feel  a  bit  like 
myself  to-day,"  etc.  Here,  plainly,  the  Self  that  "feels  queer,"  or  "feels 
unlike  "  the  remembered  self,  is  the  sentient  bodily  organism  ;  and  it  is  im- 
plied that  a  certain  standard  of  bodily  feelings,  derived  by  memory  and 
thought  from  past  exj^erience,  is  to  be  recognized  as  constituting  the  "nor- 
mal self."  The  inmate  of  the  mad-house  who  believes  himself  to  have  been 
"  changed,"  and  to  have  become  another  than  his  former  self,  often  bases 
this  insane  belief  largely  upon  marked  changes  in  the  dominating  mixture 
of  bodily  feelings.  Or  if  such  changes  are  distinguishable  only  in  certain 
jjarts  of  the  body,  Jie  may  be,  to  his  own  jvulgment,  the  same  self,  but  his 
head  has  been  changed  for  that  of  some  animal ;  his  abdomen  has  been 
converted  into  glass,  or  some  like  change  in  some  other  bodily  member 
has  taken  place.  Few  intellects,  if  any,  could  bear  the  strain  of  a  marked 
and  continued  aberration  of  those  bodily  feelings  most  intimately  connected 
with  the  self  ;  judgment  is  almost  sure,  sooner  or  later,  to  follow  their  guid- 
ance, and — as  we  so  significantly  say — "  the  mind  gives  way."  Psychology 
could  easily  arrange  a  continuous  series  of  cases  from  those  slight  and  easily 
corrected  hallucinations  of  self  which  all  experience,  through  the  temporary 
but  involuntary  hallucinations  of  sleep,  to  the  most  persistent  and  extreme 
insane  disturbances  of  self-conscioirsness.  In  all  such  cases,  however,  it 
should  not  be  forgotten  that  there  is  a  rery  great  difference  between  a  certain 
metamorphosis  of  personalitif  and  a  complete  perversion  or  suppression  of  so- 
called  natural  self -consciousness.  The  former  is  common  enough  ;  the  latter 
involves  the  loss  of  all  mind,  properly  so  called.  For,  as  Eichet  has  said  : 
"  In  experiments  in  hypnotic  suggestion  we  can  abolish  and  metamorjihose 
the  personality  of  the  subject  without  thereby  sui^iiressing  his  Ego  ;  and  this 
proves  that  the  two  things  are  distinct."  In  fact,  all  activity  of  imagination, 
in  constructing  experience  for  ourselves  or  in  acting  the  part  of  others,  ac- 
complishes this  metamorphosis  to  a  greater  or  less  extent.  But,  as  says 
another  author  : '  "The  formation  of  an  Ego,  as  the  center  and  subject  of 
all  psychic  phenomena,  is  not  a  conventional  affair  ;  it  is  a  natural  phenom- 
enon which  is  realized  in  the  case  of  all  men." 

The  Conception  of  Self  develops  further  in  two  directions 
which  arc,  to  a  certain  extent,  mutnally  helpful  and  interdepen- 
dent, and  yet  are  also,  in  certain  other  respects,  partiallj^  indepen- 
dent and  even  opposed.   One  of  these  is  an  increasing  complexity 

1  Binet,  Psychologie  du  Raieonnement,  p.  1C2. 


528  THE   KNOWLEDGE   OF   THINGS   AND   OF   SELF 

of  the  conception  considered  as  involving  a  variety  of  external 
and  relatively  adventitious  particulars  ;  the  other  is  an  increasing 
abstractness  of  the  conception,  considered  as  a  mere,  or  "  pure," 
Subject  of  all  the  states  of  consciousness.  With  the  multitude  of 
men  the  knowledge  of  self  is  chiefly  a  matter  of  the  descriptive 
history  of  their  present  and  jjast  environment,  as  it  were,  re- 
garded as  somehow  absorbed  into,  or  helping  to  constitute,  the 
familiar  and  recognizable  picture  answering  to  the  words — "  I 
myself."  Hence,  in  part,  the  origin  of  that  psychologically  in- 
teresting sense  of  importance  which  becomes  attached  to  one's 
name,  ancestry,  date  and  place  of  birth,  residence  and  relatives, 
business  and  recreations,  etc. — all  of  which  fill  in  the  otherwise 
bare  conception  of  taho,  and  tvhaf  manner  of  one,  I  am.  Let  but 
these  things  be  dropped  out  of  memory  beyond  the  possibility 
of  recall  (as  happens  in  cases  of  general  paralysis,  for  example, 
or  of  extreme  dotage),  and  self-consciousness  relapses  into  an 
infantile,  an  almost  animal,  stage.  It  is,  therefore,  difficult  or 
impossible  to  separate,  in  the  conception  of  Self,  that  which  we 
have  had  experience  of  as  our  environment  from  that  which  we 
have  become  in  the  midst,  and  so  largely  through  the  influence 
of,  this  same  environment. 

In  connection  with  this  more  external  development  of  self- 
knowledge  the  conception  of  Self  as  the  permanent  Subject  of 
psychical  States  is  in  process  of  formation.  The  whole  course 
of  definitively  intellectual  growth  renders  the  bodily  feelings 
less  pre-eminent,  not  to  say  overpowering,  as  an  essential  con- 
dition of  such  growth.  The  j^rocesses  of  ideation,  of  thought, 
and  of  the  more  complex  and  refined  forms  of  feeling,  do  not  ad- 
mit of  definite  localization,  or  even  of  that  obscure  attribution 
to  the  bodily  self  which  the  intra-organic  sensibilities  require. 
Yet  all  these  so-called  intellectual  activities  not  only  have  their 
objective  reference  but  also  their  aspect  of  feeling  ;  they  are 
felt  thoughts,  etc.  On  the  other  hand,  it  belongs  to  the  very 
nature  of  knowledge,  as  a  development  attained  by  intellectual 
life,  to  involve  the  belief  in  reality.  A  "  Thing  "  as  known  is  not 
a  mere  bundle  of  sensations,  images,  and  inferences  ;  it  is  a  be- 
ing to  which  attributes  are  ascribed.  Every  one's  primary  bod- 
ily self  therefore  becomes  self-known  as  such  a  "  Thing-being," 
the  subject  of  passive  and  active  experiences  of  a  peculiar  kind. 
But  consciously  discriminated  processes  of  ideation,  thought, 
and  non-sensuous  feelings,  can  no  more  float  mid-air,  as  mere  ob- 
jective pictures,  than  can  the  coarser  and  more  sensuous  bodily 
self-feelings.  It  is  natural  and  inevitable,  then,  that  the  intellect 
should  form  the  conception  of  a  Self,  which  is  a  real  being,  a 


THE   SENTIENT   BODILY    SELF  529 

subject  also  of  all  such  iion-l)0(lily  states.  This  is  rendered  ijos. 
sible  by  the  same  kind  of  abstraction,  freeing?  of  ideas,  compar- 
ison, thinkiu.c:,  and  naming,  which  renders  possible  the  knowl- 
edg"e  of  things.  Such  consciousness,  in  the  form  of  a  concei^tion 
of  being-  a  "  mind,"  or  "  soul  " — a  real  subject  of  psychical  iiroc- 
esses — is  at  first  vague  and  titful ;  nor  does  it  ever  imply  any 
special  faculty  for  its  attainment.  It  is,  however,  a  necessary 
development,  to  some  extent,  of  all  human  intellectual  life. 

§  14.  From  the  very  first  the  more  interior  sense-consciousness  of  the 
bodily  self  is  accompanied,  and  supported  or  corrected,  by  external  percej^- 
tion,  memoiy,  and  thought,  with  reference  to  the  character  and  history  of 
such  self.  The  child  forms  a  picture  by  perception  of  himself,  as  the  eye 
and  the  hand  exjjlore  one  member  after  another;  and  as  the  whole  visible 
body  appears  in  a  mirror,  or  is  known  by  synthesis  of  all  the  appropriate 
skin-  and  muscle-sensations.  Marked  and  abrupt  changes  in  this  picture  by 
external  perception  produce  a  shock  to,  and  sometimes  an  important  modi- 
fication of,  the  consciousness  of  self.  Even  adults  say,  after  a  severe  ill- 
ness :  "  Why,  how  changed  I  am,"  with  more  or  less  of  a  feeling  of  disturb- 
ance to  their  conception  of  personality.  Those  proud  of  their  personal 
beauty,  when  it  is  lost,  often  show  a  profoundly  modified  self-consciousness. 
But  even  more  influential,  perhaps,  is  tlie  jihysical  and  social  environment. 
Those  who  travel  for  the  first  time  in  Oriental  countries  are  often  somewhat 
more  than  merely  amazed  at  the  external  diflferences  of  custom  and  scenery. 
They  seem  to  need  to  pinch  themselves  to  make  sure  they  are  not  dreaming  ; 
they  recount  their  own  names  and  histories  in  order  to  "realize"  who  they 
are.  Indeed,  ignorant  and  easily  unbalanced  persons  may  suffer  a  nearly 
total  change  in  their  prevalent  mode  of  self-consciousness  by  being  suddenly 
transferred  to  totally  changed  surroundings.  Thus  Delbojuf  '  tells  the  story 
of  the  cobbler  of  Liege,  who,  having  been  captured  by  the  monks  of  a  mon- 
astery near  which  he  had  lain  down  in  a  drunken  fit,  awoke  to  find  himself 
bathed,  shaved,  afflicted  with  tonsure,  clothed  in  monk's  garb,  couched  in  a 
cell,  and  surrounded  by  "the  brethren,"  who  i:)resented  their  compliments 
and  asked  eagerly  as  to  his  health.  After  struggling  with  the  confusion 
thus  produced  in  his  conception  of  himself,  the  poor  wretch  finally  said  : 
"  Go  to  the  foot  of  the  bridge  and  see  if  Gilles  the  cobbler  is  in  his  shop  ; 
if  he  is  not,  I  am  he  ;  but  if  he  is,  may  the  devil  get  me  if  I  know  who  I 
am."  This  same  psychological  truth  Shakespeare  illustrates  in  his  "  Tam- 
ing of  the  Shrew,"  by  the  confusion  of  self-knowledge  which  he  rein-esents 
as  wrought,  through  total  change  of  circumstance,  in  Christopher  Sly. 

An  important  part  of  that  which  is  originally  external,  but  becomes  an 
almost  essential  part  of  the  Self— especially  in  the  case  of  minds  of  a  low 
order  of  intellectual  development — is  the  Jiaine.  For  "  the  name  is  not 
worn  as  a  dress,"  said  Gothe,  "but  grows  on  to  us  layer  upon  layer,  like 
our  skin."  Hence  men  of  savage  tiibes  fear  to  have  their  names  tampered 
with,  as  they  also  fear  to  have  their  pictures  taken  ;  for  somewhat  important 
belonging  to  the  ego  resides  in  the  name.     Volkmann  '  has  remarked  that 

1  Le  Sommeil  et  les  Reves,  p.  8C  f.  '  Lehrbuch  d.  Psychologic,  11.,  p.  171  f . 

34 


V 


530  THE   KNOWLEDGE   OF   THINGS    AND   OF   SELF 

certain  savage  tribes  change  the  name  of  a  sick  cliild  ;  and  that  calling  an 
intelligent  animal  persistently  by  one  name  would  seem  to  tend  toward  an 
obscure  development  of  self-consciousness.  Literature  and  daily  observa- 
tions are  full  of  illustrations  of  the  effects  also  upon  self-consciousness  of 
changes  in  physical  and  social  surroundings.  Indeed,  how  could  it  be 
otherwise  ;  for  what  I  know  myself  to  be  is  largely  summed  up  in  my  knowl- 
edge of  my  life-history,  and  this  is  no  real  affair  except  as  it  has  had  a  con- 
tinuously traceable  environment.  When  the  man  proud  of  bis  ancestry  first 
learns  that  he  is  illegitimate,  or  the  rich  man  fails  in  business  and  moves  into 
a  mean  house  and  takes  rnp  a  wholly  different  employment,  or  the  triisted 
bank-officer  finds  himself  in  the  felon's  cell,  or  the  father  recently  sur- 
rounded by  a  family  is  bereft  and  lonely,  the  changes  induced  in  the  con- 
sciousness and  estimate  of  self  are  apt  to  be  most  profound.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  just  those  whose  consciousness  and  estimate  of  self  have  been 
most  directed  toward  the  reality  and  worth  of  the  higher  mental  life  who 
are  least  affected  by  sudden  and  great  changes  in  external  surroundings. 

I  15.  The  act  of  so  constituting  the  total  process  of  consciousness  as  that 
this  process  shall  be  both  considered  as  an  object  of  consciousness  (a  s/af<-) 
and  also  referred  to  the  subject  of  consciousness  as  its  action  or  suffering 
(m>/  state),  offers  a  perpetual  imzzle  to  psychology.  The  facts  must  not  be 
denied  or  overlooked,  whether  the  puzzle  itself  can  be  solved  or  not.  When 
any  act  of  so-called  self-consciousness  is  expressed  by  saying,  "I  am  im- 
mediately aware  (/  hioir)  that  I  am  i^erceiving,  remembering,  thinking, 
or  purposing,"  it  is  not  meant  simply  to  affirm  the  existence  of  a  state  of 
perceiving,  etc.;  it  is  meant  also  to  affirm  the  attribution  of  this  state  (or 
rather  process  of  consciousness)  to  a  subject,  whose  it  is.  Developed  self- 
consciousness  further  implies  the  conviction,  that  the  subject  (Did  the  object  are  re- 
lated as  a  being  is  related  to  one  of  its  many  states.  Psychology  even  of  the 
most  barely  descriptive  sort,  and  however  careful  to  avoid  metaphysics  or 
theory  of  knowledge  (not  to  say  so-called  "psychology  without  a  soul") 
cannot  overlook  the  significance  of  this  fact  of  self-consciousness,  as  such. 
We  have,  however,  already  sufficiently  located  the  points  of  inexplicable  mys- 
tery ;  they  all  belong  to  the  nature  of  knowledge  and  of  its  development  ; 
the  mystery  of  self-consciousness  is  only  the  mystery  of  knowledge,  which 
is  essentially  the  same  whether  its  object  be  so-called  "things"  or  the  so- 
called  "  self." 

The  more  interior  development  of  self-consciousness  scarcely  needs  to 
be  traced  with  great  detail.  The  processes  of  ideation,  as  differenced  bv 
discriminating  consciousness,  are  themselves  made  objects  of  abstraction  and 
generalization,  and  given  a  name  ;  they  thus  serve  as  the  basis  for  the  con- 
ception of  "  that-which-ideates  " — of  "  myself  as  having  the  ideas."  This  in- 
volves the  focusing  of  attention  upon  these  processes,  the  formation  of  an 
abstract  idea  of  what  they  are,  the  distinguishing  of  each  particular  recur- 
rent process  as  the  same  in  character  but  differing  as  to  place  in  the  time- 
series.  This  also  implies  that  belief  which  makes  it  impossible  for  us  to  re- 
gard our  psychoses  as  objects  of  knowledge  uncorrelated  with  that  being 
whoso  states  they  are.  The  fact,  however,  that — as  in  cases  of  liallncina- 
lion  and  dream-life — cei'tain  proces.ses  of  ideation  may  be  assigned,  not  to 
self  as  my  states,  but  to  things  as  their  states,  and  the  fact  that  ideation  enters 


THE  THINKING   AND   AVILLING   SELF  531 

into  all  sense-perception,  prove  that  the  question  wlietber  any  particular 
object  of  knowledge  shall  appear,  as  of  things,  or  of  self,  is  one  which  the 
mind  must  learn  to  decide.  For  it  is,  so  to  speak,  the  way  in  which  the 
particular  presentations  in  the  stream  of  consciousness  fuse  with  the  total 
character  of  the  stream  that  determines  whether  they  shall  be  known  as 
external  objects  or  as  states  of  the  so-called  self. 

It  is,  hoii-erer,  as  a  thinking  and  willing  being  that  I  Anew  myself  as  most 
clearly  and  utimislakably  differenced  from,  all  external  tilings.  My  images  of 
things,  though  mental,  are  etfective  in  consciousness  for  determining  atten- 
tion externally,  according  as  they  are  concretely  life-like  or  not.  But  the 
l^aler,  more  abstract,  more  truly  conceptual,  the  content  of  consciousness  be- 
comes, the  less  possible  is  it  to  regard  the  state  of  consciousness  as  other 
than  my  own  activity,  the  mode  of  my  thinking  self.  The  mind  that  feels 
itself  thinking,  knows  itself  to  be,  and  to  be  active,  in  its  thoughts.  We 
may,  indeed,  objectify  our  thoughts,  and  say,  with  the  Idealist,  "  There  is 
nothing  real  but  thought ; "  but  we  cannot  attach  any  meaning  to  such  a 
declaration  without  understanding  it  also  to  affirm  the  reality  of  the  thinker 
whose  are  the  thoughts.  And,  while  it  is  true  that  acts  of  conation  which 
result  in  intense  bodily  reactions  tend  to  emphasize  the  bodily  self,  it  is  also 
true  that  such  complex  deeds  of  will  as  choice,  planning,  and  conducting 
trains  of  thought,  cannot  be  ascribed  to  any  other  subject  than  this  most 
interior  Self.  It  is  as  self-active  and  as  aware  of  this  activity — in  the  mean- 
ing of  these  words  already  sufficiently  explained — that  this  most  interior 
Self  is  most  immediately  known.  On  the  basis  of  these  experiences  there 
is  formed  a  concei)tion  of  "Myself "as  controlling,  mastering,  and  under- 
standing both  myself  and  external  things. 

Further,  the  influence  of  conscience,  and  of  all  the  josthetical  and  relig- 
ious sentiments  is  important  in  developing  the  consciousness  of  self.  The 
child  knows  itself  in  a  new  and  intellectually  quickening  way  when  the 
sense  of  responsibility  is  once  thoroughly  aroused.  Indeed,  it  is  largely 
because  man  is  trained  to  feel  that  consequences  dejiend  upon,  not  only 
what  he  does  but  also  upon  what  he  even  thinks  and  feels,  that  his  knowl- 
edge of  Self  far  surpasses  the  bounds  within  which  the  self-consciousness 
of  the  animals  is  limited.  Nay,  more,  it  is  this  etliical  self-consciousness 
which  largely  constitutes  his  claim  to  be  the  only  truly  .se//"-conscious  of  the 
animals.  To  be  ashamed  of  one's  self,  grieved  at  one's  self,  stirred  by  the 
sense  of  one's  duty,  or  one's  improved  or  lost  opportunity — in  brief,  to  have 
the  "  feeling  of  the  ought"  and  the  feelings  of  moral  approbation  and  dis- 
approbation— is  to  have  one's  eyes  opened  widely  to  the  reality  and  signifi- 
cance of  being  a  "  Self." 

Finally,  it  is  by  complex  synthesis  of  jnclg-raents,  based  on 
manifold  experiences  converging-  to  one  conception — the  result- 
ant of  many  acts  of  memory,  imagination,  reasoning,  and  nam- 
ing— that  the  Knowledge  of  the  Self  as  a  Unitary  Being  is  at- 
tained. The  self  that  I  thus  come  to  know  is  regarded  as  the 
one  subject  of  all  the  states  of  consciousness ;  whether  they  be 
states  of  knowledge,  of  feeling,  or  of  willing,  and  whether  they 


532  THE   KNOWLEDGE   OF   THINGS    AND    OF    SELF 

be  known  prcsentatively,  as  here  and  now,  objects  of  self- con- 
sciousness, or  remembered  or  imag-ined  as  states  of  the  past,  oi 
conjectured  as  possible  states  to  be  existent  in  future  time.  1 
thus  become  known  to  myself  as  both  real  and  logical  subject  of 
all  the  states  in  the  ceaselessly  flowing-  stream  of  consciousness. 
This  is  the  final  and  supreme  achievement  of  self-knowledge. 
But  this  knowledge  can  never,  of  course,  be  other  than  itself  a 
process  of  conscious  mental  life,  attained  as  the  result  of  a  de- 
velopment. In  one  and  the  same  act  the  mind  mahes  itself  the 
object  of  its  self-knowledge  and  believes  in  the  real  being  of  that 
rohich  it  creates  as  its  own  object ;  and  then  it  passes  into  other 
states  of  knowledge  that  dissolve  this  unique  creation  by  turning 
the  attention  to  external  things. 

It  belongs  especially  to  the  theory  of  knowledge  and  to  the 
philosophy  of  the  mind  to  discuss  the  nature  and  validity  of 
this  kuoAvledge  of  Self  as  one  real  being — the  subject  of  all  the 
different  states,  the  subject  of  a  life-history  and  of  a  course  of 
development.  Psychology  can  only  x^resent  this  knowledge  as 
being  itself  the  comi3lex  resultant  of  all  those  activities  which 
enter  into  the  development  of  knowledge.  Such  a  self-con- 
sciousness, however,  includes  far  more  than  what  we  are  imme- 
diately aware  of  ourselves  as  being  ;  it  is  highly  abstract  and 
theoretical,  so  to  speak  ;  it  is  conceptual,  as  expressive  of  many 
trains  of  reasoning.  The  foundation  on  which  it  rests  is  the  total 
experience  of  mind  with  itself.  The  fundamental  fact  here  is,  as 
Dr.  Ward  has  said,^  a  "  certain  objective  continuum  forming  the 
background  or  basis  to  the  relatively  distinct  presentations  that 
are  elaborated  out  of  it." 

AVhat,  we  may  ask,  actually  takes  place  when  I  try  to  become 
conscious  of  myself  as  one  really  existent  being  1  I  may  come 
to  such  self-consciousness  in  one  of  two  principal  ways ;  but  in 
either  case  I  must  think;  T  must  by  judgment  relate,  or  ascribe, 
somewhat  to  that  which  I  call  mys(>lf.  In  the  most  nearly  "  im- 
mediate "  acts  of  developed  self-knowledge  I  find  myself  en- 
deavoring to  grasp  together,  in  an  act  of  judgment,  a  certain 
dark  and  confused  complex  of  ideas  and  feelings,  with  points 
perhaps  of  more  definite  lucid  mental  representation  ;  and  mean- 
while thinking  the  projiosition  that  tJiey  are  mine.  But  what  is 
this  "  we,"  whose  are  the  ideas  and  feelings  that  constitute  the 
present  content  of  consciousness  ?  The  answer  to  this  question 
can  be  given  only  by  another  similar  act  of  self-knowhnlge. 

Or  again  tlu^  (juestion,  What  am  I  to  mj'solf,  as  one  real  be- 
ing distinguished  from  all  other  beings? — may  be  answered  in  a 

'  Article  Psychology,  Encyc.  Brit.,  p.  42. 


THE   UNITY    OF    SELF  533 

more  objective  and  historical  fashion.  I  may  emphasize  in  my 
thiiikiu^ir,  not  only  the  conviction  that  I  am  noio  one  feeling, 
thinkin<2f,  willing-,  being,  but  that  I  Jiace  hem  one  and  the  same, 
since  I  began  to  be  at  all.  Here,  of  course,  I  rely  upon  memory 
to  inform  me  as  to  what  I  "  have  been,"  psychically,  in  the  past. 
I  know  myself  as  one  and  the  same  to  myself,  because  I  can 
trace  in  memory  something  like  the  continuity  of  a  life-history. 
Such  self-knowledge,  it  has  truly  been  said,  may  be  at  once  the 
richest  and  the  poorest  of  all  forms  of  conceptual  knowledge — 
including,  as  it  docs,  in  its  varieties,  the  peculiarities  of  race, 
temperament,  constitution,  social  position,  and  the  retreating  or 
advancing  bodily  basis,  differences  in  stages  of  intellectual  de- 
velopment, and  various  other  like  considerations. 

I  16.  Few  subjects  in  psychology  have  been  treated  in  more  unsatisfactoi-y 
fashion  than  the  nature  of  self-consciousness  and  of  the  developed  form  of 
self-knowledge  which  results  in  the  view  that  the  soul  is  an  entity  separable 
from  the  body.'  On  the  one  baud,  we  are  told  that  "  the  unity  of  the  Ego, 
in  both  its  earlier  and  its  later  condition,  is  no  other  than  that  of  a  river  in 
which  one  wave  follows  another  and  mirrors  its  motion."  The  attempt  has 
even  been  made  to  resolve  the  entire  conception  chiefly  into  tactual  and 
muscular  sensations  obscurely  localized  in  the  region  of  the  head,  etc. !  On 
the  other  hand,  it  may  be  claimed  that  all  "self-consciousness  is  the  recog- 
nition of  one's  own  essence  as  that  of  a  really  existent  and  independently 
acting  force."  The  psychology  which  underlies  the  current  systems  of  so- 
called  "natural  theology"  would  make  the  self-identity,  spirituality,  and 
real  unity  of  the  soul  matters  of  immediate  and  indubitable  "  envisage- 
ment "  by  eveiy  human  being.  How  far  from  the  truth  of  psychological 
fact,  in  both  directions,  are  these  two  classes  of  extreme  views,  Ave  hope  our 
previous  discussion  has  made  sufficiently  evident.  There  can  be  no  doubt, 
on  the  one  hand,  that  every  human  being  both  knows  and  thinks  of  himself 
as  something  quite  difi"erent  from  a  mere  flowing  stream  of  consciousness,  or 
a  succession  of  states,  "some  of  which  mirror  other  previous  states,"  etc. 
So  shabby  a  psychological  theory  needs  only  to  be  taken  into  the  presence 
of  any  sturdy  child's  consciousness  in  order  to  be  driven  out  of  the  field. 
On  the  other  hand,  not  the  most  highly  sublimated  philosophic  self-con- 
sciousness can  find  within  itself  all  that  the  current  theology  has  tried  to  vin- 
dicate, without  argument,  by  its  misleading  appeals  to  self-consciousness. 

[On  the  psychology  of  Belief  and  Knowledge,  the  following  works  may  be  consulted  : 
James:  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  II.,  xxi.  Bain  :  The  Emotions  and  the  Will,  p. 
2(lf.  ,215f.  Ward:  Article  Psychology,  Encyc.  Brit.  SuU}- :  Illusions  ;  and  The  Human 
Mind,  I.,  p.  4So  f.  Taine:  De  LTntelligence,  I.,  ii.,  chap.  i.  Lotze  :  Microcosmus,  I.,  p. 
(>40  f.  HiiftVling  :  Outlines  of  Psychology,  V.  D.  Hamilton  :  Lectures  on  Logic,  xxvii. 
Volkmaun:  Lehrhuch  d.  Psychologie,  II.,  §  IO.t  f. .  and  11 7  f.  Horwicz  :  Psychologische 
Analysen,  ii.,  1  (Was  ist  Dcnken  V).  Lipps  :  Grundtatsachcn  d.  Seelcnlebens,  Abschnitt, 
iv.  On  Self-consciousness,  besides  the  references  at  the  end  of  Chap.  III.,  see  also  the  fol- 
lowing :  Geors;e  :  Lehrbuch  d.  Psychologic,  p.  400  f .  Fortlage :  Beitriige  zur  Psychologic, 
p.  15()  f.  DelbcEuf:  P.sychologie  comme  Science  naturelle,  p.  12  f.  Paulhan  :  L'Activite' 
mentale.  p.  2'.t~  f.  Rabier :  Ps^xhologie,  p.  52  f.  Lazarus:  Das  Leben  d.  Seele,  ii.,  p. 
41  f.     Tiberghien:  Science  de  I'Ame,  Introduction.     Herbart:  Psychologic,  I.,  p.  1  TO  f.j 

'  Comp.  Volkmann  :  Lehrbuch  d.  Psychol(%ie,  H.,  p.  ICS  f. 


CHAPTEE  XXIII. 

THE  EMOTIONS  AND   PASSIONS 

We  turn  now  from  the  development  of  the  predominatingly- 
intellectual  side  of  mental  life  to  consider  the  origin  and  growth 
of  faculties  belonging  to  the  affective  aspect  of  consciousness. 
In  general,  however,  the  formation  of  the  more  complex  forms 
of  feeling  implies  all  that  has  hitherto  been  discovered  respect- 
ing the  growth  of  knowledge.  Indeed  the  dej^endence  of  the 
higher  emotions  and  sentiments  ui3on  the  intellectual  processes 
of  memory,  imagination,  and  thinking,  is  obvious  and  imme- 
diate. For  while  it  is  true  that  the  simpler  and  more  primitive 
forms  of  feeling  do  not  necessarily  occur  "  in  view  of  "  any  ob- 
ject, the  same  thing  is  not  true  of  the  more  developed  forms. 
Of  them  one  must  doubtless  say — at  least,  as  a  rule — "  I  feel 
thus  and  so  because  I  perceive,  remember,  imagine,  or  think, 
thus  and  so."  But  even  in  the  case  of  these  emotions  and  senti- 
ments, any  excessive  increase  in  intensity  or  massiveness,  so  to 
speak,  tends  to  extinguish  the  intellectual  aspect  of  conscious- 
ness altogether.  Thus  the  exceedingly  angry  or  terror-stricken 
man,  or  the  lover  of  art  all  absorbed  in  the  flow  of  his  own 
affective  life,  may  almost  completely  cease  to  have  "objective" 
consciousness.  It  is — as  we  have  seen — for  valid  physiological 
and  psychological  reasons  that  the  intense  and  full-flowing 
stream  of  conscious  feeling  tends  to  break  over  into  the  inde- 
terminate field  of  the  so-called  "unconscious."  Thus  the  "self 
is  lost "  through  excessive  indulgence  in  the  most  subjective  of 
its  own  faculties. 

The  bewildering  complexity  of  the  feelings,  and  the  difti- 
culty  (or  even  imiDOssibility)  of  classifying  them  satisfactorily'-, 
has  already  been  suflicieutly  noticed  (see  p.  179).  It  adds  little 
or  nothing  of  value  to  the  science  of  the  affective  i)lH'nomona  of 
consciousness  to  treat  with  prolixity  and  fidelitj^  to  details  all 
the  different  emotions,  passions,  and  sentiments.  No  classifica- 
tion here — not  even  the  broad  one  we  have  adopted — is  a  matter 
of  hard  and  fixed  lines.  Snhstantially  ihe  same  mefiial  state,  so 
far  as  distinctions  of  affeciire  qualify  are  concerned,  may  he  ccdled 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE   FEELINGS  535 

diraply  a  feeling,  or  an  emotion,  or  a  j^ctf^sion,  or  a  sentiment. 
Moreover,  tlio  subdivisions  between  individual  forms  of  feeling- 
grouped  under  these  classes  are  difficult  to  establish  in  definite 
fashion.  For  example,  the  distinction  between  certain  forms  of 
agreeable  feeling-  and  a'sthetical  sentiment,  or  between  certain 
aesthetical  sentiments  and  allied  ethical  sentiments,  or  between 
sentiments  which  may  properly  be  called  intellectual  and  cer- 
tain so-called  "feelings  of  self,"  is  scarcely  a  fast  and  unalterable 
distinction.  But  the  main  purpose  of  psychological  science  is, 
not  to  divide  and  subdivide  the  feelings,  but  to  show  on  what 
conditions,  and  by  what  stages,  the  life  of  feeling  develojjs  as 
an  integral  part  of  man's  entire  mental  development. 

In  treating  of  the  Development  of  Feeling  and  the  Formation 
of  the  Emotions  and  Sentiments,  four  thing-s  (four  "  variables  ") 
have  chiefly  to  be  taken  into  the  account.  These  are  (1)  the 
varying  intensities  of  the  primitive  forms  of  feeling  as  they  are 
combined  in  the  emotions  and  sentiments.  All  feeling,  like  all 
sensation  (and,  as  we  have  already  seen — p.  195 — in  partial  de- 
pendence upon  varying  intensity  of  sensation),  is  capable  of 
being  varied  in  quantity.  This  is  most  obviously  true  of  those 
feelings  which  are  distinctly  pleasurable  or  painful.  There  are 
no  mental  phenomena,  as  such,  whose  changes  in  intensity  we 
observe  with  more  interest  and  more  assurance  of  a  correct, 
estimate  than  our  own  pleasures  and  pains.  But  feelings, 
even  considered  apart  from  their  pleasure  pain  characteristic, 
seem  to  vary  in  amount ;  for  example,  one  is  more  or  less  sur- 
])rised,  expectant,  fearful,  etc.  But  (2)  in  connection  with,  and 
largely  in  dependence  u])on,  their  variation  in  intensity,  the 
difterent  forms  of  feeling  are  all  more  or  less  modified  by  what 
we  may  call  their  "  bodily  resonance."  The  explanation  of  this 
characteristic  belongs  to  the  essential  doctrine  of  the  emotions 
and  passions ;  it  will  therefore  come  later  on.  It  is  enough  to 
say  now  that  as  our  feelings  change  in  character,  and  especially 
as  they  rise  and  fall  in  intensity,  resulting  changes  of  a  physical 
sort  occur  in  almost  the  entire  bodily  organism.  These  physio- 
logical changes  themselves  react  upon  consciousness  and  further 
modify  its  feeling-content.  Thus  we  may  say  with  no  unmean- 
ing figure  of  speech,  that  every  feeling — when  it  reaches  a  cer- 
tain grade  of  intensity—"  resounds,"  with  its  influence,  through 
the  various  systems  of  organs  (vasomotor,  respiratory,  muscular, 
and  tactual,  digestive  as  well  as  cerebro-spinal)  to  the  remotest 
parts  of  the  body.  But  now,  in  turn,  this  very  "bodily  reso- 
nance "  is  itself,  7iot  only  or  chiefly  hioicn  as  a  certain  objective 
conditiou  of  the  body,  hvt  also  felt  as  a  modification  of  the  feel- 


53G  THE   EMOTIONS   AND   PASSIONS 

ing-  which  produced  it.  And,  filially,  each  particular  form  of 
feeling-,  simpler  or  more  complex,  has  its  own  particular  set  of 
"resonances"  which  it  produces;  each  form,  therefore,  feels  in  a 
way  peculiar  to  itself  (that  is,  as  a  natural  and  normal  support 
and  streng-thener)  the  reactionary  effect  of  these  resonances. 

(3)  The  dependence  of  feeling-  on  ideation  and  thought  is  such 
as  to  cause  new  varieties  of  feeling-  to  emerge  in  consciousness 
as  certain  ideas,  or  forms  of  imagination  and  judgment,  are  at- 
tained. This  intimate  relation  between  the  kinds  of  complex  af- 
fective phenomena  and  the  course  of  the  ideas  operates  in  two 
directions.  On  the  one  hand,  some  emotions  and  sentiments 
seem,  by  their  very  nature,  to  be  connected  in  origin  with  cer- 
tain unique  forms  of  ideation. '  Such  a  relation  may  be  said  to 
exist,  for  example,  between  the  idea  of  the  "  right  "  and  the  feel- 
ing of  obligation,  the  idea  of  "  beauty  "  and  all  truly  lesthetical 
sentiment,  the  conception  of  "  truth  "  in  abstract  form  and  that 
passionate  devotion  to  it  which  some  men  exhibit.  On  the  other 
hand,  modifications  in  intensity  of  the  processes  of  ideation,  and 
the  new  and  higher  combinations  of  these  processes,  react  upon^ 
the  feeling-s  to  such  an  extent  as  to  produce  differences  in  kind.  |\ 
When  the  intensity  of  any  form  of  feeling  is  much  increased, 
something  like  the  effect  which  we  have  already  noticed  in  the 
case  of  the  sensory-motor  mechanism  takes  place  in  the  trains 
of  associated  ideas.  Imagination  and  thought  are  modified — 
quickened,  impeded,  or  disturbed — ^by  a  rise  in  quantity  of  feel- 
ing, and  this  modification  of  the  intellectual  processes  in  turn 
reacts  upon  the  feeling.  It  may  even  change  its  character  so  as 
to  make  it  seem  a  new  kind.  Obviously,  emotions  and  senti- 
ments like  jjatriotism,  enthusiasm  for  humanity,  love  for  any 
form  of  scientific  pursuit,  are  dependent  for  their  very  existence 
ujoon  a  complex  ideational  and  conceptual  development. 

Yet  again  (4),  increase  in  complexity  of  the  elements  whicli 
enter  into  the  higher  manifestations  of  feeling-  itself  necessarily 
results  in  producing-  new  kinds  of  feelings.  By  combination  of 
the  more  elementary  affective  phenomena  an  almost  indefinite 
variety  of  emotions  and  sentiments  results.  Here,  as  in  all  cases 
of  truly  mental  synthesis,  the  elements  lose  their  distinctive  and 
recognizable  characteristics  in  consciousness  as  they  merf^e  in 
the  total  stream  of  conscious  life.  Thus  many  so-called  "  con- 
flicts of  feeling,"  or  "  states  of  divided  feeling,"  become  some- 
thing more  than  a  rapid  ]iassage  from  one  form  of  elementary 
emotion  to  another  contradic^tory  form.  The  feeling-  of  the  con- 
flict, the  fe(>liiig  of  being-  divided  (or,  as  we  say,  "torn"  with 
feeling,  or  "  drawn  "  in  two  directions)  is  itself  a  new  form  of  af- 


I 


I 


GIIOWTII   BY    COMPLEXITY  537 

fective  phenomenon.  It  is  also  a  form  of  emotion  or  sentiment 
that  admits  of  various  subdivisions — for  exam])le,  aecordiii*^-  to 
the  character  of  the  feelings  between  which  the  conflict  takes 
place  (love  and  hatred,  grief  and  joy,  anger  and  sympathy,  etc.). 
Besides  such  marked  cases  of  complexity,  in  the  form  of  conflict, 
it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  almost  all  mental  states  which 
are  marked  by  strong  feeling  in  the  case  of  developed  minds  are 
mixed  feelings.  Indeed,  it  might  almost  be  said  that  all  the  so- 
called  higher  sentiments  and  emotions  are  somewhat  indefinitely 
"  mixed." 

I  1.  The  foregoing  remarks  emphasize  the  reasons,  already  considered, 
for  the  difficulty  of  classifying  satisfactorily  the  aflfective  phenomena  of  hu- 
man consciousness.  "What  ai)plies  to  the  elementary  and  simpler  forms  of 
such  phenomena  applies  a  fortiori  to  those  later  developed  and  more  com- 
plex. Indeed,  certain  emotions  and  sentiments,  reckoned  typical  of  human- 
ity in  the  higher  stages  of  civilization  and  culture,  do  not  show  themselves 
at  all,  or  show  themselves  only  very  faintly  and  unsteadily,  in  the  lower 
stages  of  civilization  ;  or,  even  in  the  case  of  many  individuals  in  the  most 
civilized  communities.  For  example,  how  comparatively  few  ever  feel  what 
ethics  calls  "general  benevolence,"  or  the  unselfish  "sense  of  justice,"  or 
the  pure  "love  of  God."  So,  too,  multitudes  never  have  exj^erience  of 
paternal  or  maternal  affection,  of  the  love  of  home,  of  jDatriotism,  or  of  real 
intellectual  curiosity,  or  of  ajsthetical  admiration.  When  we  speak  of  men 
"  without  conscience,"  we  are  not  so  far  from  a  truthful  description  of  num- 
bers in  all  classes  of  society. 

Two  extreme  courses  in  treating  the  psychology  of  the  emotions  and  sen- 
timents seem  to  us  almost  equally  disappointing.  On  the  one  hand,  a  de- 
tailed descriptive  history  and  minute  classification  of  these  phenomena — 
liketliat,  for  example,  of  Professor  Bain,  has  little  scientific  interest  or  value. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  attempt  to  deduce  all  forms  of  feeling  (as  Mr.  Sjjen- 
cer  does),  in  a  semi-biological  fashion,  from  pleasurable  and  painful  sensa- 
tion, appears  far  too  narrow  to  cover  the  whole  wide  actual  realm.  The 
four  above-mentioned  classes  of  influences  which  chiefly  effect  the  develop- 
ment of  the  higher  forms  of  feeling  should  be  constantly  kept  in  mind. 
Thus  Ave  may  ask  four  questions  concerning  all  emotions  and  sentiments  : 

(1)  What  particular  forms  of  elementary  feeling  have  been  here  combined  ? 

(2)  With  what  intensity  have  they  severally  ojierated  to  produce  the  given 
quantity  of  emotional  excitement  ?  (3)  What  has  been  the  modifying  influ- 
ence of  the  induced  "  bodily  resonance  ?  "  And  (4)  what  the  influence  from 
the  initiating  of  changes  in  the  character  of  the  mental  train  ?  For  every 
actual  emotion  or  sentiment  has  its  own  characteristic  complexity,  intensity, 
bodily  resonance,  and  ideational  background,  as  it  were.  These  differ  greatly 
in  every  individual,  and  in  dependence  upon  age,  sex,  temiierament,  dis- 
position, and  stage  of  culture. 

?  2.  It  follows  from  the  foregoing  points  of  view  that  any  of  the  element- 
ary forms  of  feeling  may  unite  with  others  into  a  new  variety  of  the  more 
complex  foriiis.     Accordingly,   the  so-called  "  same "  emotions   and  senti- 


538  TUE   EMOTIONS   AND   PASSIONS 

ments  are  really  raucli  more  variable  in  individual  cases  than  are  those  per- 
ceptions or  thoughts  which  bear  a  common  name.  Auger,  for  example,  in 
two  men  of  diti'ereut  disjjosition  and  culture  may  be  a  quite  ditiereut  form  of 
feeling — in  one,  a  blinding  animal  emotion  ;  in  the  other,  a  fine,  strong 
sentiment  of  i:)ersonal  worthiness,  and  of  the  value  of  justice.  The  jealousy 
of  the  woman  is  in  marked  respects  unlike  that  of  the  other  sex  ;  and  one 
woman  differs  from  another  woman  in  respect  of  her  jealousy.  Thus  also 
each  of  those  forms  of  feeling  which  we  speak  of  as  belonging  to  human  nat- 
ure in  general,  under  the  influence  of  intellectual  development  and  of  grow- 
ing self-control,  may  gradually  become  a  more  and  more  refined  form  of  sen- 
timent. For  all  that  is  highest  and  holiest  in  art,  morals,  and  religion,  has 
its  roots  in  what  belongs  to  our  common  human  nature.  And  in  resi^ect  of 
his  feeling,  man  shows  his  far-reachiug  superiority  to  the  lower  animals  not 
so  much  by  the  manifestation  in  early  life  of  wholly  new  unanimal  forms,  as 
by  his  capacity  for  development  under  the  discipline  of  life.  This  truth  we 
shall  now  illustrate  by  several  particular  cases. 

A.  Anger,  as  an  impulsive  and  animal  form  of  feeling,  appears  early  and 
uniformly,  though  with  different  degrees  of  intensity  and  promptness,  in  the 
life  of  the  child.  It  appears  as  independent  of,  and  antecedent  to,  any  i^er- 
ceptions,  ideas,  or  thoughts,  which  could  give  to  it  a  reason  or  a  ground. 
Moreover,  it  is  a  form  of  feeling  which  manifests  itself  most  widely  in  nearly 
all  degrees  and  kinds  of  animal  development;  and  it  has  obvious  and  impor- 
tant relations  to  the  maintenance  of  life  and  to  the  propagation  of  the  spe- 
cies under  the  laws  of  all  such  development.  The  signs  of  this  feeling 
may  be  readily  provoked  in  the  case  of  the  average  infant  by  firmly  grasping 
and  holding  one  of  the  movable  members  of  his  body,  or  by  causing  him 
any  sudden,  strong,  and  not  overpoweringly  painful  sensation.  The  traces 
of  such  lower  animal  form  of  the  feeling  belong  to  most,  if  not  to  all,  human 
beings,  no  matter  how  refined  or  self-controlled  they  become.  Few  do  not 
feel  anger  when  their  bodily  freedom  is  impinged  upon  in  a  sudden  and  ir- 
rational manner — when,  forexamj^le,  the  too  effusive  friendly  slap  is  received 
upon  the  shoulder,  as  well  as  when  the  foot  is  struck  against  a  wayside 
stone,  or  the  servant  lets  the  door  slam  in  the  ear.  Simple  colors— like 
crimson,  green,  or  orange — may  excite  it,  through  very  obscure  processes  of 
association.  But  as  intellectual  development  proceeds,  this  emotion  be- 
comes attached,  habitually,  as  it  were,  to  certain  perceptions,  imaginations, 
or  thoughts.  And  so  we  hear  men  naively  saying,  "  I  can  never  see  that  man, 
without  getting  mad  at  him  ;  "  or,  "  I  cannot  tolerate  the  thought  of  it  with- 
out anger."  Further  refined,  however,  this  root  of  animal  passion  bears 
fruit  in  that  just  feeling  of  indignation  at  moral  evil  without  which  no  real 
ethical  development  is  possible,  and  which  often  burns  most  hotly  in  the 
truest  and  sturdiest  representatives  of  moral  culture  and  moral  progress. 

B.  Fear,  also,  is  an  animal  form  of  feeling  that  is  equally  universal,  sig- 
nificant of  heredity,  and  important  in  biological  evolution.  In  the  case  of  the 
child,  as  in  the  case  of  other  animals,  its  earliest  manifestations  do  not  de- 
pend upon  any  clear  ideation  or  thought,  much  less  upon  rational  experience 
of  the  dangerous  qualities  of  the  dreaded  object.  Indeed,  loud  sensations 
of  sound — such  as  thunder,  for  example — cause  some  children  to  cry  out  with 
a  qHiili/j/  of  tone  which  is  indicative  of  fear  rather  than  of  bodily  pain  or  of 


ANGER,  FEAK,  GRIEF,  AND   JOY  539 

anger.  Sigismuud  tells  of  a  little  girl  who  showed  fear  of  cats  (congenital  ?) 
as  early  as  the  fourteenth  week  of  life.  Champneys  observed  a  boy  of  about 
nine  mouths  old  opening  his  eyes  wide  and  beginning  to  cry,  apparently 
with  fear,  at  an  unusual  noise  in  a  distant  part  of  the  room.  At  the  same 
age  Preyer  observed  his  own  child  drawing  back  from  fear,  and  crying, 
when  a  dog  barked  at  the  nurse  who  carried  him  on  her  arm.'  Fear  at  be- 
ing put,  for  the  first  time,  in  the  sea,  fear  of  persons  in  black,  fear  of  masked 
faces,  are  early  exhibited  in  many  children.  Intellectual  develoi)ment, 
however,  in  this  case,  as  in  that  of  anger,  finally  attaches  the  emotion  to 
those  objects  which  experience  shows  to  be  causative  of  pain  or  harm ;  or 
which  imagination  pictures  in  a  way  likely  to  be  thus  active,  or  thought  con- 
cludes must  bo  so.  Vague  and  undefined  fears,  however,  belong  to  all 
stages  of  life  and  culture  ;  and  productive  and  semi-festhetical  imagination 
is  far  more  iufluontial  here  than  in  the  case  of  auger.  It  is  not  alone  in  the 
experience  of  children  or  savages  that  imagination  largely  increases  the 
sphere  filled  with  objects  of  dread.  From  the  w^retched  and  depressing  ter- 
rors of  the  worst  superstitions — whether  they  concern  ghosts  and  hobgoblins 
or  the  beings  created  by  the  lowest  forms  of  religious  credulity — we  ascend 
in  unbroken  continuity  of  intellectual  and  ethical  develoi:)meut  to  that  fear 
of  the  consequences  of  our  own  wrong-doing  which  is  necessary  to  a  high 
morality,  or  that  "  fear  of  God"  which  is  the  "  beginning  of  wisdom."  In 
all  stages  alike,  the  natural  emotion  is  softened  into  a  sentiment,  or  elevated 
to  a  rational  feeling,  by  activity  of  imagination  and  thought. 

C.  In  Grief  and  Joy  we  have  other  forms  of  feeling,  of  which  very  young 
children,  and  even  animals,  show  marked  signs,  and  which,  nevertheless,  are 
more  dependent  than  anger  or  fear  upon  perception  and  ideation  for  their  ori- 
gin as  well  as  development.  Some  semblance  of  a  feeling  of  grief,  however, 
l^ossibly  precedes  all  intellectual  apprehension  of  a  reason  for  this  feeling. 
At  any  rate,  children  of  a  certain  temperament,  on  being  subjected  to  those 
painful  repressions  of  their  bodily  organism  which  ordinarily  call  forth  signs 
of  anger  or  fear  in  other  children,  cry  out  with  a  quality  of  tone  that  seems 
to  indicate  this  emotion.  The  cry  of  pain,  the  cry  of  auger,  the  cry  of  ter- 
ror, and  the  cry  of  grief,  have  each  its  peculiar  quality.  To  snatch  from  the 
hand  of  a  child  some  bauble  that  gives  it  pleasure  will  often  elicit  a  grieved 
cry  and  expression  of  countenance.  Animals  and  very  young  children  some- 
times evince  remarkable  signs  of  this  emotion  on  missing  companions  that 
have  died  or  been  removed— even  to  the  extent  of  pining  away  under  it. 
Doubtless  in  many  of  these  cases  there  is  present  a  large  admixture  of  other 
feelings— such  as  vague  sense  of  restlessness  and  discomfort  at  changed  sur- 
roundings, feeling  of  the  disturbance  of  customary  objects  of  perception  and 
trains  of  mental  images,  etc.  But  genuine  grief  can  scarcely  be  entirely 
ruled  out  of  our  account.  This  emotion  is  not,  however,  so  fundamental 
and  universal  as  are  anger  and  fear  ;  neither  is  it  so  likely  to  arise  in  a 
inirely  unintellectual  way.  Once  originated,  few  other  emotions  are  more 
distinctive  of  one's  entire  development  of  ideation  and  thinking  than  the 
kind  and  intensity  of  one's  griefs.  In  respect  of  one's  moral  nature,  what 
one  grieves  at  in  one's  self  or  in  others  is  a  clear  indication  of  its  general 
quality. 

»  See  The  Miud  of  the  Child,  Senses  and  Intellect,  p.  164  f . 


540  THE   EMOTIONS   AND   PASSIONS 

Joy,  as  an  emotion,  is  distinguished  from  mere  jjleasure  somewhat  as 
grief  is  distinguished  from  mere  pain.  Neither  the  simpler  forms  of  pleas- 
ure, which  are  the  affective  accompaniments  of  simple  sensations,  nor  the 
(juiet  massive  i)leasures,  that  are  produced  by  favorable  bodily  conditions 
(feelings  of  comfort,  etc.)  or  by  quiet,  low-toned  mental  activity  (feelings  ac- 
companying reverie,  etc.),  seem  to  deserve  this  name.  Intensely  pleasure- 
able  states  which  have  their  basis  in  the  feeling  of  presentations  of  sense 
that  strongly  excite  memory  and  imagination,  or  of  anticipated  presentations 
of  sense,  with  the  well-known  agreeable  somatic  reaction,  are  most  proi^erly 
called  "  emotions  of  joy."  Here  again  we  find  the  early,  radical,  and  more 
Ijurely  instinctive  exhibition  of  the  emotion  in  the  barking  and  springing 
with  which  the  dog  greets  the  sight  of  his  master  taking  down  his  gun,  or 
the  glad  cry  of  the  infant  at  the  sight  of  his  nursing-bottle  or  his  favorite 
toy. 

D.  A  sort  of  animal  Astonishment,  or  wonder,  is  closely  connected  with 
fear  and  grief.  Yet  there  is  an  emotion  corresponding  to  this  word,  which 
appears  very  early  and  is  an  almost  wholly  unintellectual  feeling,  that  is 
neither  fear  nor  grief.  Preyer,'  indeed,  speaks  of  it  too  loosely  when  he  de- 
clares it  to  be  "  essentially  different  from  surprise."  The  latter  we  have  al- 
ready treated  (p.  176  f.)  as  a  primitive  form  of  feeling  called  out  by  any  new 
sensation,  especially  if  it  be  sudden  and  somewhat  intense.  But  new  im- 
pressions of  any  kind  may  create  siirprise  ;  for  this  feeling  is  ofihe  change 
in  the  sensuous  or  ideational  cui-rent  of  consciousness.  The  character  of 
our  feeling,  whether  we  call  it  surprise  or  astonishment,  is  modified  as  we 
increase  its  intensity  or  connect  it  more  closely  with  a  recognized  intellect- 
ual basis,  and  get  the  full  expression  of  the  resulting  bodily  resonance. 
AVhen  some  wholly  strange  presentation  of  sense  suddenly  occurs,  and  the 
intensity^of  the  resulting  feeling  becomes  so  great  as  j^artially  and  tempo- 
rarily to  paralyze  certain  muscles  and  to  overpower  discriminating  attention, 
we  get,  in  its  purest  form,  the  phenomenon  of  astonishment.  In  a  milder 
form  we  see  the  same  emotion  exhibited  in  the  wide-open  eyes  and  gaping 
mouth  of  the  ignorant  adult  M'hen  viewing  some  spectacle.  But  in  its  more 
refined  form  of  "  intellectual  wonder  "  it  resembles  the  emotion  or  sentiment 
which  develops  from  a  somewhat  different  root — that  is  to  say — 

E.  Curiosity,  which,  even  as  a  semi-intellectual  affair,  belongs  to  the 
lower  animals  and  to  very  young  children  generally.  Doubtless  we  should 
exaggerate,  if  we  asci'ibed  solely  or  chiefly  to  curiosity,  or  to  desire  to  ana- 
lyze and  investigate,  the  eagerness  with  which  the  infant  boy  tears  in  pieces 
his  toys,  or  the  sniffings  of  the  dog  at  every  new  object  he  encounters.  A 
certain  almost  purely  reflex  or  automatic  physiological  restlessness  and 
pleasure  in  activity  of  any  sort  lie  much  at  the  base  of  such  actions  in  young 
animals.  Let  us,  for  example,  present  any  bright  and  tinkling  thing  before 
the  eyes  of  an  infant.  It  will  not  long  satisfy  \\\m.for  ns  to  shake  the  bauble 
about  for  his  amusement ;  the  child  will  soon  stretch  out  his  hand  and  un- 
dertake to  perform  for  himself,  to  his  more  lasting  delight,  a  similar  action. 
But  when  this  "  motor  "  familiarity  is  obtained  with  the  new  object,  what 
more  remains  ?  Now  it  is  not  improbable  that,  from  the  very  first,  some 
vague  form  of  semi-intellectual  curiosity  is  mingled  with  the  activity  of  the 

1  The  Mind  of  the  Child,  Senses  and  Intellect,  p.  172  f. 


CURIOSITY,  JEALOUSY,  AND   SYMPATHY  541 

chilcl.  And  how  shall  wo  surely  distinguish  between  this  mid  intellectual 
restlessness  ?  For  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  ceaseless  craving  for 
activity  of  the  young  animal  is  itself  by  no  means  a  purely  muscular  or  phys- 
iological allair.  The  rather  is  it  partly  a  i)sychical  restlessness,  an  instinc- 
tive reaching  out  for  the  i)leasure  of  i)sychical  activity.  But  such  iwychical 
activity  is,  from  its  very  nature,  analytic  and  explanatory.  The  tendency  to 
ideate  and  to  think,  passing  with  redistributed  attention  from  one  object  to 
another,  and  pleasure  in  the  exercise  of  this  tendency,  may  be  said  to  ante- 
date any  definite  "  intellectual  curiosity."  Yet  this  mental  condition  is 
very  nearly  akin  to  intellectual  curiosity. 

To  this  must  soon  be  added  an  oxi^erience  of  certain  i)ractical  benefits 
arising  from  the  exercise  of  the  psychical  powers  in  the  mastery  of  new  ob- 
jects. A  more  truly  intellectual  curiosity  is  thus  awakened  in  necessary  and 
close  connection  with  the  pursuit  of  practical  ends.  This  efTect  transforms 
the  almost  animal  p.sychical  restlessness  into  an  important  sentiment,  and 
by  increasing  its  intensity  it  may  be  made  to  acquire  emotional  characteris- 
tics—as we  shall  see  later  on. 

F.  The  case  of  Jealousy  further  illustrates  the  correct  theory  of  the  tle- 
velopment  of  the  kinds  of  higher  feeling.  In  this  case,  however,  there 
would  seem  to  be  no  possibility  of  arousing  even  the  most  primitive  form  of 
the  feeling  without  a  basis  in  some  development  of  the  life  of  presentation 
and  ideation.  Many  of  the  lower  animals  and  very  young  children,  indeed, 
show  marked  signs  of  jealousy — as  anyone  knows  who  has  watched  the  be- 
havior of  a  favored  dog  when  his  master  is  petting  another  animal  (dog,  or 
cat,  or  even  human  child,  it  may  be).  But  here  the  intellect  is  not  inactive  ; 
the  feeling  is  not  blind,  but  rests  on  recognized  grounds,  such  as  the  per- 
ception or  imagination  of  other  objects  in  certain  suggestive  relations  to 
each  other.  Jealousy  is,  however,  a  natural  form  of  feeling  that  cannot  be 
resolved  into  any  other,  or  accounted  for  simply  as  a  modification  of  pleas- 
ure-pain produced  by  presentation  and  ideation  in  a  secondary  way.  In  the 
history  of  animal  species  it  may  well  enough  have  been,  and  to  a  certain 
large  extent  still  is,  a  necessary  factor  in  their  preservation  and  develop- 
ment. As  a  manifestation  of  instinctive  feeling  in  human  otl'spring  it  works 
in  the  direction  of  limiting  the  cherishing  parental  attention;  and  in  the 
mind  of  the  female  it  serves  as  the  warning  and  corrective  of  the  male  dis- 
position to  transgress  the  bounds  of  the  family  in  the  bestowment  of  care 
and  affection  upon  the  other  sex.  Eefined  and  controlled,  it  develops  into 
a  noble  ethical  or  resthetical  sentiment  which  .serves  as  the  safeguard  of  most 
important  interests  ;  and  in  the  sphere  of  religion,  what  would  become  of 
the  world  if  all  the  souls  "  jealous  for  God  "  were  i-emoved  from  it? 

G.  The  feeling  of  animal  Sympdtln/  is,  in  some  respects,  the  opposite  of 
the  feeling  of  animal  jealousy.  In  its  most  jn-imitive  form  it  appears  as  a 
kind  of  instinctive  outgoing  of  emotion  which  is  excited  by  the  signs  of 
emotion  in  other  beings,  especially  of  tho.se  belonging  to  the  same  species. 
There  is  very  likely  something  farther  down  than,  and  back  of,  even  this — 
of  which,  however,  it  is  difficult  for  psychology  to  give  an  account.  At  any 
rate,  waves  of  impulsive  action  that  seem  to  have  their  cause  in  the  rise  (all 
at  once  and  with  scarcely  discernible  means  of  intercommunication)  of  wide- 
spreading   common  feeling,    welling  up  out  of  the  unconscious  above  the 


Cahfo 


642  THE  EMOTIONS   AND   PASSIONS 

threshold  of  consciousuess,  are  not  uncommon  phenomena  among  the  lower 
animals.  And  in  man's  case,  all  our  most  subtle  analysis  does  not  always 
serve  to  discover  why  whole  communities  have  been  simultaneously  swayed 
with  common  emotions.  But  however  this  may  be,  the  "principle of  imita- 
tion "  is  obviously  very  powerful  in  the  excitement  and  development  of  sym- 
pathetic feeling.  We  have  already  seen  (p.  231  f.)  how  primitive  and  universal 
this  principle  is  in  the  sphere  of  bodily  movements.  But  it  was  then  re- 
marked that  the  movements,  which  originate  imitatively,  are  difficult  to 
sejoarate  from  the  existence,  at  least  in  vague  and  inchoate  form,  of  the 
ideas  and  feelings  which  the  movements  express.  Sign  and  psychosis — that 
is,  movement  significant,  and  ideation  and  feeling  signified— are  not  loosely 
correlated  ;  from  the  first,  they  are  almost  like  two  sides  of  one  and  the- 
same  mental  reality. 

It  appears,  then,  that  what  is  called  "  animal  symj^athy"  is  scarcely  to  be 
spoken  of  as  a  form  of  natural  feeling.  The  rather  is  it  a  sort  of  general  in- 
stinctive tendency  to  "  harmonize  "  consciousness,  as  it  were.  All  the  fore- 
going si^ecial  forms  of  feeling — anger,  fear,  grief,  curiosity,  and  the  like — are 
so  much  a  matter  of  human  nature,  on  its  affective  side,  that  they  exist  as 
feeling,  and  develop  in  dependence  on  ideation,  in  the  most  jDrimitive 
stages  of  mental  life.  Thus  groups  of  children  are  altogether  likely  to  get 
angry  together,  to  fear,  to  grieve,  to  wonder,  in  company.  The  more  dis- 
tinct craving  for  symjsathetic  feeling  from  one's  fellows  is  a  later  manifesta- 
tion of  mind.  It  is  ditiicult  to  say  whether  or  not  it  precedes  experience  of 
the  soothing  nature  of  pity  and  of  its  caressing  manifestations,  as  they,  to  a 
certain  small  extent  at  least,  belong  to  the  earliest  environment  of  the  hu- 
man infant.  No  doubt  the  more  intelligent  and  principled  forms  of  symjDa- 
thetic  feeling  are  dependent  upon  finding  out  the  truth  that — 

"  Fellowship  in  woe  doth  woe  assuage. 
As  palmers'  chat  makes  short  their  pilgrimage." 

The  development  of  this  manifestation  of  human  emotional  life,  however, 
belongs  especially  to  the  class  of  ethical  and  jiesthetical  sentiments. 

^3.  It  should  further  be  noted  of  all  these  forms  of  feeling  that,  in  ac- 
tual adult  experience,  they  are  seldom  experienced  excej^t  as  compoimded,  as 
it  were,  according  to  certain  relations  existing  between  them.  Certain 
kinds  of  fear,  for  examj^le,  cannot  exist  without  a  mingling  of  the  emotion 
of  anger ;  and  the  same  thing  is  tnie  of  some  states  which  we  call  grief. 
While  jealousy — as  we  might  expect  from  its  higher  ideational  character — 
rarely  fails  to  be  a  compound,  in  the  case  of  the  adult,  of  anger  and  grief, 
and  perhaps  also  fear.  T7iis  union  of  emotions  is  so  intimate  that  it  is  vot  to 
he  described  as  a  succession  of  different  ei7iotions  simph/,  but  ratlier  as  a  fusion 
of  different  primitive  emotions  in  one  complex  affective  condition. 

The  Difference  between  the  Emotions  (or  Passions)  and  the 
Sentiments  is  not  fixed  ;  it  is  rather  a  variable  resultant  from 
the  four  conditions,  already  maintained,  which  enter  into  all  de- 
velopment of  the  hi<^her  and  more  complex  feelings.  In  sfeneral, 
great  intensity  and  consequent  strong  "  bodily  resonance  "  are 


DIFFERENCE   OF   EMOTIONS   AND   SENTIMENTS  543 

characteristic  of  the  emotions  and  passions.  A  nuuh  lower  in- 
tensity, and  a  far  Lu\q-t>r  admixture  of  infiiience  from  ideal  con- 
siderations, are  t-liaracteristic  of  the  sentiments.  It  follows  also, 
from  the  increased  presence  of  the  developed  life  of  imag^ination 
and  thon.ij;-ht  in  the  sentimental  forms  of  feelinp:,  that  their  com- 
plexity is  nsnally  g-reatcr  than  that  of  the  emotions.  But  there 
is  prohably  no  form  of  sentiment — not  even  the  most  ideal, 
whether  in  the  class  of  the  ethical,  or  the  assthetical,  or  the  re- 
lig-ious  feeling's — which  is  not  ting-ed  with  some  discernible  form 
of  the  same  so-called  bodily  resonance  which  is  so  mncli  more 
obvions  in  the  coarser  emotional  states.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
we  increase  the  intensity  of  any  of  the  most  ideal  sentiments, 
they  at  once  show  tendencies  to  assume  an  emotional  phase. 
With  enough  of  intensity  and  reactionary  feeling  from  the  in- 
duced bodily  condition,  all  S(^ntiments  become  indistinguishable 
from  those  states  which  Ave  do  not  hesitate  also  to  call  emotions. 
Moreover —as  has  already  been  made  quite  obvious — any  typical 
form  of  human  feeling  may  be,  at  one  time,  exhibited  as  an  emo- 
tion, at  another  time  as  a  sentiment ;  and  individuals  of  different 
temperaments  and  different  culture  have  essentially  the  same 
primitive  feelings  in  the  form  of  either  emotions  or  sentiments. 

^  4.  The  truth  may  be  illustrated  by  considering,  in  its  changing  phases, 
any  one  of  the  tyi^ical  forms  of  feeling  enumerated  in  §  2.  Indeed,  the  hints 
there  given  as  to  the  course  of  development  followed  by  all  the  composite 
feelings,  enforce  the  same  truth.  But  to  take  another  illustration,  let  ns 
consider  the  mother's  feeling  of  affection  for  her  child.  "Within  a  few  min- 
utes even,  this  feeling  may  pass  from  a  mild  and  half-conscious  atrection  to 
a  pronouncedly  sentimental  stage,  as  she  thinks  of  his  promise  intellectually 
or  of  his  return  of  her  aifection  for  him  ;  or  as  she  imagines  the  time  when 
her  hopes  regarding  his  future  will  bo  realized.  But  instantly,  the  sight  of 
danger  to  him,  or  the  news  of  harm  to  him,  may  cause  the  feeling  of  love 
to  mingle  with  fear  and  grief,  and  stir  it  up  to  all  the  intensity  and  "so- 
matic reaction  "  necessary  for  a  highly  emotional  phase.  With  respect  to 
all  this,  the  very  words  "  emotion  "  (suggestive  of  feeling  as  furnishing  force, 
acting  dynamically),  and  "sentiment"  (suggestive  of  thinking  sensibility), 
are  significant.  That  animal  wonder,  or  curiosity,  also,  which  we  have  seen 
to  be  capable  of  development  into  a  refined  sentiment,  only  needs  the  addi- 
tion of  unwonted  intensity  and  of  its  result  upon  the  bodily  organism,  to  as- 
sume an  emotional  form.  Thus  we  read  of  that  queen  of  Prussia  who  met 
death  with  joyful  readiness,  rather  than  fear,  because  she  should  soon 
"  know  the  truth  of  the  things  about  which  the  philosopher  Leibnitz  could 
not  tell  her."  Closely  connected  with  the  feeling  of  curiosity  is  the  feeling  of 
pleasure  which  comes  from  discovery — whether  of  some  simple  fact  new  to 
us,  or  of  some  important  principle  new  to  the  race;  and  this,  again,  is 
akin  to  the  pleasure  of  the  highest  productive  energy.  This  feeling,  too, 
may  take  the  form  of  that  lofty  sentiment  which  led  Niebuhr  to  compare 


544  THE   EMOTIONS   AND   PASSIONS 

his  joy  at  contemplating  one  of  his  own  finished  works  to  the  divine  joy  in 
the  completion  of  an  act  of  creation.  But  of  Gay-Lussac,  the  French  chem- 
ist, we  read  that,  on  making  an  imi)ortant  discovery,  he  threw  down  the 
utensils  and  danced  about  his  laboratory  with  the  pleasurable  emotion  which 
this  discovery  gave  him. 

Indeed,  it  would  not  be  easy  to  mention  a  single  one  of  the  more  simple 
and  primitive  forms  of  feeling  which  may  not  develop  after  either  the  emo- 
tional or  the  sentimental  type.  Thus  the  milder  forms  of  expectation,  in 
view  of  the  more  remote  realization  of  ideals,  may  not  improperly  be  spoken 
of  as  sentiments ;  but  when  expectation  is  intense  and  connected  with  the 
bodily  condition  which  jsrecedes  the  gratification  of  some  appetite  or  desire, 
it  is  often  of  a  highly  emotional  character.  Doubt  also  is  capable  of  being 
more  or  less  distinctively  either  emotional  or  sentimental.  Even  the  feeling 
of  excitement  itself  is  markedly  different  when  it  originates  in  the  quickened 
character  of  the  more  purely  mental  train,  without  sufficient  intensity  to 
arouse  a  strong  bodily  resonance.  While  vague  animal  craving  contains  with- 
in itself  the  possibilities  of  being  developed  either  into  the  mixed  emotion 
that  rests  so  largely  upon  sensuous  conditions  at  the  great  climacterics  of  life, 
or  into  the  sentimental  longings  which,  in  more  refined  natures,  characterize 
the  same  periods.  The  feeling  of  monotony,  in  the  intenser  forms  belong- 
ing to  coarse  natures,  causes  strong  somatic  reactions  and  is  itself  made 
thereby  more  emotional ;  but  it  is  the  highly  intellectual,  as  a  rule,  who  feel 
most  of  the  yet  keener  miseries  of  the  sentiment  of  ennui.  For,  in  truth, 
every  kind  of  feeling  falls  under  the  same  principles  of  development  which 
we  are  illustrating. 

The  characteristic  Nature  and  uniform  Course  of  the  Devel- 
opment of  the  Emotions  is,  then,  tolerably  plain — whether  as  re- 
spects their  physiological  basis  or  their  description  and  explana- 
tion as  states  of  consciousness.  Since  all  forms  of  feeling-,  when 
intensified  so  as  themselves  to  feel,  as  it  were,  in  a  secondary 
way,  the  bodily  resonance  they  occasion,  become  emotional,  the 
development  of  each  kind  of  emotion,  as  well  as  the  development 
of  the  entire  life  of  emotions,  requires  us  to  consider  the  so- 
matic influences  that  are  distinctive  of  them  all.  The  general 
physiological  theory  of  all  affective  phenomena  thus  connects 
itself  at  once  with  wlrat  has  already  been  said  concerning  the 
physiological  basis  of  the  entire  life;  of  feeling.  Accordingly,  the 
description  of  the  physiological  conditions  of  any  developed 
state  of  decided  emotional  character  may  be  given  as  follows : 
The  growth  in  intensity  of  the  original  feeling  causes,  and  is  cor- 
related with,  the  increased  intensity  and  Avider  spreading  of  cen- 
tral nerve-commotion.  This  largo  amount  of  centrally  initiated 
nerve-commotion  itself  overflows  and  passes  down  the  nerve- 
tracts  which  connect  the  brain,  centrifugally,  with  the  internal 
and  external  organs  of  the  body.  These  organs  are  thus  put  into 
a  changed  condition  of  tension  or  relaxation  (as  in  the  case  of 


SOMATIC   BASIS   OF   EMOTIONS  645 

tlio  muscles),  of  quickened  or  slower  activity  (as  in  the  case  of  the 
heart,  the  lungs,  the  vessels  of  venous  and  arterial  circulation, 
the  secretory  vessels,  etc.),  of  temperature,  and  of  various  obscure 
and  ill-localizable  forms  of  sensuous  irritation.  This  chang-ed 
condition  of  the  peripherally-lying  organs  now,  in  turn,  reacts 
upon  the  central  organ  which  initiated  them  ;  and  further  in- 
tense and  wide-spreading  nerve-commotion,  having  an  external 
origin,  is  occasioned  in  the  brain — to  mingle  with,  and  supple- 
ment and  modify,  the  original  centrally  initiatcul  nerve-commo- 
tion. Thus  an  emotion,  physiologically  described,  may  be  con- 
sidered as  a  sort  of  nerve-storm  which  gathers  intensity,  at  first, 
in  some  comparatively  limited  region  of  the  brain,  but  quickly 
spreads  from  storm-center  to  storm-center,  as  it  were  ;  which 
sweeps  down  the  different  paths  of  exit  upon  the  lower  centers 
and  upon  the  different  systems  of  muscles,  upon  the  vascular  and 
secretive  and  respiratory  systems  ;  and  then,  from  all  these  pe- 
ripheral parts,  return  currents  sweep  backward  further  to  disturb 
the  centers  that  lie  within  the  brain. 

Psychologically  considered — that  is,  as  a  rising  and  predom- 
inating condition  of  consciousness,  or  succession  of  affective 
states — an  emotion  has  ordinarily  the  following  history  :  Some 
form  of  feeling  arises  as  the  affective  accompaniment  of  a  cer- 
tain presentation,  memory,  imagination,  or  thought.  For  certain 
reasons,  connected  with  the  disposition,  mood,  or  more  definite 
past  experience  of  the  individual  mind,  the  object  which  excites 
affective  consciousness  is  fixated  by  attention,  and  associated 
with  trains  of  mental  images  that  tend  to  intensify  it.  But  as  the 
feeling  increases  in  intensity  it  changes  in  mixed  quality ;  for 
we  begin,  although  perhaps  without  recognition  of  the  fact,  to 
feel  our  own  contracting  or  relaxing  muscles,  the  quickening  or 
slowing  of  our  heart-action,  the  rhythmic  movement  of  the  res- 
piratory apparatus,  the  various  visceral  stirrings,  manifold  and 
not  easily  describable  skin-sensations,  and  indeed  all  the  obscure 
as  well  as  more  obvious  workings  of  the  expressive  results,  within 
the  bodily  organs,  of  the  feeling  itself.  Thus,  psychologically 
considered,  all  the  Emotions  are  seen  to  have  certain  common 
characteristics  ;  these  may  be  summed  up  as  their  general  "  emo- 
tional "  character  or  tone — an  wiportcmt  jmrt  of  tvhich  is  cmistitut- 
ed  hj  tJiat  confenf  of  the  affective  consciousness  in/iich  dejxmds  upon 
intense  and  icideh/  dijjtased  cerehral  agitation,  whether  centrally  ini- 
tiated or  due  to  the  secondary  effects  of^^  hodiJy  resonance^ 

The  complete  explanation  of  the  differences  in  the  content  of 
affective  consciousness  corresponding  to  the  different  so-called 
emotions — anger,  grief,  fear,  joy,  and  the  like — is  to  be  found, 
35 


546  THE   EMOTIOXS   AND    PASSIONS 

both  in  that  original  difference  wliicli  the  initial  feelings  bear, 
and  also  in  the  secondary  and  induced  differences  due  to  the  dif- 
ferent complex  characters  of  the  bodily  resonance.  When  one 
is  very  angry  at  an  act  of  injustice  or  an  insult,  one  is  plainly 
in  a  different  state  of  mind  from  that  which  we  characterize  as 
great  fear — whether  of  a  personal  attack  or  of  the  expected 
loss  of  a  beloved  friend.  Yet,  these  two  emotions  may  fuse 
pretty  comjaletely  in  one  condition  of  mind  ;  and,  even  as  consid- 
ered apavt,  they  have  marked  common  characteristics.  Their 
differences,  however,  may  be  even  more  marked  ;  and  in  the  case 
of  contrasted  emotions — such  as  grief  and  joy,  or  hope  and  de- 
spair, or  love  and  hatred— the  unlikeness  is  the  obvious  and  im- 
pressive thing.  In  explaining  all  such  differences,  psychology 
can  neither  attribute  it  entirely  to  somatic  reaction,  nor  leave 
such  bodily  influences  out  of  its  account. 

Certain  characteristic  differences  in  the  somatic  reaction 
serve,  although  in  a  somewhat  indefinite  way,  to  classify  the 
emotions.  The  pleasurable  emotions  differ  in  general  from  the 
unpleasant,  as  follows :  ^  In  the  former  all  the  superficial  ves- 
sels of  the  body  (vaso-motor,  secretory,  etc.)  tend  to  dilate,  the 
muscles  (voluntary  and  involuntary,  and  especially  the  respira- 
tory) are  more  intensely  innervated,  more  highly  "  toned,"  the 
visceral  stirrings  are  indicative  of  increased  molecular  activit}^ — 
more  alive,  as  it  were — and  the  extent  of  the  heart-movement 
is  increased.  But  in  many  unpleasant  emotions  the  opposite  of 
all  this  takes  place :  the  superficial  vessels  are  constricted, 
the  innervation  of  the  muscles  is  disturbed  and  loses  tone,  the 
vaso-motor  system  within  the  body  also  becomes  "  atonic,"  and 
the  extent  of  the  heart-movement  is  diminished.  This  account  of 
the  origin,  in  part,  of  the  difference  among  emotions,  as  regards 
their  tone  of  jjleasure  or  of  pain,  agrees  also  with  what  has  al- 
ready been  urged  respecting  the  physiological  basis  of  all  feel- 
ing and  of  pleasure-pain  in  general  (comp.  p.  173  f.).  Like  every 
other  such  account,  however,  it  is  only  partial ;  it  must  be  in- 
finitely varied  and  modified  in  its  applicability  to  individuals  ;  it 
is  in  every  case  itself  dependent  upon  other  physiological  and 
psychological  laws. 

2  5.  In  ortlor  to  nndfti-stand  the  part  which  the  "bodily  resonance,"  or 
"  somatic  reaction,"  plays  in  the  cliaracteristic  content  of  all  tlie  emotions, 
it  is  necessary  apjain  to  refer  to  the  immediate  effect  of  increasing  the  intett- 
aitif  of  the  initial  feeling.  This  efifect  is,  of  course,  connected  with  the 
whole  doctrine  of  the  focusing  and  redistribution  of  attention.     Our  feol- 

1  Comp.  Lehmann,  Die  Ilauptgesetze  d.  menschlichea  Oef  aiils'.eben.  Uebersetzt  von  F.  Ben- 
dixen,  p.  110  f. 


SOMATIC   15ASIS   OF   EMOTION'S  547 

ings  are — it  has  been  shown  ah-eacly — interesting ;  and  thoy  determine 
largely  the  presentations  of  sense,  or  the  images,  or  thoughts,  which  get  su- 
perior recognition  in  the  stream  of  consciousness,  and,  as  wo  say,  "fix  the 
mind"  upon  themselves.  But  attention  is,  jjhysiologically  considered,  dis- 
tinctively a  cerebral  process  ;  it  implies  increased  circulation  and  molecular 
activity  in  somewhat  definitely  localized  regions  of  the  brain.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  very  direction  of  attention  to  the  initial  feeling  tends  to  intensify 
it.  "  Do  not  mind  the  insult  if  you  do  not  wish  to  get  more  mad  over  it." 
*'  Do  not  tJiink  of  the  lost  object  or  opportunity,  if  you  would  keep  down  your 
grief,"  etc. — so  do  we  bear  witness  to  the  intensifying  influence  upon  the 
feeling  of  the  attention  it  commands.  Again,  as  the  intensity  of  the  affec- 
tive accompaniment  of  my  perceptions,  imaginations,  and  thoughts,  increases, 
I  am  inclined  more  and  moi'e  to  say  :  "  How  can  I  help  thinking  of  that 
which  I  so  intensely  feel  ?  "  All  this  is  .significant  of  the  fact  that  the 
feeling  is  "working  itself  up"  into  the  emotional  stage. 

No  considerable  intensity  of  cerebral  and  concomitant  psychical  excite- 
ment can  exist,  however,  without  quickly  and  profoundly  influencing  the  pe- 
ripheral parts  of  the  body — tlie  different  systems  of  organs,  both  external 
and  internal.  This  is  a  jisycho-physical  necessity  of  the  first  rank  ;  it  is  due 
to  the  very  structure  and  functions  of  the  nervous  .system,  and  to  the  natu- 
ral relations  which  this  system  sustains  to  the  states  of  consciousness.  This 
fact  is  the  general  exjilanation  of  that  marked  effect  whicli  all  highly  emo- 
tional states  have  upon  the  heart  and  bowels  and  respiratory  apparatus  es- 
})ecially,  but  also  upon  the  muscles  of  the  trunk,  head,  and  different  main 
external  members  of  the  body.  Such  connection  is  consecrated  by,  and 
even  inseparably  embodied  in,  all  our  language.  Hence  arises  the  tendency 
to  locate  the  emotions  in  these  parts  of  the  bodily  organism  rather  than  in 
the  brain.  Shemitic  jieoples  particularly  emphasize  the  viscera  and  their 
behavior  and  condition  as  indicative  of  character.  The  "soft"  heart  and 
the  "  hard"  heart,  the  "good  "  heart  and  the  "  bad  "  heart,  and  all  the  lan- 
guage of  poetry  and  of  common  life  are  in  evidence  liere.  The  swelling  of 
pride  makes  men  carry  the  "  head  high  "  and  step  with  a  strutting  gait — 
this  when  it  is  coarsely  emotional  ;  but  when  of  a  more  sentimental  order, 
the  same  feeling  retreats  within,  as  it  were,  and  both  occasions  and  feels 
far  less  of  purely  somatic  reaction. 

We  note  as  strongly  confirmatory  of  the  same  view,  such  common  experi- 
ences as  the  following  :  We  all  tend  toward  the  emotional  condition  of  con- 
sciousness whenever  any  rise  in  the  intensity  of  the  total  conscious  state 
suddenly  occurs.  In  general,  tlie  saying  is  justified,  that  from  mere  feeling 
to  emotion  is  a  "  leap."  This  leap  may  be  produced  by  a  quick  and  decided 
rise  in  the  sensational  content  of  consciousness,  even  when  such  content  has 
little  or  no  meaning ;  as  in  the  case  of  the  leap  to  anger,  or  fear,  or  wonder, 
which  loud  noises  and  bright  flashes  of  light  and  strong  skin-sensations 
occasion.  It  may  also  be  produced  by  that  rapid  rise  in  the  feeling  of 
effort  which  takes  place  when,  the  motor  apparatus  being  duly  set  to  pro- 
duce a  given  result,  we  find  ourselves  unexpectedly  resisted.  Most  men 
are  strongly  tempted  to  get  angry  at  the  resistance  of  the  inert  object  which 
excites  such  a  sudden  rise  of  feeling.  Jars  and  shocks  of  every  kind  tend  to 
throw  us  into  the  emotional  condition  of  consciousness.     By  recurring  here 


548  THE   EMOTIONS   AND   PASSIONS 

to  Weber's  law,  which  shows  us  that  the  felt  intensity  of  the  feeling  de- 
pends \iY)ou  the  siiddenness  in  the  change,  we  find  a  partial  explanation  of 
all  such  phenomena. 

^  6.  The  marked  effect  of  assuming  the  conditions  of  body  expressive  of 
the  various  emotions,  upon  the  heightening  and  perpetuation  of  the  emotion 
itself,  is  in  plain  confirmation  of  psycliological  theory.  If  one  begins  to 
feel  angry,  one  may  diminish  or  intensify  one's  feeling  and  so  keep  it  below 
or  raise  it  above  the  emotional  stage,  according  as  one  represses,  or  indulges 
it,  in  respect  of  a  very  considerable  amount  of  bodily  resonance.  This 
principle  can  primarily  apply,  of  course,  only  to  such  forms  of  somatic  re- 
action as  are  voluntarily  controlled.  Here,  too,  much  allowance  m^^st  be 
made  for  individual  disposition  and  development,  and  even  for  marked 
idiosyncrasies.  Some  persons  can  shed  tears  almost,  if  not  quite,  at  will, 
and  with  as  little  emotion  as  that  which  some  others  feel  in  moving  their 
ears.  Cases  are  not  wanting  of  those  who  can  directly  control  the  heart- 
movement,  without  experiencing  either  preceding  or  subsequent  emotion  ; 
and  of  those  who,  with  no  emotional  excitement,  can  ' '  contract  the  facial 
muscles  in  any  mimetic  combination  '  "  Naturally,  however,  and  in  far  the 
greater  number  of  cases,  mimicry  of  the  bodily  conditions  expressive  of  any 
emotion  is  impossible  without  corresponding  effect  u^Don  the  affective  con- 
tent of  consciousness.  In  proof  of  this,  the  experience  of  the  average  man 
or  woman  may  be  confidently  evoked,  as  well  as  that  of  the  psychological 
experts — among  whom  Fechner,-  for  example,  testifies  that  for  the  grave 
l^rofessor  even,  "to  go  tripping  and  mincing  after  the  fashion  of  a  young 
woman  puts  one,  so  to  speak,  in  a  feminine  frame  of  mind."  Here  again 
the  testimony  of  the  most  celebrated  actors  as  to  the  bodily  effects  of  their 
acting  highly  emotional  parts,  is  instructive.^  "Playing  with  the  brain," 
says  Miss  Murray,  "is  far  less  fatiguing  than  playing  with  the  heart."  Act- 
ing with  emotion,  as  we  have  seen,  is  working  intensely  with  both  brain  (Vid 
heart. 

The  view,  however,  which  reduces  the  entire  character  of  the  various 
emotions,  as  affective  phenomena,  to  mixtures  of  bodily  sensation,  and  thus 
maintains  that  our  bodily  changes  constitute  all  there  is  of  any  emotion,  not 
only  inadequately  represents  the  facts  of  consciousness,  but  contradicts  the 
correct  theory  of  feeling  from  the  very  beginning  all  the  way  through. 

I  7.  The  details  of  the  different  physiological  changes  connected  with 
the  different  emotions,  and  of  the  related  science  of  physiognomy,  do  not 
affect  the  general  theory  of  the  emotions ;  nor  can  we  do  more  at  present 
than  briefly  illustrate  this  theory.  In  severe  emotional  auger,  for  example, 
the  disturbance  of  the  muscular  system  is  especially  marked.  Certain  mus- 
cles, such  as  those  which  clench  the  fists,  set  the  jaws,  brace  the  lower 
limbs,  etc.,  become  intensely  innervated.  The  rhythm  of  respiration,  the 
muscular  quality  of  the  action  of  tlie  diaphragm  and  epiglottis,  and  of  the 
muscles  that  effect  ebullition  of  the  chest  and  dilatation  of  tlio  nostrils,  are 
])rofoundly  modified.  Especially  marked  also  is  the  eflect  upou  the  action 
of  the  heart  and  upon  all  the  connected  vaso-motor  apparatus.     But  there 

■  Sec  the  experionco  of  Professor  Sikorsky,  of  Kieff.  Ncurologisches  Centralblntt,  1S87,  cited  and 
commented  upon  by  I'rcjfcssor  James,  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  II.,  p.  4G5  f. 
-  \'orschiile  A.  Aesthelik,  j).  lol'i. 
3  See  William  Archer:  Masks  or  Faces  ?  p.  129. 


h 


SOMATIC   BASIS   OF   EMOTIONS  549 

is  pale  anger  as  well  as  flushed  anger  ;  ami  with  inanv  persons  the  trembling 
of  the  lips  is  more  observable  than  the  setting  together  of  the  teeth  ;  the 
tottering  than  the  bracing  of  the  lower  limbs.  Much  depends  not  only  upon 
the  physical  condition  of  the  patient,  but  also  upon  the  kind  of  emotion — 
whether  hatred  or  fear  or  grief,  etc.— which  is  mingled  with  the  anger. 
The  intense  emotion  of  hatred '  partakes  of  all  the  prominent  bodily  rever- 
berations of  anger ;  it  is  indeed  in  this  regard  almost  indistinguishable  from 
it.  In  emotional  hatred  we  have  to  notice  the  grinding  teeth,  threatening  or 
defensive  gestures  and  jDOses  of  the  tense  muscles,  the  contracted  or  wide- 
open  conditions  of  the  eyes,  the  convulsions  of  the  lips,  vocal  organs,  and 
facial  muscles.  In  both  anger  and  hatred  the  feeling  (/  tiie  abdominal  dis- 
turbances as  a  general  coloring  of  conscioiisness  rather  than  as  localized 
bodily  sensations,  and  of  the  changed  conditions  of  the  capillary  circulation 
in  the  skin  ("  goose-flesh,"  creepings,  and  changes  in  temx^erature-sensa- 
tions)  are  prominent  features  of  the  emotion. 

The  emotion  of  fear  -  when  sudden  and  overpowering,  has  certain  charac- 
teristics of  an  organic  sort  in  common  with  anger  and  hatred.  In  other 
characteristics  its  somatic  tinge  is  the  opposite,  as  it  were.  Here  a  tem- 
porary paralysis  of  the  muscles,  rendering  them  either  immovably  rigid  or 
trembling  under  iusufficient  cerebral  control,  is  distinctive.  Thus  the 
badly  frightened  man  "stands  like  a  statue,  motionless  and  breathless,  or 
crouches  down  as  if  instinctively  to  escape  observation."  His  heart  beats 
wildly  or  faintly,  and  pallor  of  skin,  with  cold  perspiration,  become  notice- 
able. Indeed,  this  effect  upon  the  exudations  of  the  skin  is  one  of  the  most 
distinctive  characteristics  of  the  somatic  reactions  of  this  emotion.  Inside 
the  mouth  the  membrane  is  dry  through  imperfect  action  of  the  salivary 
glands  ;  and  this,  with  the  trembling  of  the  muscles  used  in  vocalization, 
accounts  for  the  husky  and  indistinct  voice  of  the  "terror-stricken."  Indeed, 
the  voice  sometimes  refuses  at  all  to  obey  the  will  {vox  faucihus  haesit). 
But  grief,  when  strong  and  sudden,  and  accompanied  by  sobbing  and  con- 
vulsive respiration,  is,  in  respect  of  its  bodily  resonance,  somewhat  like  a 
mixture  of  auger  and  fear.  If  long  continued,  it  bears  the  marks  of  that 
generally  flaccid  condition  of  the  muscles  and  anaemic  condition  of  the 
blood-vessels  which  is  characteristic  of  the  painful  emotions.  The  bent 
neck,  the  relaxed  cheeks  and  jaws,  the  collapse  of  fiber  around  the  shoul- 
ders, the  hanging  arms  and  dragging  legs,  the  slowed  respiration  and  heart- 
beat, indicate  the  one ;  and  the  pallor  and  shrunken  expression  of  the  skin 
and  chilly  sensations,  indicate  the  other,  of  these  efl'ects.  But  the  opposite 
of  all  this  is  the  bodily  condition  which  results  from,  and  resounds  in,  the 
emotion  of  joy.  Yet  either  of  these  opposite  emotions  may  stimulate  the 
lachrymal  glands  to  weeping  and  disturb  the  peristaltic  movements  of  the 
intestines. 

I  8.  It  would  be  a  mistake,  however,  to  consider  that  these  grosser  forms 
of  the  more  animal  emotions  alone  fall  under  the  influence  of  what  we 
have  called  a  characteristic  bodily  resonance.  Unmanifested  emotions 
of  anger,  hatred,  love,  joy,  grief,  wonder,  and  the  like,  often  burn  much 
the  longer  and  oven  more  intensely.     Indeed,  to  give  expression  to  these 

'  Comp.  Mautegazza  :  La  Physionomie  et  rExpression  des  Sentiments,  p.  140. 
2  See  Dan\in  :  Origin  of  the  Emotions,  p.  290  f. 


550  THE   EMOTIONS   AND   PASSIONS 

emotions  — "  to  out  -with  them,"  as  tlie  saying  is — frequently  results  in 
greatly  diminishing  their  inward  intensity.  "SViiat  the  great  poet  said  of 
anger  is  true  of  them  all ;  they  are  "  like  a  full,  hot  horse,  who  being 
allowed  his  way,  self-mettle  tires  him."  This  experience  is  partly  explained 
by  the  fact  that  in  their  highly  emotional  form  all  the  feelings  run,  as  it  were, 
a  sort  of  livviied  jjhi/siological  career.  The  storm  rises  in  certain  centers, 
breaks  over  into  others,  culminates,  and  subsides  again.  If  it  is  not  allowed 
to  do  this,  through  restraint  from  some  other  feeling  (as  where  fear  inhibits 
anger)  or  from  some  ideal  consideration  (such  as  notions  of  propriety, 
of  self-resi)ecting  conduct,  or  of  duty),  the  feeling  may  maintain  a  longer 
and  higher  stadium  of  interior  intensity.  In  such  cases,  however,  the  in- 
fluence of  certain  somatic  reactions  is  no  less  truly  recognizable.  The  man 
who  nurses  but  does  not  display  his  anger,  grief,  fear,  hatred,  feeling  of 
joyful  triumph  or  of  gratified  pride,  or  even  of  restless  curiosity,  keeps  it 
warm  and  lively  by  means  of  much  concealed  activity  of  the  muscular,  cir- 
culatory, digestive,  and  vaso-motor  systems.  An  interesting  illustration  of 
this  truth  is  to  be  found  in  the  reciprocal  influence  of  mind  and  body  for 
the  support  of  the  emotion  of  chagrin.  This  emotion  is  of  all  perhaps  the 
most  indefinable  with  respect  to  its  bodily  characteristics,  the  most  con- 
cealed and  inexpressive  by  way  of  obvious  conditions  of  the  organism.  Yet 
its  somatic  reaction  resembles  a  kind  of  slow-burning  grief  in  the  effect 
produced  upon  the  muscular  and  respiratory  systems ;  and  the  conjecture 
that  the  emotion  actually  jjoisons  the  arterial  circulation  and  feeds  itself 
upon  its  own  poisoned  blood,  is  not  altogether  without  proof. 

^  9.  Finally,  we  note  how  the  continued  reduction  of  intensity,  as  such 
an  effect  is  brought  about  in  the  individual  or  in  the  race  by  the  develop- 
ment of  varied  ideal  and  ethical  and  religious  considerations,  tends  to  trans- 
fer them  from  the  emotional  into  the  sentimental  stage.  The  aesthetically 
pleasing  result  of  all  this  is  the  substitution,  for  rankly  i:)hysical  emotions, 
of  the  more  delicately  constituted  corresjionding  sentiments.  But  when 
suppression  of  conscious  life  on  the  side  of  the  more  comjilex  feelings  takes 
place,  the  result  is  both  aesthetically  and  ethically  unpleasant.  It  must 
indeed  be  admitted  that  human  feeling  is  not  now  so  bodily  strong  and 
coarse  in  many  communities  as  it  was  among  our  savage  ancestors  ;  or — to 
quote  from  a  modern  novelist — as  in  "  the  days  before  the  habit  of  taking 
long  views  had  reduced  the  emotions  to  a  monotonous  average ;  "  but  it 
must  also  be  remembered  that  this  does  not  necessarily  signify  the  slowly 
approaching  death  of  all  feeling.  Some  are  skilfully  refining  their  emotions 
into  intellectual,  aisthetical,  and  ethical  sentiments;  while  others  arc  grow- 
ing less  human  by  a  selfish  reduction  of  the  life  of  feeling  to  an  imjn-oper 
subserviency.  Yet  the  blood  of  the  race  is  still  red  and  warm,  and  there 
are  indications  that  the  shallows  of  dilettanteism  among  the  so-called  ujiiJer 
classes  may  ere  long  be  submerged  in  the  strongly  and  swiftly  flowing  emo- 
tional currents  of  the  popular  life. 

All  considerable  increase  in  the  Intensity  of  Feeling-  tends 
also  to  clianf^re  profoundly  the  character  of  the  train  of  asso- 
ciated Ideas  and  Thonshts.     In  tnrn,  the  changed  character  of 


EFFECT   UPON   IDEATION   AND   THOUGHT  551 

the  conscious  intellection  may  be  io\t  as  intensification  or 
modification  of  the  rising-  emotion  itself.  Hero  we  recur  to 
what  was  formerly  said  about  so-called  "  feelings  of  relation  " 
(p.  186  f.).  In  dependence  upon  the  time-rate  of  the  mental  train 
we  experience  feelings  of  excitement  or  tedium,  etc.;  in  de- 
pendence upon  changes  in  the  complex  quality  of  our  i^ercep- 
tions,  imag'inations,  and  thoug-hts,  we  experience  feeling's  like 
those  of  novelty,  or  monotony,  bewilderment,  or  pleased  recog- 
nition, etc.  But  as  the  storm  of  emotional  excitement  rises 
and  swells,  the  time-rate  of  the  ideas  and  thoughts  is  necessa- 
rily altered  ;  clear  perception  becomes  difficult  or  impossible, 
and  likewise  clear  detiuition  of  our  imag-ining-s  and  reasonings. 
"  Hasty  "  feeling  and  "  deliberate  "  reflection,  "  heated  "  emo- 
tions and  "cool"  thoughts,  cannot  swim  together  in  the  same 
portion  of  the  stream  of  conscious  life.  This  incompatibility 
is,  indeed,  not  strict;  and  the  limits  of  it  vary  greatly  with 
diiferent  individual  cases  and  persons.  There  is  no  doubt  on 
the  whole,  however,  concerning  the  marked  disturbing  effect  of 
greatly  increased  intensity  of  feeling  upon  the  intellective  side 
of  consciousness.  But  the  very  feeling  which  prodtices  the  dis- 
turbance of  ideation  and  thought  is  destined  in  turn  to  feel  this 
disturhance.  This  form  of  secondary  reaction  may  be  consid- 
ered, physiologically,  as  resulting  from  the  centrally  initiated 
nervous  agitations  which,  while  they  jiroceed  from  braih-center 
to  brain-center,  effect  changes  simultaneously  in  the  physical 
basis  of  both  feeling  and  intellection.  Or  —  to  refer  again 
to  the  general  physiological  theory  of  feeling  (p.  193  f.)  —  the 
"  semi-chaotic  surplus "  of  cerebral  nerve-commotion  rises  to 
such  an  extent  as  relatively  and  temporarily  to  overpower  those 
more  orderly  and  law-abiding  neural  processes  on  which  clear 
ideation  and  thinking  depend.  Ordinary  experience  affords 
plentiful  illustration  of  this  result  as  a  purely  ps^^chological 
phenomenon,  a  process  in  consciousness,  as  such.  Any  rising 
flood  of  emotional  excitement,  as  all  well  know,  upsets  our  or- 
derly trains  of  mental  images  and,  especially,  oiir  power  care- 
fully to  draw  logical  conclusions  on  clearly  recognized  grounds. 
But  this  very  "  upsetting,"  if  it  cannot  be  reduced  or  controlled, 
not  only  adds  to  the  initial  emotional  excitement,  but  may 
greatly  change  its  character  while  increasing  it.  Thus  extreme 
anger,  or  grief,  or  hatred,  or  fear,  or  love,  may  all  tend  to  come 
together,  as  it  were,  in  an  unspecialized  emotional  condition  ; 
somewhat  as  all  color-tones,  when  made  more  and  more  intense, 
tend  to  become  whitish  and  merge  in  one  tone-less  visual  sensa- 
tion. 


552  tup:  emotions  and  passions 

§  10.  The  effect  upon  the  accompanying  feelings  of  changing  in  an  iin- 
accustometl  way  the  time-rate  or  qualitative  relations  of  our  ideas  may  be 
tested  by  another  class  of  experiences.  Let  it  be  assumed,  in  some  particu- 
lar instance,  that  this  effect  is  not  initiated  by  an  increased  intensity  of  feel- 
ing itself ;  that  one's  perceptions  or  thoughts  are  not  disturbed  by  anger, 
fear,  or  joy,  originally,  but  by  the  way  in  which  the  perceptions  or  thoughts 
are  themselves  introduced  into  the  stream  of  consciousness.  Such  an  effect 
may  occur  when  we  are  looking  at  a  too  rapidly  moving  series  of  objects  in 
which  we  are  interested,  and  of  which  we  wish  to  obtain  adequate  percep- 
tions ;  or  when  we  are  attentively  listening  to  one  sijeaking  too  rapidly  ;  or 
are  forced  to  hurry  through  an  important  book  ;  or  are  attempting,  as  spec- 
tators, to  watch  the  flitting  j^hantasmagoria  of  our  own  half-waking,  half- 
dreaming  consciousness.  In  all  such  cases,  we  soon  begin  to  feel  a  sort  of 
tension  toward  an  emotional  tone  of  the  entire  conscious  life.  The  feeling 
of  the  "  hurly-burly,"  that  is,  tends  to  become  an  emotion  which  is  a  mixt- 
ure of  the  feelings  of  excitement,  vague  dread,  half-indignation  at  our 
thoughts  for  tricking  us  so,  etc.  Yet  again,  when  the  bodily  sensations  are 
markedly  strange  and  unaccustomed,  either  as  respects  their  intrinsic  qual- 
ity, or  their  relative  intensity,  or  their  order  of  arrangement,  it  is  not  easy 
— for  most  men  it  is  impossible — to  avoid  being  thrown  by  this  experience 
into  an  emotional  state  of  mind.  Of  this  those  know,  alas !  only  too  well 
who  are  accustomed  to  all  those  "strange  sensations  about  the  head  which 
belong  to  certain  conditions  of  nervous  exhaustion  ;  or  who  possess  that 
wretched  "inner  eye,"  to  watch  the  vital  processes  of  digestion,  whicli 
characterizes  dyspeptics.  ,  The  effect  upon  the  emotions  of  certain  drugs  is 
largely  indirect  in  this  way.  They  upset  the  trains  of  associated  ideas, 
hurry  them  up  or  slow  them  down,  and  introduce  unwonted  fanciful  forms 
into  them  in  ways  which  neither  memory  nor  reason  can  trace  ;  and,  there- 
fore, in  this  secondary  way  (in  part,  at  least),  they  produce  melancholia, 
maniacal  joy,  or  the  emotions  of  enormous  pride  or  of  exultation  in  the  ex- 
pansion of  one's  spatial  and  temporal  universe. 

The  reactionary  effect  upon  the  emotion  of  these  changes  in  the  intel- 
lective aspect  of  consciousness  which  it  has  itself  produced,  is  only  a  special 
case  under  the  general  principle  :  tlie  comi-)lex  life  of  feeling  depends  for  its 
cltaractej'  upon  the  development  of  ideation  and  tliought. 

§  11.  It  is  evident  that  we  have,  in  every  case  of  emotional  excitement, 
one  of  those  exceedingly  complicated  problems  which  require  for  their  com- 
plete answer  a  knowledge  of  the  mental  history  and  constitution  of  the  in- 
dividual whose  case  it  is.  In  every  case,  however,  the  general  conditions  of 
consciousness — its  limits,  circuit,  and  complexify  in  Tinity  (com]).  Cliap.  III.), 
are  faithfully  observed.  As  the  relative  amount  of  feeling  of  whicli  differ- 
ent persons  are  capable  varies  not  less  than  their  capacity  for  imagination  and 
thought,  so  does  the  amount  which  they  citn  "  stand,"  as  it  were,  without 
greatly  disturbing  imagination  and  thought.  Indeed,  with  every  jierson  a 
certain  excitement  of  feeling  is  favorable  to  quickened  and  heightened 
memory,  to  productive  image-making,  and  to  ratiocination.  But  here  the 
range  of  individual  differences  is  very  great.  For  with  some  a  slight  emo- 
tional intensity  speedily  produces  confusion  of  thought,  loss  of  memory,  in- 
terruption of  the  train  of  ideas.     In  respect  of  such  marked  effect  of  feeling 


\ 


k 


COMPLEXITY   OF  THE   EMOTIONS  553 

on  intellection,  there  is  also  a  groat  difference  between  the  cliflforent  kinds 
of  emotions.  The  "  expansive  "  emotions — such  us  pride,  self-satisfaction, 
moderate  excitement  at  the  novelty  of  one's  situation,  love  of  approbation, 
and  expectation  of  applause — most  frec^uently,  when  kept  within  certain  in- 
deiiuite  limits,  are  favorable  to  increased  and  more  efl'ective  intellectual  ac- 
tivity. AVhile  other  emotions,  such  as  shame,  fear,  self-distrust  or  self- 
loathing,  monotony,  and  ennui,  depress  and  limit  this  activity.  Here  again 
the  place  for  individual  idiosyncrasies  is  indefinitely  large.  A  small  trace 
of  shame  or  anxiety,  or  even  of  pride  and  love  of  approbation,  will  upset 
some  persons  more  than  a  relatively  large  amount  of  fear  or  auger.  The 
latter  emotion  (anger),  indeed,  operates  very  differently,  in  different  cases, 
in  its  eti'ect  upon  the  intellectual  powers.  Some  men  are  at  their  very  best 
intellectually  when  they  are  very  mad.  This  fact  doubtless  rests  largely 
upon  a  i)hysiological  basis  ;  it  requires  for  its  realization  a  sound  heart  and 
lungs,  in  order  to  meet  the  demands  which  the  emotion  makes  upon  these  or- 
gans for  rapidly  increasing  action.  It  is  also  significant,  perhaps,  of  general 
robustness  of  character.  Here  again  we  may  refer  to  Dr.  Martin  Luther's 
praises  of  the  excellent  effects,  in  his  oAvn  case,  of  occasional  strong  out- 
bursts of  this  passion.  And  Balzac  makes  Louis  Lambert  say  :  "  Anger, 
like  all  our  passionate  expressions,  is  a  current  of  human  force  acting  elec- 
trically. .  .  .  Do  we  not  meet  with  men  who,  by  such  a  discharge  of  their 
volition,  reduce  and  refine  the  sentiments  of  the  masses?"  On  the  other 
hand,  all  the  faculties  of  other  men  shrivel  under  the  influence  of  anger  ; 
with  them  it  shows  itself  as  a  depressing  and  contracting  emotion.  Accord- 
ing to  the  author  just  quoted  :  "  Passions  are  either  defects  or  virtues  in  the 
highest  power." 

Considerations  like  the  foregoing  are  of  great  importance,  not  only  for 
tlie  understanding  of  psychology  as  a  science,  but  also  for  the  correct  appre- 
ciation and  intelligent  control  of  our  fellow-men.  For,  as  the  very  word  sig- 
nifies, it  is  the  "emotions"  that  move;  and  yet  so  varied  and  comiilicated 
are  the  kinds  and  directions  of  movement  thus  jiroduced,  that  no  generaliza- 
tion of  high  import  and  wide-reaching  ajiplication  can  ever  be  attained. 

The  foresroiufi:  considerations  fitly  introduce  us  again  to  the 
Complexity  of  the  Emotions,  considered  as  highly  developed 
forms  of  feeling.  The  increased  complexity  of  feeling  in  de- 
pendence upon  the  increasing  complexity  of  the  intellectual  life 
is  to  be  understood  only  in  connection  with  the  entire  history  of 
intellectual  development.  Hence  new  kinds  of  emotion  arise  as 
the  general  evolution  of  our  conscious  life  goes  on.  Even  in 
those  cases  where  a  rapid  transition  takes  place  from  one  form 
of  intense  feeling  to  another,  or  where  "  conflict  of  emotions" 
occurs,  the  resulting  state  may  be  recognized  as  a  really  new 
kind  of  emotion. 

A  modern  writer '  on  the  i^sychology  of  feeling  confirms  his 
view  of  the  relativity  of  all  f -eliug  by  the  following  common- 

1  noifding.  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  279, 


554  THE  EMOTIONS   AND   PASSIONS 

place  remark  :  "  In  some  cases  wonder  turns  to  fear,  disappoint- 
ment, and  contempt,  or  to  joy,  love,  and  veneration,  according  to 
the  nature  of  that  Avhicli  has  excited  wonder."  For  this  reason 
Descartes  and  Malebranche  "  permitted  wonder  to  head  the 
series  as  presupposition  for  every  one  of  them."  But  this  author 
considers  it  more  natural  to  class  wonder  (as  Bain  also  does) 
among-  the  "  emotions  of  relativity."  To  this  view  we  have 
agreed.  What  needs  now  to  be  noticed  in  addition  is  this  :  as 
"  wonder  turns  to  fear,  to  disappointment  and  contempt,  or  to 
jo}^,  love,  and  veneration,"  its  own  character  as  wonder  becomes 
profoundly  modified.  Thns  Inj  fusion  of  different  emotions,  in  the 
very  lyrocess  of  "  turning"  or  transition,  new  complex,  emotional 
states  a7'lse.  Different  kinds  of  wonder — fearful,  contemptuous, 
joyful,  loving,  venerating — are  thus  produced,  to  the  indefinite 
enrichment  and  furthering  of  the  development  of  the  life  of 
feeling.  Were  there  no  kinds  of  wonder  beyond  nearly  blank, 
almost  undifferentiated,  half-animal  wonder,  or  wonder  mixed 
with  fear  and  contempt ;  with  what  fitting  emotion  should  man 
greet  the  rising  conception  of  Infinite  love  or  moral  laower? 

The  insufiicient  reason  which  led  some  earlier  writers  to 
"permit  wonder  to  head  the  series "  would  apply,  Avith  almost 
equal  cogency,  to  every  important  form  of  natural  feeling. 
Each  such  feeling  may  be  placed  at  the  head  of  a  series,  under 
which  may  be  ranged  all  the  principal  modifications  of  the  dom- 
inant emotion  by  admixture  of  other  more  or  less  strongly  toned 
emotions.  Thus  love  may  head  one  list,  and  grief  another,  and 
joy  a  third,  and  fear  and  hope  still  others.  As  Professor  James 
has  truly  said :  ^  "  There  is  no  limit  to  the  number  of  possible 
different  emotions  which  may  exist  .  .  .  Any  classification  of 
the  emotions  is  seen  to  be  as  true  and  natural  as  any  other,  if  it 
only  serves  some  purpose."  In  pursuance  of  our  present  purpose 
we  might  then  classify  love — for  example — as  timid  love,  disap- 
pointed and  grieved  love,  contemptuous  love,  joyful  love,  vener- 
ating love,  etc.  Or,  beginning  rather  with  grief,  wo  might  jjer- 
mit  it  to  head  another  series.  Nor  would  the  limits  of  possible 
complexity  be  reached  when  we  had  made  all  imaginable  dual 
comljinations  ;  for  experience  shows  us  states  of  emotion  where 
three  or  even  more  characteristic  tones  of  emotion  seem  fused 
into  an  "  emotional  consonance  "  or  "  dissonance,"  as  it  were. 

Especially  interesting  in  this  connection  are  those  conflicts  of 
emotion  with  which  all  highly  dev(>lo]iod  emotional  natures 
make  the  student  of  life  familiar.     In  all  of  them  the  affective 

'  Theco  ptfitcniptits  are.  in  tlie  main,  true,  altlioutih  the  reaBoiis  with  which  the  author  enforces 
them  are,  in  our  ju(lt,'inci)t,  inadciiuate.     Tliu  Principles  of  Psychology,  U.,  p.  4H. 


CONFLICT   OF   THE   EMOTIONS  655 

side  of  consciousness  is  uot  properly  descfibed  as  simply  a 
change  from  a  thin  but  intense  stream  of  one  kind  of  feelin<4-  to 
a  similar  stream  of  another  kind  ;  the  rather  is  the  Avhole  land- 
scape of  the  soul  like  that  we  see  in  nature  when  lights  and 
shadows,  spots  of  cloud  and  storm  and  spots  of  sunshine;,  form  a 
ming'led  whoh;.  The  held  of  ali"ectiv(;  consciousness  is  almost 
always  a  chiaru-oscuro.  The  emotion  that  comes  from  having-  tli(; 
heart  torn  between  the  call  of  duty  and  the  pleadings  of  natural 
ati'ection,  for  example,  or  between  love  of  the  object  and  hatred 
of  his  conduct,  or  l)etween  pity  for  weakness  and  contempt 
for  yielding-  to  it — all  this  is  what  makes  the  tragedy  of  life, 
actual  or  artistic,  so  profound  and  so  captivating  of  our  earnest 
attention.  This  it  is  which  the  g-reat  works  of  art — like  Antigone, 
Hamlet,  and  Lear — put  upon  the  stage.  Here  we  may  fitly  refer 
to  that  tendency  of  the  mind  to  rebound  from  one  form  of  emo- 
tion quickly  to  its  opposite,  to  which  frequent  reference  has  al- 
ready been  made.  In  this  respect,  however,  dispositions  difier 
markedly  ;  and  different  individuals  can  be  understood  as  re- 
spects their  emotional  development  only  when  we  also  take  into 
account  all  the  connected  development  of  memory,  imagination, 
thought,  and  will.  The  physiological  reason  for  this  is  doubt- 
less to  be  found  in  that  general  condition  of  cerebral  agitation 
and  extra-cerebral  overflow,  that  loosening  of  circumscribed  cen- 
ters and  opening  up  of  nerve-tracts,  Avhicli  all  intensifying  of 
feeling-  involves. 

^  12.  The  inadequacy  of  the  theory  of  feeling  which  denies  that  affective 
states,  as  such,  differ  qualitatively,  and  accounts  for  all  the  complex  forms 
of  emotion  as  only  "  ideationally  "  different,  is  again  apparent.  According 
to  Volkmann '  we  cannot  speak  of  a  recijirocal  influence  of  the  feelings  as 
such.  The  influence  of  feelings  on  each  other — he  holds— is  only  ai)2iarent ; 
synchronous  feelings  inhibit  each  other  because  the  circles  of  ideas  in  which 
they  have  their  rise  inhibit  each  other  ;  while,  for  a  corresponding  reason  in 
the  relations  of  the  ideas,  the  accompanying  feelings  support  and  further 
each  other.  All  this,  however,  neglects  the  fundamental  character  of  the 
affective  phenomena  of  mental  life.  It  is  doubtless  true  that  one  often 
passes  from  joy  to  grief,  or  undergoes  a  struggle  between  the  two  emotions, 
because,  for  example,  pleasant  news  is  succeeded  by  sad  news,  or  the  total 
event  under  contemplation  is  partly  pleasant  and  jiartly  sad.  But  it  is  also 
true  that  emotion  itself  not  infrequently  seems  to  take  the  lead  ;  all  at  once 
we  are  sad  without  clearly  knowing  the  reason  why,  and  then  matters  which, 
but  an  hour  ago,  seemed  joyful  now  seem  rather  fitted  to  support  and  in- 
crease our  tendency  to  grief.  As  to  the  I'elation  between  the  increasing 
complexity  of  our  life  of  ideation  and  thought,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
development  of  the  higher  feelings,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  much  to 

1  Lehrbuch  d.  Psychologic,  II.,  p.  339  f. 


556  THE   EMOTIONS   AKD   PASSIONS 

warrant  the  view  of  Horwicz  :  '  In  the  more  primitive  forms  thiiikiug 
quite  passes  into,  and  fuses  with,  feeliug  ;  thiukiug  is  thus  rather  a  conse- 
quence than  an  antecedent  of  feeliug;  but  this  relation  changes  with  devel- 
opment ;  thinking  becomes  emancipated  from  its  connection  with  the  lower 
forms  of  feeling.  But  in  the  case  of  the  higher  feelings  again,  thinking 
may  be  largely  dominated  by  them. 

In  whatever  way,  however,  we  rejiresent  the  relation  between  our  ideas 
and  our  emotions,  it  is  certain  that  a  recii^i'ocal  determining  influence  must 
be  acknowledged  in  the  case  of  all  the  more  highly  developed  experience. 
Indeed,  if  this  were  not  so,  it  is  impossible  to  see  how  human  life  could 
really  develop  and  become  so  largely  composed  of  emotions. 

§  13.  Further  light  is  thrown  upon  the  principles  which  regulate  the  in- 
creasing complexity  of  the  emotions  by  considering  that  some  of  them  de- 
pend upon  organic  and  mental  conditions,  or  ujjon  relations,  which  can  only 
be  furnished  when  certain  periods  of  development  are  reached.  This  is  trae 
in  a  peculiar  way  of  those  somewhat  highly  specialized  and  yet  complex 
emotions  which  belong  to  the  climacterics  of  human  life.  Under  this  class 
those  emotions  which  belong  particularly  to  puberty  have  already  been  not- 
iced. These  are  a  confused  and  changeful  mixture  of  ill-localized,  vague, 
bodily  sensations,  of  mental  unrest  and  undefined  longings,  of  feelings  of 
mixed  attraction  and  shyness  in  the  presence  of  the  opposite  sex,  etc. 
Again  the  peculiar  emotions  of  the  parent  toward  the  child,  of  the  lover 
toward  his  mistress,  of  the  husband  and  wife,  or  of  long-tried  and  intellect- 
ually well-mated  friends,  are,  of  course,  dependent  on  the  necessary  rela- 
tions being  realized.  But  when  these  feelings  do  arise,  it  is  shallowness  it- 
self to  explain  them  as  though  they  followed  definitely  pre-established  rela- 
tions of  sensations,  ideas,  or  purposes.  The  leajj  of  the  jDareutal  heart  toward 
the  child  at  the  sound  of  its  first  cry  is  something  that  lies  too  deep  for  ac- 
counting by  sums  in  ideation  ;  and  so  does  the  emotion  of  the  youth  who  falls 
in  love  at  first  sight,  or  the  outgoing  of  a  friend's  afi'ection  toward  his  friend. 

^  14.  Contrast  and  abrupt  change  in  the  emotions  contribute  new  ele- 
ments to  the  complex  character  of  the  resulting  forms  of  emotional  excite- 
ment. The  joy  of  the  mother  is  somewhat  different  because  "  she  re- 
membereth  (as  'no  more,' as  a  thing  of  the  past)  the  anguish."  When 
"remedies  are  past,  the  griefs  are  ended" — not,  indeed,  utterly  ceased  as 
griefs,  but  changed  into  a  less  militant  kind  of  emotion.  That  which  actual 
change  accomplishes  so  vividly,  memory  and  imagination  can  accomplish  in 
scarcely  less  effective  form.  To  reflect  upon  escape  from  danger  or  sorrow 
adds  to  present  joy  a  differently  toned  joy,  a  pleasurable  feeling  of  security 
or  of  gratitude  or  of  relief.  Thus  the  emotions  that  are  contrasted  in  real 
nature  may  indirectly  either  increase  or  diminish  each  other. 

"  For  if  of  joy.  being  altogether  wanting, 
It  doth  remember  me  the  more  of  sorrow ; 
Or  if  of  grief,  being  altogether  liad. 
It  adds  more  sorrow  to  my  want  of  joy. " 

Hence  that  "  extraordinary  state  "  which,  in  the  Phaedo,  is  referred  to  as 
"an  vinaccustomed  mixture  of  delight  and  sorrow;"  hence  that  "secret 

'  rsychologische  Analysen,  ii.,  Zwcite  II:i]ftc,  p.  178  f. 


TELEOLOGY   OF  THE   EMOTIONS  557 

l)lGasiiio  "  which  Schopenhauer  affirms  is  the  conipanion  of  a  certain  form  of 
grief — that  "which  the  most  melancholy  of  all  writers  called  the  'joy  of 
grief.' " 

The  treatment  of  the  Teleolo^^y  of  the  more  complex  and  de- 
veloped Emotions,  like  that  of  feelinq-  g-enerally  as  pleasure- 
pain,  has  been  attempted  from  the  points  of  view  held  by  com- 
parative and  evolutionary  psychology.  The  scientific  success  of 
this  treatment,  however,  as  explaining  the  ditierentiation  of  the 
emotions,  cannot  be  called  great.  In  general  the  following  two 
principles  apjily  to  some  forms  of  emotional  excitement :  (1)  The 
motor  reactions  called  forth  as  a  part  of  the  bodily  resonance 
are  adapted  for  the  defence  and  preservation  of  the  subject  of 
the  emotion  ;  and  (2)  by  the  application  of  the  jn-inciples  of  imi- 
tation and  sympathy,  these  same  or  other  reactions  operate  for 
the  defence  and  preservation  of  a  multitude  of  the  same  species. 
Tims  the  immediate  result  of  anger,  or  hatred,  is  to  put  the  in- 
dividual into  the  best  muscular,  vaso-motor,  and  respiratory 
condition  for  defence  or  attack  ;  the  spreading  sympathetically 
of  the  same  emotions  rallies  the  siirrounding  individuals  of  the 
same  species  to  united  energies  in  the  same  directions.  Fear, 
also,  tends  to  check  the  uncautious  advance  into  danger  and  to 
set  up,  before  thought  can  have  time  to  draw  conclusions,  the 
movements  in  retreat.  In  how  large  a  wa}'  the  development  of 
intellectual  wonder  is  serviceable  to  the  individual  and  to  the 
race,  we  shall  see  more  clearly  when  w^e  have  considered  its  sen- 
timental form.  Moderate  emotions  of  joy  are  directly  sanitary 
for  the  individual  ;  and,  by  contagion,  when  we  see  their  expres- 
sion in  others,  we  are  helped  scarcely  less  than  when  made  sub- 
jects of  the  emotion  at  first  instance.  Even  grief — though  more 
indirectly  through  exercise  of  memory  and  imagination  upon 
the  consequences  of  conduct — may  prove  serviceable  in  a  bio- 
logical way. 

We  cannot  believe,  however,  that  such  restricted  teleology  of 
the  emotions  is,  on  the  whole,  very  satisfactory.  Taking  all  the 
facts  of  experience  into  the  account,  it  is  doubtful  whether  the 
emotions  are,  on  the  whole,  "  life-saving "  and  "  growth-pro- 
moting "  functions  of  body  and  mind — in  the  merelv  biological 
meaning  of  the  words  "  life  "  and  "  growth."  In  the  excessively 
intense  form  in  which  they  all  tend  to  recur,  unless  checked  by 
the  forces  of  an  ideational  and  ethical  development,  the  emo- 
tions expend  life  and  hinder  growth.  AVe  liav(i  seen  that,  phys- 
iologically considered,  they  are  all  significant  of  an  "  overplus," 
which  quickly  becomes  an  "  overflow,"  of  cerebral  disturbance. 
Both  the  "  sthenic "  (or  intensely  innervating)   and  the   "  as- 


558  THE   EMOTIONS   AND   PASSIONS 

thenic  "  (or  depressin"-)  emotions  tend  to  destroy  the  mecliau- 
ism  ;  "  the  sthenic  kill  by  apoplexy,  the  asthenic  by  laming:  the 
heart."  ^ 

But  human  life  and  human  development,  in  the  wider  and 
higher  meaning"  of  those  words,  would  be  infinitely  less  rich 
and  interesting-  were  it  not  for  so  varied  and  mighty  emotions 
and  passions,  with  all  the  part  they  have  j)layed  in  history, 
art,  and  religion.  In  a  grander  significance  than  biology  or 
comparative  psycholog-y  can  properly  recognize,  the  afi'ective 
forces  have  been  "  serviceable  "  to  the  race.  If  the  final  purpose 
of  life  were  merely  to  conserve  and  propagate  itself,  there  Avould 
seem  to  be  as  little  use  for  so  many  and  strong  emotions  as  for 
so  much  and  such  qualitatively  varied  pain.  At  this  point, 
psychology  is  compelled  to  hand  over  to  ethical  philosophy 
rather  than  to  biology  the  larger  i^roblems  started  by  the  study 
of  human  feeling.  Here  we  find,  on  one  side,  the  conclusion 
expressed  by  Matthew  Arnold,  as  follows  : 

"  Fulness  of  life  and  power  of  feeling,  ye 
Are  for  the  happy,  for  the  souls  at  ease, 
Who  dwell  on  a  firm  basis  of  content." 

But,  on  the  other  side,  the  rational  faith  of  Browning- : 

"  Put  pain  from  out  the  world,  what  room  were  left 
For  thanks  to  God,  for  love  to  man  ?  " 

§  15.  The  lower  teleological  significance  of  anger  is  perhaps  most  obvious. 
Of  the  serviceable  results  of  this  emotion  Darwin  affirms  :^  "The  excited 
brain  gives  strength  to  the  muscles,  and,  at  the  same  time,  energy  to  the 
will.  The  body  is  commonly  held  erect,  ready  for  instant  action.  .  . 
Such  gestures  as  the  raising  of  the  arms,  with  the  fists  clenched,  as  if  to 
strike  the  offender,  are  common."  Similarly,  Darwin  would  account  for  the 
"  uufieshing"  of  the  teeth,  in  the  snarl  or  sneer  of  anger,  as  a  survival  of  the 
habit  of  getting  these  organs  ready  for  attack  ;  although  the  closing  of  the 
mouth  "with  firmness,  showing  fixed  determination"  is  considered  to  be  a 
sign  of  the  serviceable  character  of  the  bodily  movements  connected  with 
the  kindred  emotion  of  hatred.  The  interesting  versatility  of  biological 
psychology  is  illustrated  further  in  the  view  of  Mr.  Spencer  that  the  disten- 
tion of  the  nostrils  in  anger  was  caused  by  the  mouth  of  "  our  ancestors  " 
being  filled  with  "  a  part  of  an  antagonist's  body,"  and  the  angry  frown  by 
its  utility  iii  keeping  the  sun  out  of  the  eyes  when  engaged  in  mortal  com- 
bat. But  tlio  obvious  physiological  reason  tliat,  with  mouth  closed  and  res- 
piration (juickened,  the  nostrils  must  dilate,  would  seem  to  be  sullicient  ; 
and  Professor  Mosso  properly  objects  that  the  dilatation  of  the  pupils  of  the 

'  Comp.  Wundt :  Phyeiolog.  Psychologie,  II.,  p.  400  f. 
'  Tlic  Expression  of  the  Emotious,  p.  240  f. 


NATURE   OF   THE  PASSIONS  .559 

eyes,  which  accompanies  frowning,  is  unfavorable  for  distinct  vision.  Tlie 
latter  authority  also  correctly  remarks  that  the  graver  "  the  peril  becomes, 
the  more  do  the  reactions  which  are  i^ositively  harmful  to  the  animal  prevail 
in  number  and  in  efficacy."  But  all  this  is  only  one  of  innumerable  in- 
stances where  biological  and  evolutionary  i)sychology  becomes  self-contra- 
dictory, or  at  least  iiuite  inadocpiato,  in  its  attempt  to  explain  the  whole 
round  of  man's  psychical  phenomena.' 

The  Distinction  between  the  Passions  and  the  Emotions  is 
not  snch  as  to  require  a  separate  treatment  of  the  former. 
Emotions  which  have  by  freciuent  repetition  Ixn-ome  habitual, 
and  are,  as  it  were,  backed  up  l)y  Avill,  may  be  called  "  i)assions." 
Connected  with  this  diti'eronce  of  the  two  is  the  diil'erent  relation 
to  imagination  and  to  thoug-ht.  On  these  intellectual  ojierations 
the  so-called  passions  may  be  said  to  feed,  and  so  to  attain  the 
lif  J  and  heat  which  give  them  a  persistency  not  to  be  found  in 
the  distinctively  emotional  states.  On  the  other  hand,  the  most 
deeply  seated  and  intense  forms  of  the  life  of  feeling' — the  "  rul- 
ing" passions,"  as  we  are  wont  so  expressively  to  denominate 
them — tinge  the  entire  character  of  our  mental  images  and 
of  our  habitual  conclusions.  Thus  the  passio)iate  jealousy  of  the 
king"  in  the  Winter's  Tale  makes  him  perceive,  imagine,  and  in- 
fer, the  infidelity  of  the  reallj^  faultless  Hermione  ;  while  the 
emotion  of  jealousy  in  Othello  sweeps  away  reason  and  hurries 
the  will  on  to  the  murderous  deed.  It  is  for  this  reason  chiefly 
that,  as  HolTdiug  says,  ~  "Rejietition  has  a  difierent  effect  upon 
emotion  and  upon  passion  ;  it  weakens  the  one,  and  feeds  the 
other."  The  brooding,  reflective  character  of  passion  makes  it, 
as  it  were,  press  more  indelil)ly  into  the  soul  certain  ideas  and 
judgments ;  while  emotion  tends  for  the  time  being  toAvard  the 
obliteration  of  all  ideation  and  reasoning.  The  storm  of  emo- 
tion clears  up  and  cools  off  the  psychical  atmosphere  ;  it  leaves 
the  nervous  system  and  mind  alike  relaxed.  But  passion  burns 
with  the  steady  heat  of  a  tropical  summer. 

Nevertheless,  i^assion  is  ever  ready — especiall}^  in  some  nat- 
ures— to  take  upon  itself  emotional  characteristics,  and  so  to  flame 
up  and  vent  itself  in  gfreatly  increased  psycho-physical  disturb- 
ance ;  just  as  even  perpetually  active  volcanoes  may  have  their 
periods  of  enormously  increased  eniptive  energ"y.  And,  indeed, 
the  distinction  between  the  passions  and  the  emotions,  like  the 
distinction  between  the  emotions  and  the  sentiments  (and  even 
more  obviously),  is  only  a  relative  one.  A  certain  contimiity  of 
nature  riais  throur/k  the  entire  series  of  develojwients,  as  respects 

>  On  this  subject  see  James,  The  P*rincip'.e8  of  Psychology,  11.,  p.  477  f. 
»  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p,  283. 


i")60  THE   EMOTIONS   AND   PASSIONS 

both  intensity  and  complex  qualities,  of  which  the  life  of  feeling  is 
capahle. 

g  16.  The  popular  use  of  the  Wo  words,  "emotion  "  and  "  passion"  does 
not  observe  any  fixed  distinction.  The  etymology  of  the  two  suggests,  of 
course,  that  the  side  of  "  suffering,"  on  the  part  of  the  subject  of  the  aff'ec- 
tive  state,  is  emphasized  by  the  latter  of  these  terms  {Leidenscliafl,  in  Ger- 
man). It  was  Kant  who  described  the  psychological  distinction  in  the  fol- 
lowing language  :  "Emotion  takes  effect  as  a  flood  which  bursts  its  dam, 
passion  as  a  stream  which  wears  for  itself  an  ever-deepening  channel.  .  . 
Emotion  is  like  a  fit  of  intoxication,  which  is  slejDt  oflf ;  passion  as  a  mad- 
ness, brooding  over  one  idea,  which  sinks  in  ever  deeper."  In  accordance 
with  this  distinction  is  the  undoubted  fact  that  men  who  are  known  to  have 
strong  passions,  do  not  lose  thereby  our  intellectual  and  moral  respect; 
while  emotional  men  are  inevitably  regarded  as  weak,  however  praiseworthy 
the  individual  character  of  their  emotions  may  be.  Yet,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  and  shall  see  further  in  considering  the  character  of  the  sentiments, 
the  most  refined  forms  of  feeling  all  have  their  emotional  intensities  and 
stages.  Life  and  character  are  enriched  by  the  occasional  exi^erience  of 
them  in  their  highest  intensities.  For  example,  he  who  has  never  "al- 
lowed himself"  to  be  swept  away  tii?  to  the  heights  of  musical  feeling,  by 
some  such  gathering  and  bursting  storm  of  musical  sensations  as  the  Pil- 
giim  Chorus  in  Wagner's  Tannhauser,  is  the  poorer  for  lack  of  having  been 
subjugated  by  the  strength  of  emotive  excitement. 

[Besides  the  works  cited  at  the  close  of  Chapter  X.,  the  following  may  be  consulted  : 
.lames :  The  Principles  of  Psycholoiry,  II. ,  xxv.  Darwin  :  Expression  of  the  Emotions. 
Lange :  translation  by  H.  Knrella,  Ueber  Gemiithsbewegnngen.  Maass :  Vcrsuch  iiber  d. 
(ief  iihle  ;  and  Versnche  iiber  d.  Leidenschaften.  Mantegazza:  La  Phj-sionomic  et  I'Expres- 
aion  des  Sentiments.  Warner  :  Physical  Expression.  Bell :  Anatomy  of  Expression.  Leh- 
mann,  translation  by  Bendixen,  Die  Hauptgesetze  d.  menschlichen  Gefiihlsleben.  Sully  : 
Sensation  and  Intuition,  chap,  ii.] 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 

THE   SENTIMENTS 

As  the  complex  life  of  liuiuau  feelinp:  develops  in  more  obvi- 
ous dependence  upon  the  contemporaneous  development  of  im- 
agination and  thought,  new  kinds  of  feelings  are  manifested  for 
■which  we  have  cliosen  the  term  "sentiments."  The  nature  of 
the  sentiments,  as  distinguished  from  the  emotions,  has  already- 
been  described  in  a  negative  way  ;  the  former  lack  that  marked 
intensity  and  consequently  large  admixture  of  secondary  feeling 
due  to  bodily  resonance  which  characterize  the  latter.  Posi- 
tively, then,  we  may  now  say,  the  sentiments  are  the  most  ideal 
and  spiritual  of  all  the  forms  of  developed  feeling.  In  apply- 
ing the  word  "  ideal "  to  the  sentiments  we  should  understand 
that  these  affective  phenomena  are  the  farthest  possible  distant 
from  such  relatively  simple  and  content-less  feelings  as  man  has 
in  common  with  the  lower  animals.  The  sentiments  are  feelings 
full,  so  to  speak,  of  ideas  ;  some  of  them  may  even  be  said  to  be 
feelings  that  arise  only  in  the  presence  of  "  ideals," — or  of  those 
complex  constructions  of  imagination  and  thought  which  the 
developed  mind  holds  before  itself  as  types  or  patterns  of  what 
is  not,  but  what  ought  to  be.  The  possession  of  sentiments 
implies  then — whether  their  moral  quality  be  considered  good, 
bad,  or  indifferent — a  comparatively  refined  and  highly  cultured 
stage  of  ideation  and  reasoning.  But  by  calling  the  sentiments 
"  spiritual "  forms  of  feeling  we  mean  to  emphasize  in  a  positive 
way  the  very  thing  which  we  emphasize  negatively  when  we 
assert  that  they  are  not,  like  the  emotions,  obviously  built  upon 
a  basis  of  somatic  reactions.  They  are,  of  all  our  affective  phe- 
nomena, most  obviously  ascribed  purely  to  a  highly  generalized 
and  abstract  conception  of  the  lujo,  considered  as  freed  from  all 
dependence  upon  the  bodily  organism. 

Here,  however,  the  conclusion  made  necessary  by  our  entire 
doctrine  of  the  nature  of  feeling  must  not  be  abandoned.  All  this 
is  only  relative.  The  sentiments  reveal  their  kinship  with  the 
primitive  forms  of  feeling  and  with  their  twin  sisters,  the  emo- 
tions. It  is  only  in  respect  of  degree  that  they  have  this  ideal 
36 


562  THE   SENTIMENTS 

and  spiritual  character  ;  tliej',  as  truly  as  all  tlie  coarser  feelings, 
may  become  opposed  to,  or  bereft  of,  reason  ;  they,  too,  have  un- 
derneath them,  not  only  a  centrally  initiated  nervous  process 
but  a  sensuous  coloring-  derived  from  the  concomitant  condition 
of  the  peripheral  and  intra-organic  vessels  and  tissues. 

The  main  Classes  of  the  Sentiments  have  already  been  stated 
to  be  the  following  three  :  the  Intellectual,  the  ^Esthetical,  and 
the  Ethical. 

^  1.  The  somatic  basis  of  those  pesthetical  and  ethical  feelings  which 
we  call  "  warm  "  and  "  glowing  "  is,  of  course,  easiest  to  describe.  The  sug- 
gestion that  this  subject  should  receive  a  detailed  investigation  is  one  which 
the  experimental  str;dy  of  iisychology  has  only  just  begun  to  regard.  If  a  col- 
lection and  satisfactory  exposition  of  the  facts  were  at  present  attainable  (as 
it  certainly  is  not),  we  shouki  still  in  so  general  a  treatise  as  ours  not  be  able 
to  consider  them.  The  following  illustrations  of  the  true  position  must  suf- 
fice. It  may,  in  the  first  place,  be  argued  that  since  all  the  sentiments, 
when  greatly  increased  in  the  intensity  of  their  characteristic  complexes  of 
feeling,  tend  to  become  emotional ;  and  since,  when  they  do  become  thus 
emotional,  they  plainly  show  the  influence  (in  common  with  the  coarser 
emotions)  of  the  bodily  reactions  belonging  to  them  ;  therefore,  they  all, 
even  in  their  most  ideal  and  spiritual  forms  of  manifestation,  are,  to  some  ex- 
tent, colored  by  the  same  bodily  reactions.  Such  a  general  argument  must 
be  held  to  be  sound  and  defensible.  In  connection  with  that  principle  of 
continuity  which  relates  the  sentiments  to  the  emotions,  we  infer  the  fusion 
of  this  bodily  and  sensuous  coloring  with  certain  psychoses  among  the  so- 
called  sentiments,  in  which  direct  analysis  may  not  be  able  to  find  it. 

Illustration  may  begin  by  considering  those  sesthetical  and  ethical  feel- 
ings which  we  have  in  view  of  objects  called  "sublime."  Here  the  very 
word  sublime  is  significant  of  our  contention.  That  is  suhlime  which  is 
lifted  up  on  high  ;  and  that  is  sublime  to  me,  to  which  I  am  conscious,  in 
some  way,  of  being  drawn  or  lifted  up,  or  allured  to  make  the  eflfort  of  lift- 
ing myself  up.  Such  an  experience  cannot,  however,  be  had  with  any 
warmth  of  feeling — that  is,  there  can  be  no  actual  psychosis  corresponding 
to  the  sentiment  of  the  sublime — without  the  appropriate  psycho-physical 
activity.  This  activity  includes  the  lifting-up  of  the  eyes,  the  upheaving  of 
the  chest,  the  deeper  inspiration,  the  quickened  circulation,  the  tendency  to 
widen  the  extent  of  the  heart-movement,  etc.,  which  are  characteristic  of  the 
gentler  "  sthenic  "  forms  of  feeling.  The  eflfort  to  repress  this  mild  and 
massive  bodily  resonance,  as  well  as  the  eifort  to  become  distinctly  conscious 
of  it  in  an  analytic  way,  tends  at  once  to  diminish  this  characteristic  form  of 
feeling.  But  its  presence  is  undoubtedly  felt  in  all  exiiorience  with  this 
sentiment.  Moreover,  the  diflferent  shadings  of  the  sentiment  are,  to  a 
large  extent,  obtained  only  by  difterentiations  in  the  characteristic  tone  of 
the  bodily  resonance.  For  example,  a  highly  refined  religious  veneration 
or  awe  is  closely  akin  to  the  sesthetical  sentiment  of  the  stiblime.  Here  wo 
have  introduced  an  element  of  that  mild  and  massive  shrinking,  or  with- 
drawal, of  vital  outgoing  which  characterizes  the  somatic  reactions  of  every 


BODILY    BASIS    OF   THE   SENTIMENTS  563 

form  of  tlie  feeling  of  fear  (a  mixture,  therefore,  of  the  expansive  and  re- 
tractive organic  conditions). 

Those  u>sthetical  sentiments  which  arc  apiiealoil  to  by  art  in  the  forms 
of  comedy  and  tragedy  are,  of  coiirso,  incapabk^  of  realization  without  the 
aj^propriate  bodily  resonance.  Laughter,  or  even  the  tendency  to  laugh,  is 
im2)ossible  as  a  form  of  conscious  feeling,  without  admixture  of  felt  physio- 
logical jjrocesses  of  laughter  or  tendency  to  laughter.  This  is  probably  true 
even  of  that  "  exquisite  laughter  that  comes  from  a  gratification  of  the  rea- 
soning faculty" — already  referred  to — where  the  merriment  is  most  interior, 
brain-like  as  it  were,  and  unexpressed  as  far  as  visible  tokens  go.  Here,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  sublime,  the  tone  of  the  sentiment  may  be  altered  by  ad- 
mixture of  slight  amounts  of  other  kinds  of  refined  feeling,  with  their  char- 
acteristic mild  forms  of  bodily  resonance.  There  is  just  a  tinge,  at  least,  of 
anger,  or  contempt  in  the  sentiment  of  satire  ;  and  of  sympathy,  or  grief,  in 
the  most  cultivated  forms  of  humor.  While  the  sentiments  which  enter 
into  the  higher  kinds  of  tragedy,  whether  as  necessary  for  its  artistic  produc- 
tion, or  dramatic  representation,  or  sympathetic  aiipreciation,  make  acknowl- 
edged drafts  upon  the  bodily  organism  for  their  exjirossion  and  support. 

It  is  a  most  interesting  psycho-physical  question,  how  much,  and  Avhat, 
are  the  necessary  somatic  reactions  that  characterize  the  moral  sentiments. 
Doubtless,  what  we  call  "  conscience  "  is  in  different  men  a  very  different 
affair — characterized  much  more  by  unemotional  judgment  in  some  cases, 
and  by  unreasoning  emotion,  or  unemotional  and  unreasoning  impulsive 
"will-work,"  in  still  other  cases.  In  all  cases,  doubtless,  also,  conscience 
is  a  very  comjilex  development.  But  even  its  most  characteristic  and  uni- 
versal form  of  sentiment— the  feeling  of  obligation,  the  feeling  of  "the 
ought " — does  not  seem  to  be  free  from  somatic  influences.  The  jiale  and 
completely  intellectualized  concept  of  obligation,  could  such  a  form  of  men- 
tal life  be  realized,  might  have  its  bodily  basis  chiefly  in  the  motor  accom- 
paniment of  language;  but  the  actual  concrete  feeling,  "  I  oiigJit,"  consti- 
tutes a  sentiment  of  obligation,  or  of  being  bound,  in  jiart,  just  because  it  is 
the  feeling  of  the  motor  impulse  to  inhibit  or  to  innervate  the  muscular  ap- 
jiaratus  necessary  to  some  action  to  which  the  feeling  has  reference.  I  feel 
"I  must  not  sjieak,"  "  I  mnsf  vol  strike,"  "  I  mxst  not  go,"  or  the  opposite — 
and  all  this  is,  undoubtedly,  ordinarily  warmed  up  in  consciousness  by  the 
appropriate  secondary  bodily  resonances. 

The  various  special  forms  of  feeling  which  are  customarily  classified  as 
ethical  sentiments,  might  be  examined  in  detail  from  the  same  general  point 
of  view.  The  affection  of  love  in  the  complex  form  in  which  it  develops 
between  parent  and  offspring,  illustrates  well  an  entire  class  of  sentiments. 
Such  sentiment  is  originally  produced,  and  nurtured  in  all  its  earlier  stages, 
in  obvious  dependence  upon,  and  connection  with,  numerous  bodily  influ- 
ences. It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  this  is  so  in  the  case  of  the  senti- 
mental affection  which  exists,  where  the  emotional  or  iiassionate  stages  are 
wanting,  between  persons  of  different  sex. 

It  is  the  case  of  the  higher  intellectual  feelings  which  seems  to  offer  the 
most  nearly  i^erfect  exemption  from  all  traces  of  bodily  resonance.  That 
these  feelings,  however,  are  capable  of  assuming  the  character  of  disturbing 
emotions,  or  more  slowly  and  yet  intensely  burning  passions,  we  have  already 


564  THE    SENTIMENTS 

seen  to  be  true.  The  general  argument,  as  derived  from  the  very  nature  of 
the  life  of  feeling  and  from  the  laws  of  its  development,  applies,  therefore, 
to  them  also.  A  careful  attention  to  the  coloring  of  our  consciousness  Avhen 
these  feelings  predominate  helps,  though  jDerhaps  only  in  an  imperfect 
way,  to  illustrate  the  principle.  Certainly  the  feeling  with  which  I  confi- 
dently draw  a  conclusion  differs  from  that  which  forms  the  aiiective  ac- 
companiment of  a  flash  of  insight.  And  both  these  sentiments  differ  from 
that  which  marks  the  dubitating  or  doubtfully  accomjilished  process  of 
inference.  Ahiiost  as  certainly,  a  part  of  these  differences  is  of  the  nature 
of  a  felt  bodily  reaction.  The  firm  mouth  and  decisive  gesturing,  the  start 
of  surprise  or  the  exclamation  of  joy  at  discovery,  the  drooping  or  shaking  of 
the  head,  etc.,  which  sometimes  actually  express  such  forms  of  intellectual 
feeling,  respectively,  are  not  without  great  significance. 

Without  directly  :'-eturning  to  this  somatic  aspect  of  even  the  most  ideal 
and  si^iritual  of  the  sentiments,  we  shall  find  the  correct  view  suggested 
constantly  as  we  continue  the  treatment  of  them  in  detail. 

The  more  properly  Intellectual  Sentiments  may  be,  somewhat 
roughly,  divided,  into  two  general  classes.  These  are  either  (1) 
such  as  serve  to  give  impulse  and  guidance  to  the  intellectual 
processes ;  or  (2)  such  as  seem  simply  to  accompany  these  proc- 
esses without  acting  upon  them  in  a  marked  way  either  to 
excite  or  to  inhibit  tliem.  Yet  some  of  the  latter  of  these  two 
classes  also  are  probably  not  without  a  certain  practical  benefit 
in  the  logical  processes  which  they  accompany.  The  developed 
sentiment  of  "  intellectual  curiosity ; "  the  semi-ethical  esti- 
mate, as  somewhat  of  great  worth  in  itself,  which  comes  to  be 
attached  in  certain  minds  to  the  truth  as  such  (the  "  feeling  of 
the  value  of  truth  " — for  its  own  sake) ;  the  feelings  of  affection 
and  loyalty  to  science  in  general,  or  to  their  particular  depart- 
ment of  scientific  research,  which  many  devotees  evince  ;  the 
sentiment  of  "  acquisitiveness "  as  directed  toward  stores  of 
knowledge,  and  the  pleasant  feeling  of  attainment  and  jDosses- 
sion  that  accompany  knowledge  ;  the  feeling  of  certainty  or 
"conviction,"  without  which  there  woiild  seem  to  be  insufficient 
ground  for  the  distinction  between  what  is  merely /ory^rtZ^y  t'or- 
rect  and  what  is,  as  we  say,  really  true — all  these  may  be  men- 
tioned as  intellectual  sentiments  belonging  to  the  first  class. 
These  sentiments  are  of  very  diffiu'ciit  degrees  of  complexity ; 
they  develo]o  at  difi^erent  stages  in  the  general  advance  of  in- 
tellectual life ;  and  they  have  not  all,  by  any  means,  the  same 
fundamental  character  and  value  as  affective  accomi^animents  of 
intellectual  growth.  For  example,  a  purely  sentimental  feeling 
toward  a  fictitious  creature  of  imagination  called  "  science,"  or  a 
secretive  and  miser-like  eagerness  to  acquire  and  hoard  facts, 
are  affective  phenomena  which,  although  implying  an  extremely 


I 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  SENTIMENTS  565 

complex  ideational  and  logical  development,  are  almost  patho- 
logical in  character.  On  the  contrar}^,  intellectual  curiosity, 
and  that  feeling  of  conviction  which  attaches  itself  to  the  per- 
ceptive and  ratiociuative  products  of  intellect,  are  rather  of  the 
nature  of  universal  human  sentiments.  While  a  high  estimate 
of  the  value  of  truth,  as  such  and  for  its  own  sake,  may  jiroperly 
be  held  to  mark  an  exalted  standard  of  attainment  in  ethical, 
even  more  surely  than  in  merely  intellectual,  development. 

It  would  be  quite  impossible  to  enumerate,  with  confidence 
that  no  omissions  were  being  made,  the  intellectual  sentiments 
of  the  second  class.  Indeed,  the  rather  might  we  claim  that 
probably  every  new  shade  of  discriminable  logical  processes 
has  its  corresponding  shade  of  feeling  accompanying  and  spe- 
cially belonging  to  it.  Here  we  go  back  again,  as  it  Avero,  to 
first  principles  in  the  development  of  mental  life.  We  have 
seen  that  discriminating  consciousness  belongs  to  all  conscious- 
ness, so  far  as  consciousness  contains  data  for  knowledge  of  its 
own  processes  ;  and  that,  therefore,  the  most  primary  intellec- 
tion is  relating  faculty.  But  all  activity  of  relating  faculty,  we 
have  also  seen,  has  its  accompaniment  of  feelings  of  relation. 
Personifjdng,  and  speaking  in  a  figurative  way,  it  may  be  said 
that  the  mind  feels  itself  as  it  conducts  all  the  logical  processes. 
This  is  true  of  even  the  simplest  processes  of  recognizing  simi- 
larities, contrasts,  etc.;  as  well  as  of  those  coupling  and  uncoup- 
ling processes  which  go  on,  in  the  most  primitive  forms  of  af- 
firmation and  negation,  between  the  ideas.  All  the  jwcesses  of 
perception,  memory,  imagination,  and  tJiinl-ing,  therefore,  Jiace  their 
peculiar  affective  accompaniments  ;  for  feeling,  in  an  all-around 
and  pervasive  way,  is  no  less  variable  and  fertile  in  productivity 
of  various  species,  than  is  intellect,  in  the  widest  meaning  of 
the  latter  term. 

The  feelings  which  characterize  the  intellectual  processes, 
like  all  other  forms  of  feeling,  have  their  tone  of  either  pleas- 
ure or  pain.  From  this  point  of  view,  they  may  be  divided  into 
joleasant  and  painful  intellectual  sentiments.  However,  when 
this  tone  becomes  obtrusive,  its  very  existence  detracts  from  the 
sentimental  character  of  the  feeling.  For  example,  the  struggle 
to  accomplish  an  act  of  recognitive  memory,  or  to  find  a  middle 
term  in  an  argument,  or  to  recognize  a  relation,  or  to  under- 
stand a  principle,  may  become  predominatingly  painful.  Sus- 
pense or  confusion  of  memory,  and  of  the  processes  of  reasoning, 
may  be  felt  as  a  painful  emotion.  But  even  where  the  feeling  of 
the  logical  activities  does  not  reach  this  emotional  stage,  it  still 
has  its  mildly  unpleasant  or  pleasant  tone.     Such  tone  may 


566  THE   SENTIMENTS 

often  be  regarded  as  approbating-  or  disapproving,  furthering  or 
clieckiug  and  inhibiting,  the  intellectual  processes.  When  "  one 
feels"  dissatisfied  with  the  correctness  or  completeness  of  an  act 
of  voluntary  and  recognitive  memory,  "  one  knows "  that  one 
has  not  remembered  correctly  and  completely  ;  and  this  dissat- 
isfaction is  itself  a  sort  of  craving  further  to  correct  and  com- 
plete the  act  of  memory.  Thus,  also,  there  accompanies  our 
clearly  conscious  logical  processes  a  feeling  of  their  conclusive- 
ness or  inconclusiveness,  which  either  makes  us  rest  satisfied  in 
the  conclusion  or  desire  to  revise  it.  Indeed,  to  sophisticate 
that  feeling,  or  to  disregard  it,  is  closely  akin  to  the  moral  fault 
of  lying.  For  the  whole  mind's  vital  seizure  of  a  truth  us 
proved,  as  folloiving  rightfully  from  grourids,  is  i?i  part  a  matter 
of  pleasatit  sentiment.  In  general,  we  can  quote  approvingly 
the  writer  ^  who  declares:  "A  man  without  any  feeling  would 
certainly  have  no  intellect  as  well."  "  And  in  a  sound  nature 
doubt,  as  a  rule,  appears  at  the  right  time,  i.e.,  always  when  the 
ground  for  it  exists,  and  never  without  ground.  This  depends 
on  susceptibility  for  the  feeling  of  actuality  and  the  feeling  of 
truth." 

§  2.  The  refined  sentiment  of  eixriosity,  as  we  have  ah'eacly  seen,  has  its 
origin  in  a  certain  ahnost  animal  restlessness  and  tendency  to  satisfy  craving 
with  activity.  This  original  feeling  develops,  however,  into  something 
much  more  complex  and  intellectually  nobler.  Such  is  the  desire  of  hioirl- 
edge,  either — as  we  are  wont  to  say — for  its  own  sake,  or  for  the  sake  of  the 
many  immediate  and  collateral  benefits  which  belong  to  knowledge.  In 
order  to  this,  a  growing  experience  with  knowledge  is,  as  it  were,  essen- 
tial. To  produce  this  sentimental  feeling  toward  knowledge,  it  is  therefore 
necessary  that  one  should  know  what  it  is  to  know — that  is,  should  reflect 
upon  the  accompaniments  and  results  of  knowledge,  as  such.  Now,  such  ex- 
l^erience  is  gained  and  such  reflection  stimulated,  to  a  certain  extent,  for  every- 
one in  a  perfectly  natural  and  necessary  way.  But  the  more  direct  pleas- 
ures of  knowledge  are  twofold — the  pleasures  of  search  and  the  pleasures  of 
attainment  and  possession.  That  restless  activity  of  all  the  powers,  to  which 
references  have  repeatedly  been  made,  is  itself  callable  of  being  felt  in  the 
process  in  a  more  or  less  pleasurable  way.  To  this  j^leasure  of  activity  is 
added  the  pleasure  of  satisfaction  which  follows  the  successful  use  of  all 
the  powers;  the  latter  is  a  sort  of  aff'ective  "well-done,  thou  good  and 
faithful  servant,"  pronounced  tipon  the  self,  and  blended  with  the  pleasant 
feeling  of  being  discharged  from  obligation  and  eased  of  the  demand  for 
work.  About  this  nucleus  also  clusters  tlio  memory  of  the  joys  of  discovery 
and  of  experiencing  the  dawning  upon  the  intellectual  horizon  of  strange 
and  novel  facts  and  truths. 

The  experience  of  the  more  indirect  benefits  of  knowledge  complicates 
and  strengthens  further  the  same  sentiment.     Among  such  benefits  are  the 

'  llartscn  :  Grundziige  d.  Psychologic,  pp.  19  f.,  170  f. 


THE   DESIRE   OF   KNOAVLi;D(iE  567 

influence  and  power  which  are  associated  witli  knowledge.  To  tell  what  ?re 
know,  but  is  uukuown  by  others,  or  even  to  think  of  ourselves  as  holding 
truth  in  possession  which  wo  can  communicate  at  any  time,  begets  pleas- 
ant feeling.  To  this  may  be  added  the  benevolent  desire  to  do  good  with 
our  knowledge,  either  in  a  limited  way  to  a  few  individuals  or  to  the  entire 
race  as  a  contributor  to  its  beneficent  and  growing  stock  of  knowledge. 

In  connection  with  this  complex  accretion  or  development  of  feeling  as 
the  affective  accompaniment  of  knowledge,  the  conception  of  knowledge  it- 
self expands,  becomes  more  general  and  more  abstract.  By  knowledge 
one  comes  to  understand  something  "  universal,"  something  grand  and  in- 
conceivably vast  in  extent,  of  which  one's  own  actual  knowing  processes  are 
only  a  poor  and  very  partial  representative.  Even  the  most  intense  and 
narrow  specialist  finds  quite  impracticable  the  task  of  making  his  own  the 
entire  realm  of  knowledge  that  belongs  to  his  chosen  specialty.  But  other 
equally  incommensurable  specialties  are  known  by  him  to  exist.  And  be- 
yond the  aggregate  of  them  all — the  total  sum  of  acquired  human  knowl- 
edge— lie  the  imagined  immensities  of  space,  as  it  were,  to  be  yet  explored 
and  brought  within  ken,  and  then — the  greater  more,  yet  beyond.  Thus  do 
imagination  and  thinking  succeed  in  refining  the  conception  of  knowl- 
edge so  that  it  may,  as  an  object  of  sentiment,  absorb  the  devotion  of  those 
who  worship  their  own  conception.  What  a  mingling  of  manifold  senti- 
ments is  thus  rei^resented  by  the  so-called  "  pure  "  desire  or  love  of  knowl- 
edge. 

^  3.  The  desire  of  knowledge,  and  the  love  of  it,  need  but  little  further 
work  of  imagination  to  develop  a  mixed  and  rather  morbid  form  of  sentiment 
somewhat  characteristic  of  modern  times.  Let  us  suppose  the  personifica- 
tion of  an  admirable  system  of  generalizations  to  become  more  complete. 
We  have  now  framed  a  coucei^tion  (really  of  an  exceedingly  vague  and  ab- 
stract order)  which  appears  worthy  of  the  i:)assionate  devotion  of  any  intel- 
lect that  has  no  feeling  for  concrete  jaersonal  interests — for  the  actual  fears, 
loves,  hopes,  and  faiths  of  humanity — but  only  for  its  own  most  perfect  work. 
This  abstract  conception,  thus  clothed  with  flesh  and  blood  and  made  into  a 
lovely  and  attractive  mistress,  shall  be  called  "Science;"  and  over  oppo- 
site to  it  stands  its  worshipping  devotee  (Empedocles) — "  A  living  man  no 
more  ;  Nothing  but  a  devoiiring  flame  of  thought,  but  a  naked,  eternally 
restless  mind  !  "  Perhaps  fortunately,  however,  the  intense  and  somewhat 
sordid  interest  of  the  ago  in  the  merely  jiractical  benefits  of  scientific  inquiiy 
counteracts  largely  this  overwrought  sentiment. 

§  4.  The  intellectual  sentiments  depend  upon  imagination  for  the  con- 
struction of  their  ideals.  Although,  therefore,  we  speak  of  them  as  intel- 
lectual or  logical,  they  are  none  the  less  ajsthetical  in  character.  Es- 
sentially considered,  the  feeling  of  desire  for  scientific  achievement,  of 
admiration  for  such  achievement,  of  love  and  devotion  toward  it,  are  akin 
to  those  which  are  felt  by  the  artist  and  the  lover  of  art.  With  a  somewhat 
different  shading  of  the  various  forms  of  feeling  which  fuse  in  the  comjilex 
state,  the  resulting  sentiment  becomes  qtiasi-moral  in  its  character.  If  what 
is  known,  whether  by  perception  or  self-consciousness  or  inference,  is  thrown 
into  the  form  of  a  proposition,  this  proposition  is  called  a  truth.  Al)out  the 
conception  which  answers  to  this  word  ("truth")    there   develops  a  com- 


568  THE   SENTIMENTS 

plex  form  of  sentiment,  wliicli  includes  the  feeling  of  "  worth,"  or  "  value." 
This  feeling  of  worth  is  itself  one  that  has  been  framed  in  a  very  subtle  way 
as  the  result  of  manifold  experiences  ;  it  is  very  diflferent  in  the  case  of  dif- 
ferent minds ;  and  in  many  minds  it  never  reaches  more  than  a  low  stage  of 
development.  Yet  the  environment,  and  the  natural  reaction  of  feeling  upon 
environment,  enforces  in  mankind  generally  some  "  sentiment  of  the  worth 
of  truth."  No  indiWdual^much  more  no  community — can  exist  aud  de- 
velop long  without  some  such  sentiment.  In  the  very  highest  form  of  its 
development,  this  feeling  joins  with  the  feelings  of  refined  wonder,  admira- 
tion, aud  love,  to  constitute  an  aifectional  attitude  of  mind  toward  what,  as 
the  result  of  much  correlative  work  of  imagination  and  thinking,  we  are 
pleased  to  call  ^'tlie  truth."  This  attitude  of  mind  is,  then,  a  sort  of  su- 
jiremely  complex  intellectual,  sesthetical,  and  ethical  sentiment.  It  fur- 
nishes imi^ulse  and  guidance  to  the  noblest  and  choicest  minds.  It  is  so  con- 
nected with  their  precious  and  undying  faith  that,  as  says  Lotze,'  "it  must 
be  even  as  Ave  were  taught  by  the  feeling  that  animated  our  dreams — it  must 
be  that  that  which  is  worthy  is  that  which  truly  is." 

I  5.  Among  those  more  complex  forms  of  the  intellectual  feelings  of  re- 
lation which  serve  as  guides,  in  some  measure,  to  the  logical  processes 
themselves,  stands  the  so-called  "feeling  of  fitness."-'  This  term,  like 
several  others  we  have  just  been  using,  apjilies  to  sentiments  that  have  an 
sesthetical  and  moral,  as  well  as  more  purely  intellectual,  aspect.  As  the  life 
of  knowledge  develops,  its  very  development  largely  consists  in  an  increas- 
ing solidarity  to  all  the  tendencies,  to  all  the  expectancies,  to  all  the  actual 
forms  of  mental  procedure.  Every  new  perception,  that  is  to  say,  depends — 
as  respects  the  speed  with  which  it  is  accomplished,  the  complex  character 
it  bears  as  a  perception,  the  kind  of  feelings  which  accompany  it,  and  the 
motor  activities  it  calls  forth — upon  the  entire  acquired  character  of  the 
mind.  In  a  word,  every  man  must  say  of  himself  :  "  I  perceive  ichat  I  per- 
ceive, etc.,  because  it  is  /  that  perceive  it."  Of  course,  this  same  thing  is 
even  much  more  obviously  true  of  all  that  is  remembered,  imagined,  and 
thought.  In  general,  each  new  object  is  presented  to  consciousness  under 
the  principles  of  the  continuity  and  relativity  of  all  mental  life.  Each  new 
object  is  a  challenge  to  the  mind  :  "  Look  at  me  in  the  light  of  past  exjieri- 
ence  and  decide  :  Do  Ifit  that  past  experience?"  In  fact,  any  theory  of 
knowledge  shows  that  we  can  never  get  behind  the  fact  of  knowledge  itself ; 
there  is,  in  the  last  contest  of  truth  with  error,  no  test  but  the  fitness  or  un- 
fitness of  each  object  or  proposition  with  the  sum-total  of  experience. 

But  the  fitness  or  unfitness  of  any  new  experience  is  a  matter  that 
always  arouses  feeling.  The  mind  cannot  work  as  a  jrare,  "  cold,  logical 
engine."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  moreover,  it  is  probably  feeling,  far  more  and 
far  oftener  than  any  reality  or  even  any  suspicion  of  strict  logical  C07icl>(sireness, 
that  settles  for  the  time  being  what  the  truth  shall  be  held  to  he.  If  one  feels  that 
it  is  all  right  when  one  sees  (has  sensations  intorpretable  as)  a  white- 
sheeted  form  standing  in  one's  room  on  waking  suddenly  at  midnight,  then 
one  does  not  inquire  how  it  is  fitting  that  one  should  i)crceive  (actually  in- 
terpret) that  form.  If  ono  feels  the  shock  of  something  unharmonious  with 
one's  system  of  moral  and  religious  convictions,  on  listening  to  a  certain 

'  Microcosmus,  11.,  p.  311.  »  Comp.  Baldwin  :  FoeliuK  aud  Will,  p.  202  f. 


THE   ^STIIETICAL   SENTIMENTS  569 

proposition,  then  one  instantly  rejects  or  cautiously  considers  the  shocking 
proposition. 

Further  analysis  of  the  affective  attitude  of  mind  toward  the  character  of 
its  own  intellectual  i)rocesses  would  show  that  this  attitude  may  involve  con- 
tributions from  nearly  or  quite  all  of  those  simpler  feelings  of  relation  to 
which  reference  was  formerly  made  (p.  186  f.).  Thus  the  complex  sentiment 
of  fitness  implies  the  fusion  or  struggle  of  feelings  of  surprise,  exjiectatiou, 
recognition  (with  feelings  of  similarity  and  ditlerence),  etc.  With  these  ele- 
ments, more  or  less  intense  feelings  of  anger,  hatred,  fear,  love,  admiration, 
and  other  cpiasi-resthetical  and  ethical  emotions  may  be  mingled.  The  en- 
tire complex  of  feeling  may  then  be  spoken  of  as  "  the  way  the  man  Uikes  " 
any  particular  proposition;  or  the  "way  in  which  ii  finds  him."  Practi- 
cally, the  affective  attitude  thus  determines  very  largely  what  every  man  ac- 
tually comes  to  accept  for  false  or  for  true.  Particularly  is  this  apt  to  be 
so  in  matters  of  aesthetics,  ethics,  and  religion,  where  feelings  of  fitness  or 
unfitness  are  at  once  most  subtle  and  complex,  and  also  most  influential  and 
least  subject  to  influence  from  ratiocination. 

As  compared  with  the  forms  of  feeling-  we  have  just  been  ex- 
amining-, the  ^sthetical  Sentiments  are,  at  once,  both  more  sen- 
suous and  more  objective.  It  is  the  blending-  of  the  two  sets  of 
characteristics  denoted  by  these  words  (sensuous  and  objective) 
which  enables  us  to  describe  these  sentiments  as  peculiar  affec- 
tive conditions  of  consciousness.  "Whenever  we  are  caught  and 
held,  as  it  were,  in  a  contemplative  attitude  of  mind  before  cer- 
tain objects,  we  experience  a  unique  form  of  agreeable  feeling 
Avhicli  may  be  called  "  the  feeling-  of  the  beautiful."  Its  con- 
trasted, or  opposite,  form  of  sentiment  is  evoked  in  "  the  feeling- 
of  the  ugly  "  (or  aesthetically  unpleasing).  Four  things  will,  in 
general,  be  noted  as  true  with  respect  to  the  origin  and  nature  of 
the  ffisthetical  sentiments  considered  as  actual  and  concrete  states 
of  consciousness  in  the  individual.  It  is  only  "as  such,"  that 
psychology  considers  these  sentiments  ;  or  even  raises  any  of  the 
various  problems  connected  with  the  understanding  and  practice 
of  the  various  arts,  or  of  the  real  nature  of  beautiful  objects.  The 
consideration  of  such  problems,  and  even  their  very  definition  as 
problems,  belongs  to  the  philosophy  of  sestl^etics.  Of  nesthetical 
consciousness,  as  such,  the  following-  is  in  g-eneral  true  :  (1)  The 
object  Avliich  excites  the  feeling  of  the  beautiful  is  always  some 
construction  implying  a  refined  and  developed  activity  of  imagi- 
nation. This  object  may  indeed  be  an  object  of  perception  ;  as  in 
all  cases  where  the  sentiment  is  evoked  by  some  natural  thing-, 
by  beautiful  scenery,  by  a  picture  or  other  work  of  art,  or  by 
some  heroic  or  benevolent  deed  of  which  we  are  witnesses.  Or, 
again,  it  ma}'^  be  some  product  of  the  constructive  imag-e-making 
facultj^ ;  as  where   one   admires  one's   own  castle-in-the-air,   or 


570  THE   SENTIMENTS 

ideal  landscape,  or  ideal  hero.  But  in  botli  classes  of  cases,  im- 
agination is  the  dominating-  intellectual  activity,  whose  appro- 
priate accompanying-  sentiment  is  the  feeling  of  the  beautiful. 
This  fact  both  warrants  and  explains  the  statements  that,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  artist  is  characterized  by  the  quality  and  amount 
of  his  imagination  ;  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  no  person  lack- 
ing in  imagination  can  aesthetically  appreciate  an  artistic  com- 
position. In  brief,  even  where  Iperceice  immediately  the  beauti- 
ful in  nature,  or  in  art,  or  in  conduct,  it  is  only  as  I,  by  activity 
of  imagination,  construct  the  object  which  I  thus  perceive. 
Nevertheless,  (2)  the  contemplative  attitude  of  mind  before  the 
object  is  characteristic  of  sesthetical  consciousness.  This  atti- 
tude is  distinguished  in  important  particulars  from  both  the 
practical  and  the  discursive.  For  example,  when  I  regard  any 
presentation  of  sense,  or  work  of  my  own  memory  or  imagina- 
tion, as  answering  the  question,  What  am  I  to  do  with  it  ?  I 
may  be  said  to  maintain  toward  the  object  a  practical  attitude. 
In  this  attitude  I  see  that  the  street-car,  which  I  wish  to  take,  is 
coming  around  the  corner  of  the  street ;  or  I  hear  the  clatter  of 
its  bell  behind  me.  But  if  any  object  chiefly  reminds  me  of  some 
truth,  or  illustrates  some  principle,  or  suggests  a  train  of  rea- 
soning, I  may  be  said  to  regard  it  in  a  discursive  attitude  of 
mind.  Neither  of  these  attitudes,  however,  is  primarily  condu- 
cive to  oesthetical  consciousness ;  but  just  the  contrary.  If  I 
take  either  of  these  attitudes  toward  any  object,  I  have  to  re- 
turn to  the  contemplative  attitude  before  lean  regard  the  object 
as  beautiful  or  ugly.  Only  in  this  contemplative  attitude  can  I 
be  caught,  so  to  speak,  on  the  side  of  sesthetical  sentiment ;  only 
thus  can  I  consider  its  challenge  :  Am  I,  or  am  I  not  to  you 
something  beautiful  ? 

(3)  The  feeling  of  the  beautiful  (or  its  opposite)  is  indeed 
an  agreeable  (or  disagreeable)  form  of  feeling ;  but  it  does  not 
seem  to  be  (at  least,  in  all  its  more  complex  and  highly  devel- 
oped forms)  simply  the  feeling  of  the  agreeable  (or  of  the  disa- 
greeable). On  the  contrary,  so  soon  as  we  begin  merely  to  con- 
sider the  agreeableness  of  the  object — that  is,  its  power  to 
produce  in  us  pleasant  feelings — or  turn  our  attention  upon  our 
own  agreeable  state  of  consciousness,  our  strictly  a^sthetical  con- 
sciousness becomes  modified.  We  may  now  judge  the  object  to 
be  agreeable  to  us,  and  may  argue  that  it  should  bo  agreeable  to 
others  ;  but  tliis  is  not  the  same  thing  as  having  the  ff^cliiig  of 
the  beautiful  in  contemplation  of  the  object.  For  tliis  and  otlicr 
reasons  we  come  to  hold,  with  respect  to  festlietical  conscious- 
ness, that  (4)  it  is  dependent,  for  its  highest  development,  upon 


SENSUOUS   ELEMENTS   OF   AKT  571 

tlio  idoaliziiif;-  tendency,  and  npou  the  i^ower  to  form  "  ideals." 
This  tendency  is  itself,  in  a  measure,  the  expression  of  a  sort  of 
craving-  after  that  which  transcends  the  limits  of  actual  experi- 
ence :  it  bears  witness,  in  its  higher  manifestations,  to  the  insa- 
tiable thirst  for  what  is  perfect,  the  aspiration  after  the  more  be- 
yond, as  it  were.  This  power  is  only  the  expression  of  the  fact 
that  imagination  and  thought,  with  respect  to  the  products 
which  result  from  their  combined  activity,  never  cease  to  grow, 
never  reach  any  recognized  barriers  beyond  which  the  possibil- 
ity of  pushing-  their  work  forward  is  not,  at  least,  conceivable. 
Thus  the  liighest,  richest,  and  jna^est  activity  0/ intellection  {which  is 
not  mainly  the  drawing  of  conclusions  hut  rather  the  const 7' action  of 
ideals)  has  for  its  ajfccticc  accompanhnent  tlie  highest,  richest,  and 
purest  of  the  sentiments— a.  remark  which  is  true  of  the  psychical 
processes  connected  with  the  ethical  as  well  as  the  a3sthetical 
ideals. 

I  6.  It  is  difFiciilt,  or  impossible,  to  draw  a  liue  just  where  the  sensia- 
ously  agreeable  passes  over  into  the  .t'sthetically  pleasing.  But  on  the  in- 
tellectual side  of  this  new  kind  of  consciousness,  which  is  characterized  by 
genuine  isesthetical  sentiment,  there  can  be  uo  doubt  of  the  important  work 
done  by  the  constructive  imagination.  Development  of  imagination  is  nec- 
essai-y  to  sentiment  of  the  beautiful ;  the  higher  and  more  refined  the  activ- 
ity of  imagination,  the  more  purely  sosthetical  does  the  side  of  feeling  be- 
come. Therefore  it  has  been  held  by  some  writers  that,  even  in  the  case  of 
all  i^erception  of  beautiful  objects,  (1)  the  jjleasure  attaches  itself  to  the 
form  and  not  to  the  material  of  sensation  ;  (2)  the  object  must  be  recognized 
by  the  mind  as  implying  relations  ;  (3)  there  must  bo  some  series,  or  com- 
posite, of  agreeable  objects.'  Now,  it  is  by  activity  of  imagination  alone 
that  "form"  is  imparted  to,  or  recognized  in,  the  sensuous  materials  ;  and 
it  is  imagination  and  thinking  that  give  the  recognized  "  serial  "  and  "  com- 
posite "  character  which  the  beautiful  object  has.  For  example,  while  a 
single  tone  sounded  by  a  pure  voice  might  be  sensuously  agreeable,  an  aria 
or  harmony  (a  series  or  comjiosite  of  tones)  would  be  necessary  to  arouse 
festhetical  feeling.  So,  also,  might  any  single  color  to  a  healthy  eye,  if  pre- 
sented in  moderate  intensity,  be  sensuously  agreeable  ;  but  only  arrange- 
ments of  colors  could  be  in  good  or  bad  assthetical  taste. 

Such  statomouts  as  the  foregoing  must  be  accepted  as  emphasizing  an 
important  truth  concerning  the  nature  of  jcsthetical  consciousness.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  case  of  the  sosthetical  sentiments  is  like  that  of  every  other 
complex  development  in  the  life  and  growth  of  human  feeling.  "We  can 
never  lay  our  finger  on  the  precise  spot  where  the  new  manifestation  of  fac- 
ulty, resulting  from  fusion  of  simpler  elements,  first  begins  to  be  in  accord- 
ance with  the  laws  of  the  mind's  life.  For  example,  no  musical  clang  is 
heard  as  a  i^oor  and  tliin  simple  tone  ;  it  is  itself  a  harmony  of  fundamental 
tones  and  over-tones,   althougli   the   consciousness   cannot  analyze  it   (see 

J  Compare,  for  example,  Mich  :  Grundriss  d.  Seeleulebens,  p.  63  f. 


572  THE   SENTIMENTS 

p.  103  f.) ;  and,  besides,  it  appears  in  tlie  stream  of  consciousness  as  one  of  a 
series  of  sounds— a  sweet  something  emerging  in  relation  to  things  either 
less  sweet  or  positively  harsh.  Thus  there  is  probably  awakened  in  the  in- 
fant's mind  a  genuine  but  only  crude  and  inchoate  testhetical  consciousness 
by  croning  tunes  over  it  in  rhythmic  fashion,  or  by  rhythmically  swaying  it 
back  and  forth.  What  is  true  of  iesthetically  pleasing  perceptions  of  hear- 
ing is  even  more  true  of  the  similar  perceptions  of  sight. 

It  is  largely  because  sensations  of  smell,  of  taste,  and  of  the  skin,  do  not 
lend  themselves  readily  as  raw  "stuff"  for  imagination  to  use  in  creating 
harmonious  series  and  composite  objects,  that  little  or  no  aesthetical  senti- 
ment attaches  itself  directly  to  them.  No  wonder,  then,  that  it  is  vulgar  to 
speak  of  odors,  savors,  and  agreeable  sensations  of  the  skin,  as  "  beautiful." 
It  is  chiefly,  if  not  wholly,  in  an  indirect  way— that  is,  by  association  with 
beautiful  visible  objects— that  odorous,  gustable,  and  tangible  things  are 
called  beautiful.  In  this  way,  however,  certain  odors  and  flavors  may  attain 
a  considerable  degree  of  a^sthetical  value.  Indeed,  when  thus  sublimated 
and  associated  by  the  work  of  ideation,  there  is  something  about  the  intrin- 
sic character  of  delicate  odors  which  feeds  the  sentiments  in  a  marvellous 
way.  How  powerful  they  are  as  factors  in  association  we  have  already  seen 
(p.  257).  Nor  are  there  lacking  persons  so  constituted  that  Paradise,  and 
its  opposite,  could  scarcely  be  more  forcibly  represented  in  any  other  way 
than  as  places  impregnated  with  agreeable  or  disagreeable  smells.  Others 
would  sympathize  with  that  traveller  in  the  Pyrenees  who,  on  drinking  cool, 
fresh  milk  there,  "  experienced  a  series  of  feelings  which  the  Avord  agreeaUe 
is  insufficient  to  designate."  '  "  Even  the  feelings  of  the  lower  senses,"  says 
Professor  James,  "  may  have  this  secondary  escort,  due  to  the  arousing  of 
associational  trains  which  reverberate."  But  such  experience  shows  that  the 
work  of  imagination  is  ever  the  main  intellective  suj^port  of  traly  aesthetical 
sentiment. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  exhibit  the  truth  in  detail  for  all  the  more  complex 
and  higher  forms  of  festhetical  feeling.  The  theory  of  poetiy  and  the  prac- 
tices of  the  poets,  as  well  as  common  experience  with  poetry  in  the  attempt 
to  appreciate  and  enjoy  it,  show  the  supreme  need  of  activity  of  imagination. 
And  this  is  true  of  every  other  form  of  art.  Indeed,  from  the  purely  psy- 
chological point  of  view,  we  seem  justified  in  saying  that  beautiful  objects 
do  not  exist,  as  benidlfid,  for  anyone  who  cannot  or  does  not  actually  con- 
struct them  by  an  act  of  imagination. 

I  7.  This  so  "  contemplative  "  attitude,  which  we  find  ourselves  obliged 
to  take  toward  objects  that  excite  the  feeling  of  the  beaiitiful,  is  one  of 
the  most  interesting  and  marvellous  of  psychological  phenomena.  In  its 
initiation  it  resembles  the  state  of  consciousness  described  as  surprise  or 
wonder.  But  it  is  soon  found  to  be  something  far  more  complex  than  either 
surprise  or  wonder.  It  is  not,  however,  by  any  means  the  attitude  of  merely 
intellectual  curiosity  or  interest.  In  fact,  so  far  as  these  intellectual  quali- 
fications are  prominent,  the  fcsthetical  character  of  the  state  is  diminished 
or  lost.  Various  experiences,  otherwise  commonplace,  are  significant  of 
this  :   (1)  We  find  that  we  must  have  time  in  order  to  develop  genuine  a3s- 

'  M.  Guyau,  as  quoted  (by  Pnulhan  from  Les  Problcmes  de  I'Aesthfetique  coutemporaine)  by 
James :  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  II.,  p.  409. 


NATURE   OF  ^STIIETICAL   FEELING  073 

thetical  sontimont.  Ono  can  bo  Inirried,  or  snatclietT  awav  violently,  into  a 
state  of  sensuous  pleasure  or  pain  ;  but  the  feelin}^  of  the  beautiful,  or  its 
opposite,  develops  relatively  slowly.  Connected  with  this  is  (2)  the  fact  that, 
as  Sully  has  said,'  icsthetical  feelings  are  expansive  or  susceijtible  of  jn-olon- 
gatiou.  It  is  true  that  when  they  are  highly  emotional,  or  are  accompanied 
witli  considerable  excitement  through  the  effort  of  the  mind  to  keep  a  rajDid 
pace  in  its  analysis  and  appreciation  of  novelties,  they  may  become  weari- 
some and  exhausting.  But  in  their  delicate,  sentimental  form  they  imply 
that  more  passive  and  yet  intelligent  attitude  before  the  object,  which  is 
sometimes  called  "intuition."  This  attitude  has  the  accompaniment  of  a 
slowly  spreading  and  prolonged  pleasurable  sentiment.  For  (3)  while  anal- 
ysis of  the  object  may  be  involved  in  the  arousing  and  cultivation  of  aisthet- 
ical  sentiment,  just  so  far  as  such  analysis  is  made  with  enough  etlbrt  to 
attract  attention  to  itself,  it  detracts  from  the  possibility  of  acsthetical 
enjoyment.  This  fact  Schoijenhauer  emphasized  in  exaggerated  fashion,  as 
follows  :  "Pure  contemplation,  sinking  one's  self  in  perception,  losing  one's 
self  in  the  object,  forgetting  all  individuality,  surrendering  that  kind  of 
knowledge  which  follows  the  principle  of  sufHcient  reason,  and  comi)rehends 
only  relations. ''  Hence  {i)  arise  the  bodily  attitudes  which  men  naturally 
assume  when  they  are  in  the  act  of  contemplating  beautiful  visual  objects,  or 
are  hearing  fine  mxisic ;  hence  also  the  intolerable  irritation  which  comes  fi'om 
unfitting  sensuous  iuterrujjtions  (trivial  conversation,  laughter,  platitudes  of 
the  "  guide,"  beating  time  at  a  concert  with  a  fan  or  with  the  foot,  etc.),  or 
even  from  the  proposal  to  argue  the  case.  In  the  same  way  (5)  must  we  ac- 
count for  the  fact  that  explanation  and  argument  are  not  directly  productive 
of  festhetical  feeling.  I  may  feign  the  sentiment  of  the  beautiful,  because  I 
think  it  the  apjirojiriate  thing  to  have  this  sentiment ;  and  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent, undoubtedly,  the  sentiment  s^n-ings  up  and  thrives  as  a  social  and  sym- 
pathetic feeling.  But  in  its  genuine  form  it  exists  only  as  these  lU'eiiarations 
and  excitements  lead  to  the  right  contemplative  attitude  before  the  beauti- 
ful object. 

§  8.  The  statement  that  a3sthetical  feeling,  whether  agreeable  or  disagree- 
able, is  not  merely  the  feeling  of  the  agreeable  or  disagreeable,  does  not  con- 
flict with  the  previous  statement  that  all  the  sentiments  involve  elements  due 
to  the  character  of  the  bodily  reactions.  Sensuous  i^leasures  are  afforded  by 
nature  and  by  every  form  of  art.  Since  it  is  with  the  eye  or  the  ear  that  the 
principal  classes  of  beautiful  objects  are  intuited,  the  laws  of  the  i^leasurable 
activity  of  these  organs  must  be  regarded  in  awakening  the  sentiment  of 
the  beautiful.  Hence  a  possible  science  called  "physiological  {esthetics." 
For  example,  a  work  of  architecture,  in  order  to  awaken  a^sthetical  enjoy- 
ment, must  not  have  its  main  lines  swept  in  directions  unnatural  and  painful 
to  the  moving  eye ; — such  as  from  lower  riglit-hand,  to  upper  left-hand,  cor- 
ner, or  the  reverse.  Moreover,  optical  illusions — like  that  which  makes  a 
straight  window-sash,  when  set  in  a  bowed  front,  appear  crushed  in — must 
be  avoided.  Indirect  associational  results,  siich  as  the  feeling  of  insecurity 
which  is  produced  by  seemingly  insufficient  support  to  any  jmrt  of  the 
structure,  are  especially  powerful. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  testimony  of  all  the  most  intelligent  lovers 

>  The  Human  Mind,  11.,  p.  137. 


574  THE   SENTIMENTS 

of  the  beautiful,  that  the  "  pleasure -pain  "  qualifications  of  sesthetical  senti- 
ment are  not  the  whole  of  their  afi'ective  experience.  The  rather  is  there 
something  about  this  kind  of  feeling  which  fits  it  to  be  the  accompaniment 
of  a  universalizing  and  idealizing  activity  of  the  mind.  Its  non-sensnous 
character  is  the  important  thing  about  it.  As  we  have  already  said,  consider- 
ation of  one's  own  state  as  agreeable,  or  of  the  utility  of  the  object  as  capable 
of  producing  that  state,  detracts  from  the  lesthetical  purity  of  the  sentiment. 
Connected  with  this  is  the  significant  natural  feeling — the  beautiful  object 
ought  to  he  admired  ;  and  that,  by  everybody.  Hence,  while  men  deem  it 
absurd  to  dispute  about  lower  forms  of  "  taste  "  which  concern  only  what  is 
sensuously  agreeable  or  disagreeable,  they  dispute  most  earnestly  (however 
vainly)  about  "  taste  "  in  matters  of  the  beautiful  and  the  ugly.  To  genu- 
inely sesthetical  matters  the  motto  De  gustibus  nan  disputandmn,  distinctly 
does  not  apply. 

I  9.  The  dependence  of  sesthetical  feeling  upon  the  tendencies  of  human 
nature  to  construct  ideals,  and  upon  the  developing  faculty  of  constructing 
ideals,  accounts  for  many  of  its  peculiarities.  Herein  is  found  the  chief 
cause  of  man's  sesthetical  superiority  to  the  other  animals.  Comparative 
jisychology,  indeed,  leaves  us,  even  more  than  upon  most  imijortant  mat- 
ters, almost  completely  in  the  dark  as  to  the  real  nature  of  the  so-called 
"  sesthetical  consciousness  "  of  the  lower  animals.  So  far  as  can  be  discov- 
ered, however,  the  lower  animals  have  no  genuinely  cpsthetical  feeling.' 
Those  manifestations  which  are  sometimes  interpreted  as  signs  of  such  feel- 
ing ai^pear  rather  to  result  from  either  unconscious  and  merely  organic  im- 
pulse, or  from  selective  seiisiio^is  excitement  of  a  pleasurable  or  painful  kind. 
In  almost,  if  not  quite,  all  stages  of  human  development,  however,  the  adult 
human  being  does  exhibit  plain  signs  of  a  genuine  sesthetical  feeling.  The 
theory  of  evolution,  to  be  sure,  correctly  points  out  that  in  its  lower  stages 
assthotical  sentiment  is  largely  mixed  with  feelings  of  pride,  of  self-esteem, 
with  love  of  being  made  an  object  of  admiration  or  of  fear ;  and  with  other 
special  forms  of  emotion.  But  "  primitive  man"  even — so  far  as  we  know 
anything  whatever  about  him,  apparently  had  also  an  unanimal  and  genuinely 
sesthetical  consciousness.  In  food,  drink,  clothing,  and  sexual  intercourse, 
the  human  animal  tends  to  be  ceremonial  and,  at  least,  rudely  artistic  ;  and 
this  he  does  with  some  consciousness  of  the  ideal  worth  belonging  to  "the 
form  "  in  which  things  present  themselves,  or  are  done.  The  picture  of  man 
pleasing  himself  with  the  rude  musical  instrument,  or  the  twang  of  his  bow- 
string, or  patiently  adorning  his  weapons  and  utensils  without  obvious 
thought  of  anything  beyond  his  satisfaction  in  the  object  thus  shaped,  is  just 
as  old  and  authentic  as  any  picture  of  man  that  evolution  can  exhibit. 

But  this  distinctively  human  feeling  is  plainly,  in  large  measure,  due  to 
the  high  and  unapproachable  degree  of  activity  which  imagination  and  the 
power  of  abstraction  have  attained  in  man.  And  the  same  consideration 
shows  us  why  the  sesthetical  sentiments  vary  so  greatly  in  dilTerent  ages, 
stages  of  general  cultui-e,  and  in  different  individuals.  In  no  respect  do 
races  and  individuals  differ  more  than  in  respect  of  the  jirecise  form  which 
they  give  to  their  ideals.     Indeed,  "  precise  "  and  permanent  form  is  incon- 

'  Coinp.  Parker,  The  Spirit  of  Beauty,  for  a  brief  discussion,  both  scientlflc  aud  resthetical,  of 
this  question. 


KINDS   OF   THE   BEAUTIFUL  575 

sistciit  with  the  very  natui'c  of  an  ideal.  Honco  the  vaco  and  the  individual 
are  found  admiring  at  one  tinus  what  tlioy  i)rononnco  far  from  admirable  at 
another  time  ;  hence,  too,  they  are  scarcely  to  be  permanently  satisfied  with 
any  real  object.  For  the  limits  of  imagination  and  abstraction  can  never 
be  regarded  as  flxed. 

^  10.  The  influence  of  association  in  the  production  of  pcsthetical  senti- 
ment requires  no  special  detailed  psychological  treatment ;  fortius  influence 
falls  under  the  same  principles  as  those  which  have  already  been  snflllciently 
expounded.  It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  the  place  Avhore  association 
begins,  and  the  exact  amount  of  it,  cannot  easily  be  ascertained.  For  exam- 
ple, even  in  experimenting  with  simple  geometrical  forms,  or  with  combina- 
tions of  colors,  or  by  sounding  two  or  throe  notes  in  succession  and  with 
.some  variety  of  intervals,  the  distinction  between  what  is  "  naturally"  mo.st 
pleasing  aesthetically,  and  what  is  so  "on  account  of  association,"  can  seldom 
be  made  with  perfect  confidence.  In  general,  however,  the  element  of  asso- 
ciation is  least  prominent  in  music  and  in  its  ajsthctical  enjoyment ;  the 
reason  for  this  is  obvious  :  musical  sounds,  of  all  forms  of  artistic  imjires- 
sion,  embody  most  of  \mvQ  feeling,  and  least  of  ideation  and  thought. 

It  belongs  to  fcsthetics  rather  than  to  psychology  to  .show  that  all  the 
more  complex  beautiful  objects  arouse  the  higher  forms  of  a^sthetical  senti- 
ment, in  their  contemi)lation,  because  they  are  associated  with  some  ideal 
already  formed  in  conscious  life.  This  is  as  true  of  the  beautiful  in  nature 
as  it  is  of  the  beautiful  in  art.  For  this  reason  the  jesthetical  apjireciation 
of  nature  has  been  develojjed  in  association  with  the  religious  feeling.  In 
many  cases  the  two  are  indistinguishably  blended.  The  more  indei^eudent 
development  of  sentiment  toward  the  beautiful  in  nature,  as  such,  is  largely 
a  modern  affair.  It  is  a  mistake,  however,  to  say  that  "the  feeling  for 
nature's  wild  solitudes  is  hardly  older  than  Kousseau."  '  The  Japanese,  at 
any  rate,  have  exhibited  it  for  centuries  in  their  principal  characters  and 
works  of  art.  Nor  do  we  believe  it  correct  to  say,  that  the  ancients  wholly 
lacked  it.  Yet  even  in  its  so-called  independent  modern  form  it  is  semi- 
religious,  as  it  were.  "Wo  view  nature's  scenes  and  movements  as  products, 
and  admire  the  creative  and  expressive  spirit  behind,''  whenever  we  contem- 
plate nature  in  the  jcsthetical  attitude. 

The  reco.sfnized  Kinds  of  the  Beautiful,  and  the  psychologi- 
cal theory  of  the  arts  which  produce  beautiful  objects,  depend 
upon  the  possible  variations  in  oesthetical  psychoses.  And  these 
variations  of  consciousness  depend  upon  the  combinations  of  the 
sensuous,  the  ideal,  and  the  aftcctive  elements  Avliich  enter  into 
consciousness.  Here,  as  in  all  the  phenomena  of  the  life  of  feel- 
insT,  satisfactory  classification  is  difficult  or  impossible.  As  re- 
spects sensuous  data,  the  two  main  classes  of  beautiful  objects 
are,  objects  beautiful  to  si^-ht  and  objects  beautiful  to  hearing-. 
The  subdivisions  of  the  former  depend  upon  the  kind  of  material 
presented  to  the  eye,  or  upon  the  purpose  which  determines  its 

'  So  Sully,  The  Uumau  Miud,  II.,  p.  144. 


576  THE   SENTIMEISTTS 

fi)nn  of  arrang-ement.  Natural  scenery,  landscape-gardening-, 
architecture,  sculpture,  and  painting  belong  to  this  class  of  beau- 
tiful objects.  But  to  the  second  class  belong  music  and  poetry. 
These  all,  however,  differ  in  respect  of  the  kind  and  amount  of 
sesthetical  feeling  which  they  induce  ;  and  this,  not  onh'  b\'  the 
character  of  their  sensuous  elements,  but  also  by  the  kind  and 
amount  of  associated  ideas  which  they  express.  On  the  one 
hand,  we  find  a  warmth  of  sentiment  awakened  by  painting 
which  architecture  and  sculpture  cannot  arouse ;  on  the  other, 
we  find  a  wealth  of  intelligent  and  more  definite  sentiment 
stirred  by  poetry  which  music,  with  its  unparalleled  power  to 
sweep  the  soul  along  in  the  currents  of  pure  but  indefinite  feel- 
ing, cannot  possibly  attain. 

In  dependence  upon  such  variable  sensuous  and  ideal  fac- 
tors, the  different  main  kinds  of  aesthetical  sentiment  are  de- 
veloped. These,  however,  may  almost  be  said  to  shade  into 
each  other,  as  the  point  of  view  changes  from  which  any  beautiful 
object  is  regarded.  At  two  apparent  extremes  stand,  for  ex- 
ample, the  feeling  of  the  sublime  and  the  sesthetical  appreciation 
of  the  pretty,  of  the  petite,  etc. ;  or  yet  again,  the  joyous  sj'm- 
pathetic  sentiment  with  which  Ave  greet  the  free  luxury  of  wild 
nature,  and  the  more  subdued  approbation  accorded  to  what  is 
most  obviously  neat,  orderly,  and  conformable  to  recognized 
law.  Here  we  note — in  illustration  of  recognized  psychological 
principles  —  the  heightening  of  sesthetical  pleasure  which  comes 
from  the  feelings  of  relief,  noveltj^  change,  etc.,  when  we  pass 
from  one  of  these  extremes  of  aesthetical  consciousness  to  the 
other,  as  it  Avere.  Thus  the  delicate  beauty  of  the  i3etals  of  a 
flower,  or  of  an  insect's  wing,  may  be  the  more  enjoyed  in  con- 
trast with  the  feeling  of  sublimity  produced  by  sight  of  the 
stormy  sea;  or  the  sight  of  a  beautiful  human  figure  in  the 
"abandon"  of  unthinking  freedom  may  be  the  more  grateful 
after  admiring  the  precise  working  of  some  well-constructed 
piece  of  mechanism  in  metal. 

§  11.  It  is  i^lain  that  the  words  "  beautiful"  and  "ugly"  have  just  boou 
used  with  a  more  vague  and  extended  significance  than  is  ordinary.  This, 
however,  seems  necessary.  By  the  phrase  "  feeling  of  the  heantiful,"  or 
agreoal)le  jcsthetical  sentiment,  and  by  the  adjective  "  beautiful  "  as  ap]ilied 
to  such  a  great  variety  of  objects  with  difTerent  and  even  conflicting  char- 
acteristics, we  intend  to  express  precisely  tliat  which  is  common  to  an  entire 
class  of  uniqiie  ex])eriences,  and  therefore  cannot  be  otherwise  described. 
For  example,  I  contemplate  the  starry  heavens  or  an  heroic  deed  of  self-sac- 
rifico  done  in  obedience  to  duty,  and  I  call  both  "grand"  or  "sublime." 
Then  I  see  a  tiny  flower  or  a  pattern  wrought  on  a  cloisonnd  vase,  or  a 


w 


FEELING   OF  THE   LUDICROUS  577 

nicely  oxccuteil  conitosr,  aiul  declare  each  of  these  to  bo  "pretty."  Or  I 
watch  a  yacht  iu  full  sail,  or  a  gayly  dancing  child,  or  listen  to  a  scherzo 
or  a  waltz  of  a  musical  master,  and  exclaim:  How  "charming!"  These 
three  kinds  of  experience  are  undoubtedly  widely  difTerent  states  of  con- 
sciousness ;  just  as  the  objects  are  very  unlike,  which  evoke  them.  Yet  such 
psychoses  are  all  a^sthetical  sentiments,  and  the  objects  are  all  beautiful. 
This  is  because  they  all  belong  to  the  class  of  those  U7iique,  complex,  a7id  agreeable 
feelings  which  arise  on  contemplation  of  any  concrete  representaticm  of  an  ideal 
form  of  life. 

Psychological  analysis  discloses  the  more  important  of  those  fusions  of 
the  simjjlcr  forms  of  feeling  which  result  in  the  princijial  types  of  lestheti- 
cal  consciousness.  For  example,  wo  have  already  seen  that  the  sentiment 
of  sublimity  includes  a  certain  modification  of  sensuous  feeling  connected 
with  the  large  and  exiiansivouse  of  the  bodily  organs  in  contemplation  of  an 
object.  It  is  also  characteristic  of  this  sentiment  that,  in  it,  attention  is  not 
definitely  fixed  ;  the  jDrocesses  of  ideation  and  thought  are  vague  and  result 
in  no  definite  image  or  conclusion  ;  and  the  suggestions  and  associations  are 
of  a  mysterious,  unknown  more  beyond,  of  the  unlimited,  as  it  were.  All 
this  is  true  of  both  the  "  dynamical  sublime"  and  the  "mathematical  sub- 
lime" (to  refer  to  Kant's  distinction)  ;  it  is  also  true  whether  the  "  dynami- 
cal sublime  "  is  presented  in  the  form  of  phy.sical,  or  of  intellectual,  or  of 
moral,  power.  Hence  that  admixture  of  fear,  or  of  awe,  which  has  always 
been  recognized  as  entering  into  this  sentiment.  Hence  also  the  conflicting 
sense  of  the  admirable  greatness  of  sojne  power,  and  of  the  littleness  of  our 
ntni  power — by  accentuation  of  either  of  which  a  tinge  of  more  or  less  of  the 
pleasurable  or  painful  is  given  to  the  sentiment. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  exiieriencing  the  sentiment  of  the  pretty  or  the 
petite,  the  bodily  reactions  are  far  less  massive  and  swelling,  as  it  were  ;  at- 
tention is  concentrated  upon  a  certain  harmony  of  relations  confined  with- 
in a  small  sjjace  ;  and  the  resulting  feeling  has  perhaps  a  slight  admixture 
of  the  pleasurable  sense  of  superiority  —  not  without  res^ject,  however,  for 
what  obeys  law,  if  even  on  so  small  a  scale  and  in  so  otherwise  trivial  parti- 
culars. Again,  we  call  that  graceful  or  charming,  whose  appreciated  ease  of 
movement  and  abundance  of  life  leaves  nothing  to  be  desired  in  these  diiec- 
tions,  but  the  rather  relieves  us  from  the  feeling,  how  diflScult  and  painful  a 
thing  it  often  is  even  to  live  and  to  move  at  all. 

Such  indications  as  the  foregoing  are  confessedly  meagre  ;  but  we  be- 
lieve them  to  be  based  upon  true  psychological  principles  which  may  be 
applied  to  the  understanding  of  the  complex  nature  of  the  various  forms  of 
sesthetical  consciousness.  Out  of  this  root  might  grow  a  safe  psychological 
discussion  of  the  principles  which  should  govern  all  the  arts;  and  of  the 
general  characteristics  which  all  beautiful  objects  must  possess.  But  these 
things  are  foreign  to  the  purpose  of  a  treatise  on  descriptive  psychology. 

Some  reasonable  doubt  may  be  raised  whether  the  Feeling  of 
the  Ludicrous,  in  the  widest  meaning-  of  this  term,  properl}^  be- 
longs with  the  a^sthetical  sentiments.  "  Here,  it  is  evident " — 
as  says  Sully — "we  have  to  do  with  a  feeling  of  a  lower  level." 
But  although  this  is  true  of  most  kinds  of  laughter,  and  of  the 
37 


578  THE   SENTIMENTS 

objects  and  events  which  excite  hiughter,  the  developed  feeling 
of  the  ludicrous  is  a  very  complex  and  truly  human  sentiment. 
The  physiological  origin  of  mere  laughter  is  found  in  the  over- 
flowing effect  of  any  strong  emotional  excitement.  Actual 
laughter  may  occur  as  the  expression  of  various  forms  of  feeling. 
As,  however,  its  excitement  comes  more  under  the  influence  of 
imagination  and  volition,  the  resulting  forms  of  sentiment  are  ex- 
ceedingl}^  difficult  of  analysis. 

There  are,  moreover,  several  forms  of  the  feeling  of  the  ludi- 
crous which  show  the  admixture,  in  varying  degrees,  of  different 
allied  feelings.  Among  such  allied  feelings  are  anger  and  ha- 
tred, scorn  and  despite,  the  proud  feeling  of  superiority,  selfish 
pleasure  at  seeing  others  degraded  or  shown  to  be  inferior  to 
ourselves,  and  even  the  seemingly  antagonistic  feelings  of  pity, 
grief,  and  sympathy.  By  such  various  forms  of  fusion  arise  those 
complex  states  of  consciousness  which  answer  the  challenge  to 
appreciate  wit,  sarcasm,  satire,  humor,  and  the  like.  As  to  what 
it  is  in  certain  objects  or  happenings  which  excites  the  various 
forms  of  the  feeling  of  the  ludicrous,  there  has  been  almost  end- 
less debate.  It  would  seem  evident  that  there  must  be  in  the 
objects  some  variety  comparable  to  that  of  the  sentiments  with 
which  the  mind  responds.  Perhaps  no  other  one  characteristic 
fits  so  many  cases  as  that  which  has  been  called  "  the  incongru- 
ous." That  is  to  sa}^,  in  order  to  excite  the  feeling  of  the  ludic- 
rous, there  must  be  perceived,  concretely  represented  (and  gen- 
erally breaking  in  upon  consciousness  as  an  agreeable  surprise), 
some  incongruity — some  setting  at  nought,  by  the  object  or  event, 
of  what  might  rationally  be  expected.  If  the  exhibition  of  this 
result  arouses  strong  feelings  of  pain,  either  directly,  or  indi- 
rectly by  sympathy  ;  then  the  latter  overwhelm  the  feeling  of  the 
ludicrous.  But  if  our  feeling  toward  the  object  is  one  of  anger, 
or  of  scorn,  then  pleasure  may  be  awakened  by  the  pain  which 
the  object  of  the  sarcasm  or  satire  endures. 

?  12.  Of  the  several  kinds  of  langhtor  only  two  or  three  demand  atten- 
tion here.  Of  these  one  of  the  simplest  and  most  primitive  is  the  laiighter 
of  plav — sportive  laughter.  Such  laughter,  even  with  a  certain  "  roguish  " 
tinge,  belongs  to  very  young  children.  Preyor'  observed  it  as  early  as  the 
end  of  the  second  year.  When  the  feeling  of  jilayfulness  becomes  refined 
and  developed,  it  expresses  itself  in  various  artistic  ways  which  may  call  out 
sympathetic  sentiments  in  response.  For  example,  there  are  coriain  scJ/ei-sos 
of  Bcetlioven  which  add  the  feeling  of  playfulness  to  their  musical  charm  ; 
or  which,  the  rather,  are  the  more  charming  because  this  feeling  fuses  with 
the  other  feelings  which  they  awaken.     The  sentiment  with  which  a  culti- 

»  The  Mind  of  the  Child,  p.  299.    The  Senses  and  the  Will. 


THE   ETHICAL   SENTIMENTS  579 

vatecl  man  watches  the  play  of  cliiUlien,  or  of  other  young  animals,  is  truly 
jesthetical.  It  probably  has  nothing  to  parallel  it  in  tlie  consciousness  of  the 
lower  animals.  The  laughter  of  the  savage  as  ho  triumphs  over  his  enemy, 
and  thrusts  him  through  with  his  spear,  is  indicative  of  a  crude  form  of  the 
same  emotion  as  that  which,  when  intellectually  (though  not  always  ethically) 
refined,  responds  with  the  "  l)iting  "  sarcasm  or  the  "stinging"  jest.  But 
merriment  over  what  we  call  "  wit  "  has  less  of  the  so-called  malevolent  ele- 
ment in  it ;  and  the  feeling  of  admiration  or  surprise  at  tlie  intellectual  dis- 
play— the  wit  that  is  shown  in  this  way — further  modifies  the  feeling  of  the 
ludicrous.  Although  the  distinction  is  not  sanctioned  by  uniform  usage, 
and  (like  all  distinctions  in  this  realm  of  conscious  life)  is  not  always  to  be 
made  with  perfect  confidence,  yet  the  sentiment  called  "humor  "may  be 
said  to  involve  more  or  less  of  benevolent  and  kindly  feeling.  It  is  there- 
fore the  feeling  of  the  ludicrous  shaded  in  the  opjiosite  direction  from  that 
induced  by  sarcasm  and  satire.  Its  refinement  and  api)lication  to  the  wide 
realm  of  human  exjierienco  is,  in  general,  characteristic  of  a  high  degree  of 
intellectual  and  moral  development. 

Tlie  Sentiments  customarily  called  Ethical  (or  Moral)  are  of 
two  classes ;  either,  first,  such  as  are  in  themselves  distinctly- 
unique  and  original  forms  of  moral  consciousness  ;  or,  second, 
such  as,  althoug-h  not  themselves— properly  speaking-— etliical 
in  character,  are  the  springs,  or  motives,  of  that  conduct  to 
which  the  distinctly  ethical  feelings  attach  themselves.  The 
second  of  these  classes  of  feeling  includes  the  natural  emotions 
of  anger,  fear,  shame,  curiosity  ;  but  especially  of  hatred,  sym- 
pathy, and  the  various  forms  of  the  affection  of  love.  All  psy- 
chological discussion  of  the  truly  "  moral  feelings  "  should,  then, 
begin  with  the  forms  belonging  to  the  first  class ;  they  are  in- 
deed, as  we  have  already  said,  the  unique,  and  only  distinctively 
moral,  sentiments.  They  may  be  said  to  consist  of  two  pairs  of 
opposites.  These  are,  (1)  the  feeling  of  obligation— the  feeling 
for  which  we  use  such  terms  as  "I  oiight,"  "he  ought,"  ''one 
ought,"  etc.,  or  the  opposite  feeling,"!  OTight  not,"  "he  ought 
not,"  etc.  Closely  connected  with  and  akin  to  this  feeling  of  ob- 
ligation, but  not  the  same  in  its  coloring  and  import,  is,  (2)  the 
feeling  of  moral  approbation,  or  its  opposite,  the  feeling  of  moral 
disapprobation.  This  latter  sentiment  we  express  by  saying  my 
conscience  "  commends,"  or  "  condemns,"  me  (or  him)  for  having 
done  so  ;  or,  in  case  the  feeling  rises  to  a  sutHcient  height  of  en- 
ergy, we  may  experience  a  sort  of  exulting  over  one  class  of 
deeds,  and  regret,  or  remorse,  or  indignation,  or  repulsion,  over 
another  class  of  deeds. 

For  the  actual  origin  in  consciousness  of  these  sentiments, 
we  note  the  following  conditions  as  necessary  :  (1)  The  feeling 
of  obligation  arises  only  in  view  of  some  deed,  or  course  of  con- 


o80  THE   SENTIMENTS 

duct,  which  is  conceived  as  possible  of  either  voluntary  accept- 
ance or  rejection.  It  is,  in  its  very  nature,  a  feel'mg  of  being 
ohUgated  to  do  something,  or  not  to  do  something  /—although  "  do- 
ing "  may,  in  this  case,  include  also  choosing  to  do,  or  trying 
to  do,  as  we  are  accustomed  to  say.  If  any  form  of  perceiving, 
imao-ining,  or  thinking,  is  held  np  before  us  and  we  feel,  I 
ought  to  perceive,  imagine,  or  think  in  that  way ;  it  is  always 
implied  that  such  activity  (of  perceiving,  imagining,  or  think- 
ing) is  possible  as  a  deed  of  will.  Hence  (2)  the  development  of 
intellect  and  will  is  necessarily  involved  in  the  very  rise  and 
growth  of  the  moral  sentiment  of  obligation.  The  development 
of  intellect  must,  at  least,  have  proceeded  far  enough  to  include 
the  capacity  of  holding  up  in  imagination  the  deed,  or  course 
of  conduct,  of  anticipating  an  end  to  be  realized  thereby,  and 
of  concluding — however  impulsively  and  illogically — as  to  results 
which  Avill  follow,  //the  will  be  thus  and  so.  Such  development 
of  intellect  is,  in  connection  with  the  facts  and  laws  of  conation, 
equivalent  to  a  development  of  will  (this  we  shall  make  clear 
later  on). 

(3)  The  feeling  of  moral  obligation  is,  therefore,  necessarily 
correlated  with  judgment.  But  there  is  no  i^eculiar  class  of  psy- 
choses to  be  denominated  "  moral  judgments,"  as  such.  Judg- 
ment as  to  vjhat  I  ought,  or  he  ought,  or  one  ought,  under  any 
given  circumstances,  is  acquired  under  the  same  conditions  as 
those  which  belong  to  the  formation  of  all  judgment.  There  is 
therefore  no  special  faculty  of"  conscience"  as  a  matter  of  2)ronounc- 
ing  Judgments  merely.  The  whole  complex  of  intellectual  experi- 
ence, and  the  whole  trend  of  intellectual  development  determine 
what  every  individual  will,  in  fact,  judge  to  be  "right"  ("that 
which  ought  to  be  done  ").  In  this  interdependent  development 
of  intellect  and  feeling,  within  the  sphere  of  conduct,  the  follow- 
ing relations  are  uniformly  sustained  :  at  first,  environment,  ed- 
ucation, instruction,  arouse  the  feeling  of  obligation  in  connec- 
tion with  certain  forms  of  conduct.  Consequences,  observation 
of  ciistom,  explicit  exliortation,  and  following  reward  or  punish- 
ment, excite  the  sentiment  of  the  *'  ought  to,"  in  view  of  some 
conduct,  and  of  the  "  ought  not  to,"  in  view  of  other  conduct. 
Thus  habits  are  formed  and  the  moral  sentiment  determined  in 
definite  directions.  But  as  intellectual  development  goes  on, 
men  have  more  varied  experiences  and — so  we  expressively  say 
— "  think  more  and  more  for  themselves."  And  thus  this  senti- 
ment comes  to  be  hold  in  suspense,  or  to  fluctuate,  or  to  form 
itself  at  last  only  doul)tfully,  as  wc  question  what  is  right,  or 
wrong,  under  siich  and  such  circumstances.     In  these  respects 


FEELING   OF   THE   OUGHT  081 

the  development  of  moiiil  sentiment  both  resembles  and  differs 
from  that  of  a^sthetical  sentiiuent.  The  two  are  alike  as  respects 
the  interdependence  of  feelinj*-  and  intellect ;  but  in  matters  of 
morals  judgment  takes  the  lead,  and  men  feel  they  ought  to  do 
that  which  they  can  n^asonably  conclude  to  be  right ;  wJiereas  in 
art,  even  the  most  cultivated  consciousness  is  rather  apt  to  judge 
an  object  beautiful  only  because  it  powerfully  arouses  aesthetical 
sentiment.  Reasons  for  this  difference  undoubtedly  lie  largely 
in  the  very  conditions  of  human  development.  Commonly  ac- 
cepted standards  of  judgment  iiiud  be  evolved  in  matters  of 
moral  conduct,  or  Society  could  not  advance  at  all  or  even  exist. 
But  the  same  thing  is  not  so  true  of  Art. 

(■i)  The  sentiment  of  moral  approbation  or  disapprobation 
follows  the  contemplation  of  some  deed  or  course  of  conduct,  as 
an  accomplished  fact,  and  as  respects  its  moral  character  ;  and 
this  sentiment  is  not  the  same  as  that  of  obligation,  although 
dependent  upon  it.  Here  the  connection  between  judgment  and 
moral  feeling  is  indissoluble,  is  of  the  very  nature  of  moral 
reason.  What  I  judge  right,  that  I  feel  I  ought  to  do  ;  and 
what  I  ought  to  do,  if  regarded  as  done,  that  I  must  approbate. 
On  the  contrary,  what  I  judge  wrong,  that  I  feel  I  ought  not  to 
do  ;  and  what  I  ought  not  to  do,  if  regarded  as  done,  that  I 
must  morally  disapprove.  From  the  point  of  view  of  individual 
consciousness  and  its  phenomena  considered  as  such,  the  ought-feel- 
ing and  the  feeling  of  moral  approhation  are  attached,  without  any 
intervening  proczss  of  ratiocination,  to  a  so-called  moral  judgment  ; 
but  in  making  up  the  judgment,  any  amount  of  reasoning  is  ad- 
missible, for  it  is  an  affair  of  evidence,  more  or  less.  Nevertheless, 
a  curious  and  interesting  reversal  of  this  process  is  customary 
enough,  is  indeed  essential  to  practical  morality.  For,  in  ethics 
as  in  art,  men  incline  to  judge,  and  actually  do  judge,  that  to  be 
rationally  correct  which  they  sentimentally  approbate.  This  is, 
however,  only  a  special  instance  under  the  general  influence  of 
feeling  over  intellect.  Tlie  specialty  consists  in  this,  that  in  con- 
duct, which  is  the  sphere  of  morals,  the  very  conditions  of  life 
and  growth  force  upon  us  certain  standards  to  which  a  regular 
reaction  of  feeling  has  become  attached,  without  the  reasons  for 
the  standard  being  apparent  or  even  attainable. 

But,  finally,  (5)  the  eihical  sentiments  are  as  original  and  incap- 
able of  derivation  from  other  fmns  of  feeling  as  are  any  of  the 
higher  and  more  complex  processes  of  consciousness.  Nay,  more, 
these  two  fundamental  forms  of  moral  feeling  are  unique.  "Why 
they  arise  in  the  individual,  and  why  they  have  that  nature  and 
connection  with  each  other,  and  with  the  development  of  Intel- 


582  THE   SENTIMENTS 

lect,  which  they  actually  have — these  are  questions  which  psy- 
chology cannot  answer.  Whether  anthropology,  or  any  other 
form  of  science,  or  philosophical  speculation,  can  answer  these 
questions,  it  does  not  belong  to  our  purpose  to  inquire.  As  psy- 
chologists Ave  can  only  recognize  the  fundamental  psychical  facts. 

^  13.  The  detailed  descriptiou  of  the  outfit  which  human  nature  de- 
velops with  reference  to  right  and  wrong  conduct,  in  the  distinctively  ethi- 
cal meaning  of  these  words,  belongs  to  psychological  ethics.  The  really 
distinctive  features  of  this  outfit  are,  however,  very  laigely  the  very  forms  of 
sentiment  which  have  just  been  described.  In  all  other  respects  the  so-called 
moral  nature  of  man,  psychologically  considered,  requires  here  no  special 
treatment.  Mention  must  be  made,  however,  of  one  conception  which  de- 
rives its  unique  character  from  its  connection  with  these  distinctive  forms  of 
feeling  ;  this  is,  of  course,  the  conception  of  "  the  right."  What,  then,  is 
the  actual  process  in  consciousness  answering  to  this  conception  ;  and  what 
is  the  characteristic  development  of  experience  out  of  which  it  has  its  rise? 
The  answer  to  these  questions  requires  mention  of  a  distinction  which  has 
rightly  been  widely  emphasized — the  distinction,  namely,  between  the  "  sub- 
jectively right  "  and  the  "  objectively  right."  In  the  customary  order  of  de- 
velopment the  individual  man's  conception  of  the  right  is  generalized  from 
Ms  presentative  experience  with  those  forms  of  conduct  which  have  habitu- 
ally been  connected  with  the  moral  sentiments.  In  the  case  of  morally  well- 
bred  children,  the  ethical  consciousness  arises  and  expands  in  something 
like  the  following  way  :  The  parent,  or  the  nurse,  or  the  teacher,  deliber- 
ately and  habitually  connects  with  certain  "doings  "  the  arousement  of  the 
ought-feeling  and  the  feeling  of  apiirobation  ;  with  certain  other  forms  of 
conduct,  in  the  same  way,  is  connected  the  opposite  forms  of  these  ethical 
sentiments.  With  all  persons,  including  those  not  thus  well-bred,  the  so- 
cial and  even  the  physical  environment  tends  to  establish  a  similar  connec- 
tion. But  this  connection  implies,  in  its  very  possibility,  the  beginning  of 
a  so-called  "  moral  nature  "  for  the  child.  All  its  pleasure-pains  may  thus 
come  to  have  for  it  a  quasi-moral  import.  On  the  basis  of  this  experience 
with  its  own  states  of  affective  consciousness,  considered  as  connected 
with  deeds  of  its  own  will  and  voluntary  courses  of  conduct,  the  intellect 
of  the  child  generalizes.  Here,  however,  as  in  the  formation  of  all  judg- 
ments, the  greater  part  of  the  conclusions — such  as  this  is  right  and  that 
is  wrong — are  accepted  as  already  formed  from  those  older  than  itself. 
The  "freeing"  of  the  idea  of  the  right  from  its  concrete  and  sensuous 
clothing,  as  it  were,  results  in  the  formation  of  a  more  and  more  abstract 
system  of  moral  principles.  Such  are  statements  like  the  following : 
"Truth-telling  is  right  and  lying  is  wrong;"  "honesty  is  right  and  steal- 
ing is  wrong  ;  "  "  kindness  is  right  and  cruelty  is  wrong,"  etc. 

The  further  theoretical  amplification,  as  it  Avere,  of  the  conceptions  cor- 
responding to  the  words  "right"  and  "  wrong"  comes  only  when  the  effort 
is  made  to  tell  ii'lii)  we  thus  judge — on  what  grounds  the  aflirmation,  and  its 
attaclimont  of  sentiments,  reposes.  Hence  arises  much  debate  as  to  what  is 
right,  what  wrong — in  tlio  objective  sense  ;  that  is  to  say,  what  conduct  is 
adapted  to  realize,  and   what  not  to  realize  but  to  thwart,  certain  ends  of 


ORIGIN   OF   ETHICAL   FEELING  583 

conduct  wliicl),  as  we  say,  "  onglit  to  l)o  realized."  But  all  this,  of  course, 
iuvulves  the  further  abstraction  of  our  coucei)tions  und  their  detachment 
from  the  more  individual  forms  of  experience.  Yet  even  here,  if  Ike  word 
''ought"  retains  any  semblance  of  a  ijenuinely  moral  sicjnijicanee,  it  correspoitds 
to  the  awakening  of  tlie  same  nnique  form  of  sentiment.  The  sentiment  it- 
self is,  however,  found  attaching  itself  more  and  more  to  some  form  of  an 
ideal.  And  here  we  return  again  to  the  dependence  of  the  ethical  feelings 
upon  imagination  and  intellect  for  their  development.  Here  also  we  note 
once  more,  from  another  point  of  view,  the  difference  between  the  aisthet- 
ieal  and  the  ethical  sentiments  ;  there  are  many  kinds  of  the  former,  to  re- 
spond to  many  kinds  of  the  beautiful ;  but  there  is  only  one  species  of  the 
ought-feeling— forever  essentially  the  same  for  the  child  and  the  adult,  for 
the  savage  and  the  man  of  culture.  But,  again,  there  is  the  greatest  variety 
in  the  kinds  of  conduct  which  call  forth  this  unique  feeling  ;  and  this  vari- 
ety is  largely  due  to  the  working  of  well-known  jmnciples  of  evolution. 

§  14.  AVhether  evolution  in  the  race  can  do  anything  whatever  toward  ac- 
counting for  these  unique  moral  sentiments  is  a  doubtful  matter.  We  do 
not  believe  that  it  can  ;  we  do  not  believe  that  it  even  makes  any  approach 
in  the  right  direction  toward  rendering  such  a  satisfactory  account.  But  the 
(piestion  is,  of  course,  a  psychological  question  only  so  far  as  the  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  is  concerned  ;  and,  psychologically  considered,  we 
have  already  sjiokeu  of  the  feeling  of  the  ought  as  incomjjarable  and  unicjue. 
This  we  believe  to  be  true  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  impossible  to  re- 
gard the  feeling  as  a  result  of  evolution,  in  the  case  of  the  individual.  Nor 
do  we  find  any  sure  traces  of  distinctively  moral  feeling  among  the  lower 
animals.  The  nearest  analogue  to  it  is  doubtless  the  animal  emotion  of 
shame.  The  latter  is  closely  akin  to  a  mild  form  of  fear,  and  the  signs  of 
the  two  are  not  infrequently  confounded.  It  can  scarcely  be  denied  that 
some  of  the  lower  animals — as,  for  example,  the  dog  especially — exhibit 
signs  of  shame  after  having  done  certain  deeds,  or  having  failed  in  certain 
endeavors.  So  does  a  defeated  football  team  ;  or  a  school-boy  returning 
with  torn  clothes  from  his  half  -  holiday.  But  even  if  we  admit  that  the 
consciousness  of  the  canine  retriever,  which  has  failed  to  bring  back  his 
bird,  or  that  of  the  jjoodle  which  has  torn  the  forbidden  cushion  where  he 
has  been  lying,  exactly  parallels  human  consciousness  in  similar  circum- 
stances, it  does  not  follow  that  either  animal  or  man  is  here  experiencing  a 
genuine  moral  sentiment.  For  sliame  is  no  more  than  are  other  natural  emo- 
tions, of  necessity,  a  moral  feeling.  la  order  to  become  moral,  the  feeling 
must  he  converted  into  shame  for  having  done  vhat  one  consciously  feels  one 
ought  not  {in  the  ethical  meaning  of  the  word  "  ought  ")  to  have  done.  Thus 
even  moral  shame  only  im])lies  in  an  indirect  way  the  ought-feeling;  it  is 
directly  more  like  the  feeling  of  moral  disa])probation.  But  since  7?iora/ dis- 
approbation cannot  exist  without  implying  the  ought-feeling  ;  and  since 
shame  very  frequently  does  not  imply  the  ought-feeling,  we  may  well  doubt 
whether  genuine  moral  sentiment  of  any  kind  can  be  said  to  develoj)  out  of 
the  feeling  of  shame.  And  what  is  undoubted,  from  whatever  point  of  view 
we  regard  the  matter,  is  this  :  whenever  and  however  genuine  moral  sentiment 
arises  in  consciottsness,  its  characteristics  entitle  it  to  be  set  apart  as  a  class  by 
itself,  to  be  considered  quite  unique. 


r)84  THE   SENTIMENTS 

The  Division  of  the  Ethical  Feeling-s  into  "  egoistic,"  or  self- 
ish, and  "  altruistic,"  or  social,  is  not  based  upon  distinctively 
ethical  grounds.  For,  properly  speaking,  neither  of  these 
classes  of  the  emotions  is,  as  such,  entitled  to  be  called  moral ; 
moreover,  the  distinction  is,  psychologically,  of  doubtful  value. 
And  3"et  it  is  frequently  i^roposed  to  test  entire  systems  of 
morals  by  this  somewhat  inept  distinction.  Several  of  the  emo- 
tions, which  are  ordinarily  classed  as  egoistic,  are  also,  as  a  rule, 
very  powerfully  altruistic  ;  some  of  them  are  the  very  emotions 
on  whose  existence  society  is  largely  based  and  by  which  it  is 
guarded  and  developed.  On  the  other  hand,  the  most  clear- 
ly altruistic  emotions,  as  such,  may  be  given  a  decidedly  ego- 
istic turn — may  even  be  most  selfishly  exercised  and  cultivated. 
Moreover,  there  is  no  emotion  of  either  kind  which  may  not  bo 
either  exercised  or  inhibited  under  the  influence  of  genuinely 
moral  sentiments.  Neither  is  there  one,  the  experience  of  which, 
in  respect  of  its  intensity,  occasion,  object,  etc.,  may  not  be  the 
fitting  subject  of  a  genuine  moral  approbation  or  disapprobation. 
When,  then,  morality  is  spoken  of  as  "  essentially  a  social  feel- 
ing," the  statement  may  be  correct,  or  only  partially  true,  or 
quite  erroneous,  according  to  the  interpretation  given  to  it. 
And  when  feelings  of  kindness,  sympathy,  and  various  forms  of 
affection,  are  demonstrated  or  assumed  among  the  lower  ani- 
mals, no  inference  can  be  drawn  as  to  their  possession  of  genu- 
ine moral  sentiment. 

The  ought-feeling  and  the  feeling  of  moral  approbation  or 
disapprobation  always,  of  course,  have  reference  to  something 
definite  and  concrete.  As  has  already  been  said,  it  is  some  par- 
ticular deed  of  will,  or  course  of  conduct,  whose  obligation  is 
felt  and  for  which  the  approving  or  disapproving  sentiment  is 
experienced.  Such  deed  of  will,  or  course  of  conduct,  ordinarily 
concerns  some  other  being  than  ourselves,  who  is,  like  ourselves, 
a  moral  and  self-conscious  or,  at  any  rate,  a  sentient  being.  It 
may  be  possible  to  show  that  rational  right  conduct  could  not 
exist  except  under  conditions  of  a  social  community  ;  and  that, 
indeed,  the  very  words  right  and  wrong  have  no  rational  mean- 
ing without  implying  consequences  of  conduct  affecting  the 
happiness,  or  other  form  of  the  well-being,  of  such  community. 
But  these  conclusions  are  not  to  be  derived  directly  from  tlie 
very  nature  of  ethical  consciousness,  as  such  ;  they  belong,  thnt 
is  to  say,  to  ethics  as  philosophy  rather  than  to  psycliology.  As 
a  psychological  fact  one  may  just  as  fitly  consider  the  ethical 
sentiments  connected  with  one's  getting  angry  when  one  has 
struck  one's  foot  against  a  stone,  or  with  indulging  in  inordinate 


EGOISTIC   AND   ALTRUISTIC   SENTIMENTS  585 

l)iit  unmanifestecl  self-esteem,  as  tho  most  obviously  social  feel- 
iui^s  of  sympathy  and  love  for  humanity.  Nor  cloos  tlio  imi)c)r- 
tant  truth  that  the  peculiar  forms  of  excitement  which  ethical 
sentiment  sustains,  and  the  connected  judgments  as  to  what  it  is 
right  to  do,  have  resulted  in  tlie  course  of  evolution  from  the  ap- 
proving- and  disapproving-  action  of  the  social  community,  allect 
the  statements  already  made. 

Among  the  so-called  egoistic  and  altruistic  feelings,  however, 
there  are  certain  which  are  powerful  adjuncts  to  the  development 
of  genuine  moral  sentiment.  Such  are  the  egoistic  feeling-s  of 
pride,  fear  of  the  evil  opinion  of  others,  and  love  of  ai)proba- 
tion,  or  desire  to  hear  ourselves  praised  and  to  stand  avcjII  in  the 
sight  of  our  fellows.  Such,  especially,  are  sympathy  and  all  the 
ditierent  forms  of  love  .as  dependent  upon  varying  relations  with 
all  manner  of  other  beings.  Upon  these  feelings  themselves — 
on  condition  that  they,  too,  may  be  represented  to  the  mind  as 
deeds  of  Avill  or  species  of  conduct — we  find  ourselves  pronoun- 
cing moral  judgment.  This  is  because  these  feelings  are  natu- 
rally, and  by  virtue  of  the  very  character  of  our  moral  training: 
and  moral  development,  so  closely  connected  with  the  true  moral 
sentiments — with  the  ought-feeling  and  the  feeling  of  moral  ap- 
probation or  disapprobation.  All  education,  whether  adminis- 
tered by  social  environment  or  by  individuals  with  a  conscious 
purpose,  appeals  to  pride,  fear  of  opinion,  desire  of  approbation, 
sympathy,  and  varied  aiiection,  for  the  arousing  and  culture  of 
g-enuine  moral  feeling  and  mural  conduct.  Thus  the  conviction 
that  one  ought  to  feel  in  certain  ways — both  as  respects  self-feel- 
ing- and  also  as  respects  feeling  for  others — becomes  a  part  of 
the  very  life  of  affective  consciousness. 

I  15.  Even  among  flio  lower  animals  the  distinction  between  egoistic  and 
altruistic  emotions  is  inexact  and  unethical.  Fear,  anger,  hatred,  jwide,  etc., 
are  all  often  as  truly  altruistic  as  egoistic.  No  fiercer  and  more  courageous 
exhibitions  of  anger  and  hatred  can  possibly  be  called  out  in  wild  beasts, 
and  in  many  domestic  animals,  than  those  which  are  connected  with  the  love 
and  protection  of  their  offspring.  Very  young  children  will  often  fly  at  one 
who  seems  to  attack  a  jiarout  or  a  nurse,  even  more  jiromptly  and  vehemently 
than  when  the  attack  is  made  upon  themselves.  Nor  is  tliis  true  of  the 
lower  forms  of  these  emotions  alone.  Who  would  venture  to  consider  "  ego- 
istic "  (in  any  defensible  meaning  of  the  term)  the  burning  passion  of  the 
parent  against  one  wlio  has  wrought  the  moral  riiin  of  a  child  ;  or  the  phil- 
anthropist's hatred  of  the  oppressors  of  the  poor  and  friendless  ?  The  same 
thing  is  true  of  fear.  Even  jealousy  and  pride,  which  seem  in  their  very 
nature  to  be  most  purely  selfish,  have  their  altruistic  aspects  and  uses.  The 
pride  we  take  in  the  honors  and  successes  of  a  relative  or  friend  is  far  more 
closely  allied  to  sympathy  and  love  than  it  is  to  any  form  of  self-interested 


586  THE   SENTIMENTS 

affection.  And  that  the  most  intense  jealousy  is  often  born  of  affection, 
eveiyone  knows.  In  general,  those  forms  of  "  eudaimouism  "  which  over- 
look this  class  of  facts  are,  of  all  ethical  theories,  most  uupsychological.  In 
concrete  fact,  all  men  feel  and  think  far  less  with  direct  reference  to  self 
than  is  ordinarily  stiyposed.  This  is  true  of  the  morally  bad  even  ;  because 
the  most  corrupted  human  nature  is  still  human,  and  has  the  many-sided  af- 
fectional  outfit  which  belongs  to  man. 

On  the  other  hand,  not  only  the  earlier  and  undeveloped  forms  of  so-called 
altruistic  feeling,  but  also  the  apparently  most  refined  and  highly  develoi^ed, 
are  often,  from  the  ethical  point  of  view,  thoroughly  selfish.  This  is  true  of 
both  the  "ingredients  of  social  feeling"  which  a  recent  writer  '  has  distin- 
guished ;  namely,  "feeling  of  Attachment"  and  "  feeling  of  Sympathy."  The 
former  is  in  many  animals  and  young  children  a  characteristic  reaction  on  be- 
ing fondled  or  caressed  ;  and  so,  is  as  purely  egoistic  as  the  reaction  of  anger 
on  being  hurt  or  spurned.  The  attachment  of  the  mother  also  is  (as  physicians 
are  accustomed  to  notice  the  fact),  in  part,  a  chai'acteristic  reaction  after  the 
l)aius  of  childbirth  have  subsided.  All  forms  of  concrete  and  definite  human 
attachment' — as,  for  example,  that  of  members  of  the  same  family,  or  tribe, 
that  of  lovers,  that  of  friends,  etc. — have  their  egoistic  as  well  as  their  altruis- 
tic aspects.  This  remains  true,  no  matter  how  diligently  cultivated  and  highly 
refined  they  may  become,  through  being  suffused,  as  it  were,  with  moral  sen- 
timent, and  controlled  in  the  light  of  moral  judgment.  For  they  are  cer- 
tainly mistaken  who  imply  that  the  individual  can  ever  free,  from  admix- 
ture of  self-feeling  and  self-reference,  any  of  the  most  altruistic  sentiments. 

I  16.  Undoubtedly  sympathy,  when  develoj^ed  in  connection  with  the 
ought-feeling  and  with  the  faculty  of  judging  as  to  couseqiaences  of  con- 
duct, comes  most  near  to  being  a  so-called  "  pure  "  social  feeling.  Un- 
doubtedly also,  it  is  the  spring  of  a  large  part  of  that  conduct  which  culti- 
vated moral  sentiment  approbates,  and  which  intelligent  ethical  theory 
discovers  to  be  most  productive  of  enlarged  well-being.  But  sympathy,  a.s 
truly  as  any  of  the  most  egoistic  feelings,  is  in  its  beginning  and  early  de- 
velopment an  instinctive,  emotive,  and  ?ion-moral  affiiir.  In  the  case  of  the 
human  offspring  it  is  likely  that,  even  before  birth,  the  foetus  is  so  much  a 
part  of  the  maternal  organism  as  to  share  in  "  the  intra-organic  sympathy  or 
consensus."'-  A  certain  mutuality  of  interests,  by  way  of  likings  and  dislik- 
ings,  fears,  hopes,  hatreds,  and  loves,  is  provided  for  in  the  very  relation  of 
parent  and  offspring.  This  "uterine  "  sympathy— like  the  mutual  fondness 
which  is  one  of  its  manifestations— is  quickened  and  cultivated  by  the  ear- 
lier relations  of  the  family  life.  In  every  closely  compacted  family  organi- 
zation there  are  seen  strong  tendencies  to  develop  common  forms  of  emo- 
tional excitement.  Indeed,  so  all-inclusive  are  these  mixed  altruistic  and 
egoistic  tendencies,  and  so  deeply  laid  are  the  foundations  of  this  instinctive 
sympathy  that,  probably,  the  anger  and  quarrelling  between  members  of 
the  same  family  operates,  as  a  rule,  rather  to  strengthen  than  to  destroy 
them.  Indifference  toirard  our  fellow -men,  and  especialli/  toirard  (hose  among 
them,  most  int'imaleh/  ccmnected  with  onrselres  in  a  social  way,  is,  jisi/cholofficatly 
considered,  the  most  "  inhuman  "  of  all  feelings, 

•  Sully:  The  Human  Miud.  TI.,  p.  103  f. 

^Coinp.  IIolTdiii^.  Outliuesi  of  Psychology,  p.  24T. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   SYMPATHY  687 

This  crudest  form  of  sympathy,  like  the  most  refined  and  truly  ethical, 
extends  to  every  kind  of  feeliug  which  men  have  in  common.  Sympathetic 
anger,  dislike,  or  antipathy,  is  as  natural  and  as  truly  of  the  essence  of 
sympathy  (indeed,  in  its  way  often  as  "  moral  ")  as  is  sympathetic  affection 
or  grief.  It  is  the  possibility  of  this  which  makes  all  forms  of  common  emo- 
tion often  so  genuinely  altruistic  in  their  expression  and  tendencies.  It 
is  certainly  not  true  from  the  psychological  point  of  view,  nor  do  we  consid- 
er it  true  from  the  point  of  view  of  sound  ethical  theory,  that — as  Adam 
Smith  '  remarks — resentment  is  not  a  tit  subject  for  sympathy.  It  is  true, 
however,  that  the  diflferent  kinds  of  sympathetic  feeling  diflfer  very  greatly 
with  respect  to  the  way  in  which  they  are  realized  ;  and  that  this  diflbrence 
extends  to  the  ease  and  satisfaction  with  which  we  experience  them,  and  to 
the  couuectiou  which  it  is  possible  to  establish  between  them  and  testhetical 
and  ethical  sentiment.  In  all  these  respects,  however,  the  sympathies  of 
ditferent  races  and  dill'erent  individuals  show  that  infinite  variety  which  be- 
longs to  the  entire  life  of  feeling.  For  example,  a  Japanese  audience  at  a 
theatre  will  display  the  most  lively  sympath}-  with  the  exhibition  of  fidelity 
to  his  liege  lord  (the  daimi/d)  on  the  part  of  a  servant,  no  matter  with  what 
other  unseemly  and  immoral  emotions  this  sentiment  of  fidelity  may  be 
mixed.  But  iu  the  most  refined  circles  of  Western  civilization  it  is  diflicult 
to  excite  sympathy  with  a  crying  infant  or  an  angry  child.  Nor  are  there 
many  who  have  attained  enough  rational  self-control  not  to  feel  strongly  the 
truth  of  the  observation  of  a  modern  story-writer  :  "  It's  provoking  to  have 
an  object  of  pity  balk  !  "  "While  certain  exhibitions  of  feeling — for  the  most 
part  of  the  slowly  moving,  "  sputtering "  kind,  like  fretfulnoss,  sulkiness, 
envy,  etc. — are  peculiarly  rei)ulsive  to  symjiathy.  On  the  contrary,  others 
have  a  well-known  contagious  character ;  such  as  anger,  fear,  sorrow,  and 
the  feeling  of  the  ludicrous.  The  account  of  this  contagious  character  can 
be  giveu  by  evolutionary  science,  in  only  a  veiy  partial  way.-  Indeed,  in 
the  development  of  feeling  generally,  about  the  last  word  which  psychology 
can  utter  is  often  equivalent  to  saying:  Men  behave  in  this  way,  because  "it 
is  their  nature  to." 

I  17.  The  development  of  sympathy  into  genuinely  altruistic  and  ethical 
sentiment  (ethical,  by  connection  established  between  it  and  the  ought- 
feeling)  is  dependent  upon  the  gi-owth  of  intellectual  life.  We  have  seen 
that  it  is  an  only  half-intellectual  principle  of  imitation  which  largely  con- 
trols the  earliest  manifestations  of  sympathy.  But  with  the  growth  of  imag- 
ination the  ability  is  acquired  to  enter,  ideationally,  into  the  exiierience  of 
others,  and  so  consciously  to  "  feel  with"  them  in  a  highly  complicated  way. 
With  the  growth  of  thought  and  the  resulting  power  to  discern  conse- 
quences, comes  the  ability  to  estimate  the  grounds  on  which  the  feelings  of 
others  repose,  and  to  bring  them  to  standards  such  as  are  employed  in 
estimating  our  own  affective  phenomena.  Thus  we  find  ourselves  speaking 
of  our  sympathies  as  extending  to  the  thoughts  and  purposes  of  others. 
We  enter  approbatingly,  or  disapprovingly,  into  their  opinions  and  plans. 
This  shows,  of  course,  that  logical  conclusions  and  truly  ethical  sentiments 
are  being  aroused  with  reference  to  another  consciousness— representatively 

I  Moral  Sentiments,  Sec.  ii. ,  chap.  iii. 

-  Here  'Mr.  Spencer's  arguments  are,  as  so  often,  rather  too  highly  fanciful.  Principles  of  Psy- 
chology, II.,  §503f. 


588  THE   SENTIMENTS 

repeated  iu  our  own  conscious  experience.  Hence  one  must  have  certain 
qualities  which  make  a  good  actor  in  order  to  be  a  moral  man  of  wide  sympa- 
thies. Suppose  now  that  the  development  and  retinement  of  this  intellect- 
ual basis  of  sympathy  is  gained  ;  suppose  that,  in  connection  therewith,  the 
feeling  of  affection  is  so  expanded  as  to  take  in  an  enlarging  variety  of 
object's,  and  so  cultivated  as  to  respond  both  sensitively  and  intelligently  to 
all  the  demands  made  upon  it ;  and  suppose,  finally,  that  the  true  moral 
sentiments  (the  "  ought-feeling"  and  the  feeling  of  moral  approbation  and 
disapprobation)  become  attached  in  a  special  way  to  the  working  of  the 
altruistic  side  of  feeling;— we  have  then  the  conditions  fulfilled  for  the 
very  highest  development  of  sympathy.  The  crude  natural  and  many-sided 
tendency  to  feel  with  others,  however  they  may  feel  and  irrespective  of  the 
consequences  of  such  instinctive  common  feeling,  has  developed  into  in- 
telligent "benevolence,"  or  the  "enthusiasm  of  humanity." 

Many  objects  this  side,  as  it  were,  of  that  abstract  conception  which 
corresponds  to  the  word  "humanity"  may  catch  up  and  confine  the  out- 
goings of  morally  consecrated  sympathy.  These  are  as  numerous  as  the 
innumerable  "causes"  which  enlist— especially  in  these  latter  days— the 
sympathies  of  men.  Here  naturally  it  is  the  sufferings,  oppressions,  and 
pains,  rather  than  the  joys  and  successes,  of  our  fellows  which  chiefly  arouse 
this  class  of  sentiments.  In  all  possible  phases  of  this  kind  of  sympathetic 
feeling,  the  sentiment  itself  retains  an  egoistic  (but  not,  necessarily,  ethically 
selfish)  aspect ;  and  the  intellectual  development  of  the  individual,  as  related  to 
the  qunliiies  of  the  object  tchich  calls  the  sentiment  forth,  determines  the  differ- 
entiation of  the  comi^lex  elements  of  the  sentiment.  For  what  we  call  sym- 
pathy, or  benevolence,  in  its  highly  develojied  form,  is  no  simple  affair ;  it 
is  scarcely  less  complex  than  the  sum-total  of  character.  We  might  almost 
say  that  a  man  is  (morally)  what  his  sympathies  are  ;  but  what  his  sym- 
pathies are  depends  no  less  upon  his  intellectual  than  u^jon  his  afi'ective 
development. 

Both  in  nature  and  in  development,  an  intimate  Relation 
exists  between  the  ^sthetical  and  the  Ethical  Sentiments.  Both 
are  dependent  for  their  lusrher  forms  upon  the  faculty  of  ideal- 
izing*— that  is,  of  transcending  actual  presentative  experience  by 
an  activity  of  imagination  which  constructs  objects  in  attempted 
correspondence  with  the  conception  of  "what  ought  to  be" 
rather  than  "what  is."  The  spur  to  this  activity  lies  in  the 
affective  side  of  human  nature  :  the  precise  form  of  the  object 
can  never  be  fixed  and  defined  ;  for  the  feeling  is  of  such  nature 
as  never  to  be  permanently  satisfied,  and  the  development  oi 
imagination  itself  serves  only  to  set  the  end  for  realization  yet 
further  away.  Both  forms  of  sentiment,  therefore,  contain  kin- 
dred elements  of  dissatisfaction  with  all  imperfection,  or  lack 
of  ideality  ;  and  of  satisfaction  with  whatever  answers  to  the 
changing  and  rising  conception  of  the  ideal.  But,  though  simi- 
lar in  important  respects,  they  are  not  the  same.     iEstlietical 


r.ELATIOX    OF   THE    ^ESTHETICAL    AND    ETHICAL  589 

sentiment  is  experienced  rather  in  contemplating"  an  object  as 
representing-  some  nearer  or  more  remote  approach  to  certain 
aspects  of  an  ideal  life  ;  ethical  sentiment  is  experienced  as  a 
binding  command  to  a  certain  form  of  action.  Yet  again,  when 
we  contemplate  such  conduct  as  ethical  sentiment  approves — 
surveying  it  objectively,  as  it  were — our  complex  feeling  is  very 
largely  one  of  festhetical  admiration.  On  the  other  hand,  when 
we  contemplate  the  beautiful  object  as  itself  the  result  of  a  pos- 
sible action  on  the  part  of  some  moral  being,  our  complex  feeling 
is  largely  one  of  ethical  approbation.  For  both  the  beautiful 
and  the  dutiful  are  "  good ;  "  and  that  things  "  ought  to  be  " 
beautiful  and  conduct  "  ought  to  be  "  dutiful,  is  the  persuasion 
to  Mhich  the  highest  development  of  both  classes  of  sentiment 
leads  us  all. 

?  18.  The  deeper  connection  between  sostbetical  and  ethical  feeling  is 
here  simjily  noted  in  jiassing,  as  it  were — noted,  as  a  significant  but  psycho- 
logically inexplicable  fact.  How  the  connection  arises  and  is  strengthened 
in  the  development  of  the  race,  it  belongs  to  the  anthropological  and  evolu- 
tionary study  of  man  to  jioint  out.  The  real  connection  of  the  beautiful  and 
the  morally  good  in  objects  and,  finally,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  world,  it 
belongs  to  philosophy  to  investigate.  But  even  descriptive  and  exiilanatory 
])sychology  cannot  omit  to  notice  the  sesthetical  and  ethical  faiths  and 
hopes  of  humanity — as  phenomena  of  consciousness. 

The  Sentiments  called  Religious  are  as  unmistakable  a  mani- 
festation of  the  developed  life  of  consciousness,  as  are  any  forms 
of  sentiment.  They  require,  however,  no  separate  treatment  at 
the  hands  of  scientific  psychology.  In  general  they  comprise 
such  kinds  of  feeling  as  arise  and  unfold  themselves  in  connec- 
tion with  the  work  of  imagination  and  intellect  in  constructing- 
certain  classes  of  objects  and  relations.  More  definitely,  they 
are  the  feelings  of  need,  fear,  trust,  admiration,  submission, 
hope,  love,  etc.,  that  develop  from  the  vaguest  and  most  instinct- 
ive forms  of  affective  disturbance  to  the  loftiest  sentiments,  as 
the  intellective  activities  present  the  mind  with  various  concep- 
tions of  God  and  of  his  relations  to  the  world  of  things  and  of 
minds. 

[On  the  psvchologj-  of  the  Sentiments  comp.  Spencer  :  Principles  of  Psj-chology,  II., 
^  oO?>  f.  Grant  Allen  :  Physiological  /Esthetics.  Horwicz  :  Ps}'cholofpsche  Analysen,  iii., 
p.  122  f.  Fechner  :  Vorsehule  d.  Aestlietik.  Leslie  Stephen  :  Science  of  Ethics,  chap, 
viii.  Guyau  :  Problemes  de  r.Esthetique  contemporaine.  Lotzo  :  Outlines  of  ..Esthetics. 
Sullj- :  Pessimism,  -chap.  xi.  Hecker  :  Phj'siologie  n.  Psychologic  d.  Lachens.  Duboo : 
Psychologie  d.  Liebe  ;  and  other  works  cited  at  the  close  of  chapters  x.  and  xxiii.] 


CHAPTEE  XXV. 
IMPULSE,   INSTINCT,   AND  DESIEE 

(Certain  complex  processes  in  consciousness  seem  to  stand 
midway,  as  it  -were,  between  the  emotions  and  the  self-conscious 
choices.  )  Perhaps  it  would  be  more  correct  to  say  that,  in  the 
continuity  of  the  stream  of  mental  life,  jpsychoses  arise  in  which 
feeling"  appears  about  to  break  over  into  purposeful  activity  for 
the  pursuit  of  some  recoi^nized  end-)-with  various  degrees  of  the 
blending  or  dominance,  in  fusion,  of  the  affective  and  conative 
elements.  In  all  conscious  states  of  this  class,  however,  the  end 
toward  which  the  feeling-  is  excited  and  the  j)urposeful  volition 
directed,  must  be  presented  in  idea  by  an  activity  of  intellect. 
They  all,  therefore,  have  the  threefold  complexity  which  be- 
longs to  the  development,  in  g-eneral,  of  conscious  faculty ;  but 
their  distinctive  feature  is  that  forth-putting  of  mental  life  in 
definite  directions,  which  originates  in  some  form  of  craving 
and  which  issues  in  some  form  of  willing.  In  the  broad  but 
strictly  etymological  meaning  of  the  word,  these  processes  em- 
phasize the  ap2)etitive  nature  of  mind. 

It  follows  from  the  very  nature  of  all  "  appetitive  "  states  of 
consciousness,  that  they  are  as  numerous  in  kind  as  are  the 
forms  of  affective  excitement  in  which  they  take  their  rise  ;  and 
these  latter  cannot  be  strictly  limited,  because  the  development 
of  experience,  considered  as  involving  feeling  with  its  interests 
and  tones  of  "pleasure-pain,"  has  an  indefinite  variet5^  lAll 
appetitive  states  have  this  in  common,  however,  that  thoy  tend 
to  set  agoing  the  motor  organisml  They  belong  to  man  as  made 
for  action,  as  equipped  and  comi^elled  to  do  for  himself — to 
strive  for  and  to  obtain,  to  pursue  and  seize  and  moiild,  to  sat- 
isfy his  wants,  and  to  multiply  and  intensify  them  by  repeated 
temporary  satisfactions.  Moreover,  since  g-rowth  of  experience 
consists  quite  as  much  in  learning  the  proper  inhibitions  to  mo- 
tion, as  in  learning-  the  proper  movements  to  satisfy  natural 
wants,  these  appetitive  states  are  further  em]>hasized  as  standing 
between  feeling  and  will  ;  or  rather,  again,  they  must  be  re- 
g-arded  as  resulting  from  a  variety  of  fusions  of  feeling  and  Avill. 


APPETITIVE   STATES    OF   CONSCIOUSNESS  591 

Thus  that  is  characteristic  of  much  of  this  development  which 
Dr.  Ward  ^  remarks  of  so-caUed  desire  :  "  AVhen  tlie  new  idea 
does  not  lead  off  the  pent-up  stn^am  of  action  by  opening-  out 
fresh  channels,  when,  instead  of  this,  it  is  one  that  keeps  them 
intent  upon  itself  in  an  attitude  comparable  to  expectation,  then 
we  have  desire." 

Various  terms — all  of  them  characterized  by  more  or  less  of 
indetinitencss — have  been  employed  to  describe  these  appetitive 
states  of  consciousness ;  prominent  among  them  are  the  follow- 
ing" three — impulse,  instinct,  and  desire.  Of  the  use  of  these 
terms,  the  following-  remarks  are  pertinent :  (1)  In  no  case  does 
psycholog-y  intend  by  these  words  the  /unconscious  or  merely  re- 
fleY  and  automatic  combinations  of  the  motor  organism.  The 
terms  "  impulsive  "  and  "  instinctive  "  may  doubtless  be  applied 
with  propriety  to  the  whole  list  of  such  cond)inations.  But 
such  a  use  is  not  psychological,  for  psychology  is  the  science  of 
the  phenomena  of  consciousness,  as  such.  From  its  point  of 
view,  the  most  elaborate,  as  well  as  the  most  simple,  impulsive 
or  instinctive  movements  of  the  organism  have  an  interest  only 
as  they  affect,  or  are  affected  by,  the  i^rocessos  in  consciousness. 
(2) /impulse,  instinct,  and  desire,  considered  as  psychoses,  are 
terms  that  may  be  applied  almost  interchangeably  to  explain  a 
great  variety  of  motor  phenomena.  /  And  yet  these  three  words, 
when  more  carefully  considered,  seem  adapted  to  emphasize 
/somewhat  different  /aspects  of  the  respective  psychoses  for 
which  they  stand. 

§  1.  We  have  already,  in  treatiiij?  of  conation  and  connected  forms  of 
movement  (chapter  xi.),  remarked  upon  the  use  of  such  words  as  "  impul- 
sive "  and  "instinctive."  When  applied  to  the  lower  animals  and  to  chil- 
dren, they  are  well  adapted  for  a  loose  and  popular  usage.  We  note  with 
astonishment  the  complicated  series,  and  even  systems,  of  purposeful  move- 
ments which  some  of  the  animals — for  exami)le,  the  insects,  and  certain  of 
the  mammals — perform  ;  but  our  astonishment  is  scarcely  greater  than  our 
uncertainty  as  to  how  far  any  conscious  ideas,  feelings,  and  volitions,  are  con- 
cerned in  these  movements.  Without  knowledge  that  is  unattainable  respect- 
ing data  of  consciousness,  we  add  nothing  new  to  the  external  facts  when  we 
ascribe  such  movements  to  imjiulse,  or  to  instinct ;  we  only  summarize  them. 
Thus  and  so  the  movements  occur — (ta  thnuglt  consciously  initiated  and  con- 
trolled ;  and  yet  we  are  unable  to  say  that  they  are  really  thus  initiated  and 
controlled.  In  the  case  of  the  human  offspring,  however,  our  right  theoret- 
ically to  describe  the  states  of  consciousness  corresponding  to  the  words 
impulse  and  instinct  is  much  more  clear.  This  right  is  derived  directly 
from  adult  experience,  and  also  indirectly  from  the  necessities  of  the  theory 
of  psychological  development.     For  there  is  a  large  part  of  our  most  com- 

'  Article  Psychology.  Encyc.  Brit.,  p.  74. 


592  IMPULSE,    INSTIT^CT,    AND    DESIRE 

plicated  adult  motor  activity  which  takes  place  in  channels  established,  un- 
der the  principle  of  habit,  by  previous  experience,  where  the  corresi^onding 
processes  of  conscious  ideation,  feeling,  and  volition,  are  very  slight  and  ob- 
scure. In  transferring  the  scientific  description  and  explanation  of  such 
processes  to  the  child,  we  musi  do  the  best  we  can  by  way  of  allowing  for 
the  vast  difference  between  the  complexity  of  even  the  most  meagre  adult 
consciousness  and  the  relative  simplicity  and  undeveloped  character  of  the 
child's  consciousness.  But  only  so  far  as  we  are  permitted  to  make  this 
transference  can  we  explain  the  childish  consciousness  at  all  or  understand 
how  it  can  gi'ow  into  an  adult  consciousness. 

^  2.  It  will  be  our  purpose  in  this  chapter  briefly  to  characterize  the  de- 
velopment of  the  more  complex  condition  of  mental  life  described  by  the 
terms  at  its  head.  As  has  already  been  said,  these  terms  refer  to  certain 
different  aspects  of  conscious  conditions  that  are  largely  alike  :  the  differ- 
ence is  chiefly  due  to  the  differing  degrees  and  combinations  in  which  idea- 
tion, feeling,  and  volition  fuse  in  them  ;  while  the  essential  likeness  is 
summed  up  in  the  statement  that  they  are  all  expressive  of  "appetencies" 
of  the  mind.  For  example,  the  bird  may  be  said  to  mate  or  to  build  its 
nest  either  as  the  result  of  im^Dulse,  or  instinctively,  or  as  stimulated  by  some 
vague  form  of  desire.  And  we  may  account  for  human  beings  doing  similar 
things  by  referring  to  a  number  of  natural  appetencies,  which  might  be 
called  either  impulses,  or  instincts,  or  desires.  We  might  explain  the  bird's 
beginning  to  fly  and  the  child's  trying  to  walk  in  the  same  way.  In  case 
we  use  the  word  "impulse,"  however — whether  for  the  callow  bird  or  for  the 
callow  youth — we  emphasize  rather  the  force  of  that  craving  in  which  the 
series  of  complicated  movements  take  their  rise.  But  craving,  in  this  mean- 
ing, is  a  sort  of  resultant  of  feeling  and  conation — the  latter  being  con- 
sidered as  a  condition  of  tension  that  is  aboiit  to  break  over  into  movement. 
If,  however,  we  chose  the  word  "  instinct "  we  look  on  the  same  movements  as 
having  a  somewhat  different  origin.  (Here  compare  what  was  said  as  to  the 
difference  between  impulsive  and  instinctive  movements,  p.  230  f.)  We  now 
call  attention  rather  to  the  recognized  ideal  end  of  the  movements,  and  lay  em- 
phasis on  the  activity  of  representation — or  that  which  takes  the  place  of  rep- 
resentation— in  connection  with  the  purposeful  character  of  the  resulting  vo- 
litions. But  by  "  desire"  we  understand  a  feeling-tendency  toward  conation 
with  a  definite  object  in  view.  So  that,  while  desire  emj^jhasizes  the  affect- 
ive aspect  of  the  a^jpetency,  it  is  also  significant  of  a  generally  higher  grade 
of  mental  development.  Indeed,  we  might  even  hesitate  to  speak  of  the 
lower  animals  as  having  desires  comparable  to  those  of  man.  At  the  same 
time,  if  we  admit  mental  representation  of  the  end,  and  of  the  means  neces- 
sary to  attain  it,  as  essential  to  an  explanation  of  animal  instincts,  many 
.such  instincts  would  imply  a  degree  of  intelligence  far  in  advance  of  that 
needed  to  account  for  most  human  desires. 

By  Impulse,  tlien — as  we  here  emj)loy  the  word — we  under- 
stand a  conation,  initiated  and  fused  with  a  feeliuf/  of  cravimj,  i?i 
niew  of  some  ohject  of  sensc-pcrception  or  of  imagination,  with  a  ten- 
dency to  dlscharpe  in  a  complicated  form  of  jyiiiposefid  ynovemenis. 
We  are  here  dealing-  with  an  appetitive  condition  of  conscious- 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   IMPULSE  593 

ness,  in  which  emphasis  is  laid  upon  the  heing  driven  or  urged  to 
volitions  that  have  ivfoivneo  to  an  object  as  an  end.  In  this  mean- 
ins-  of  the  word,  the  impulses  themselves  imply,  as  the  pre-condi- 
tion of  their  experience,  a  certain  previous  development.  This  de- 
velopment, however,  may  be  of  a  very  rudimentary  sort.  It  may 
imply  simply  enough  of  numtal  faculty  to  recognize  an  object 
as  related  to  our  pleasure-pains,  and  to  fc(»l  attracted  or  repelled 
by  it.  '  Such  feeling  of  attraction  or  repulsion  then  immediately 
tends  to  put  into  action  the  appropriate  motor  organism.  But 
the  impulses  themselves  develop  under  the  influence  of  tlu^  com- 
plex results  of  their  own  operation,  as  it  were.  The  very  move- 
ments of  the  organism  which  they  "  impulsively  "  bring-  about 
have  further  consequences  in  consciousness,  with  respect  to  the 
changes  in  its  objects,  but  more  especially  in  respect  to  the 
changes  of  its  feeling-tone.  Any  object  which  attracts  becomes 
connected  with  our  pleasures  or  our  pains ;  in  the  former  case, 
it  acquires  added  attractiveness,  and  in  the  future  excites  a 
stronger  impulse  toward  itself ;  in  the  latter  case,  it  becomes  re- 
pulsive, and  in  the  future  excites  impulsive  movements  away 
from  itself. 

/The  general  Development  of  Impulse  is  subject  to  tw^o  sets 
of  considerationsfwhich  have,  in  some  respects,  directly  oppos- 
ing results  ;  thus  the  compound  resultant  in  development  de- 
pends upon  the  action  and  reaction  of  the  two.  /1^'irst,  the 
imx3ulses  themselves  become  more  numerous  and  more  compli- 
cated as  intellectual  development  proceeds,/ and  as  experience 
becomes  more  full  of  content  and  more  complex.  We  are  accus- 
tomed to  think  of  the  child  as  pre-eminently  the  creature  of 
impulse.  This  is  true,  however,  only  as  indicative  of  his  lack  of 
deliberate  and  intelligent  action  in  comparison  with  the  large 
sphere  covered  by  impulsive  action.  But  the  impulses  of  the 
adult  are  really  far  more  numerous  and  complex  than  are  those 
of  the  child.  It  follows  from  this  that  there  is  with  the  adult  far 
greater  opportunity  for  conflict  of  impulses.  It  is  the  net  result 
of  experience — other  things  being  equal— that  all  human  beings 
are  attracted  and  repelled  in  a  great  variety  of  directions :  and 
especially  is  it  a  mark  of  the  process  of  development  that  strife 
arises  between  the  so-called  "  higher  "  and  the  so-called  "  lower  " 
impulses.  But,  second,  the  many  conditions  of  development  se- 
cure two  results  which  modify  this  endless  splitting-^up,  as  it 
were,  of  impulses,  (l/  Certain  im]mlses  become  habitually/ ac- 
cepted as  exciters  and  controllers  of  the  spheres  of  action  belong-- 
ing-  to  them.  This  operates,  of  course,  in  the  direction  of  the 
consolidation  of  impulsive  movements.  Various  forms  of  accus- 
38 


594  IMPULSE,    INSTINCT,    AND   DESIRE 

tomed  stimuli — ^perceptions  of  one  sort  or  another,  or  imag-iued 
and  anticipated  pleasures  and  pains — come  to  be  regularly  re- 
sponded to  with  the  appropriate  courses  of  conduct.  At  the 
same  time  (2)  deliberation  and  the  rational  regard  for  conse- 
quences conduce  to  the  control,  by  more  remote  ends,  of  the  ap- 
petencies of  the  mind.  Thus  some  of  them  become  suppressed, 
and  others  encouraged  in  a  guarded  Avay,  with  reference  to  the 
life  of  ideation  or  even  to  the  realization  of  accepted  ideals. 
This  effect,  too,  tends  in  the  direction  of  increased  solidarit}"  of 
the  mental  development  so  far  as  it  is  concerned  with  the  men- 
tal appetencies. 

It  is  by  the  combined  result  of  these  two  sets  of  considera- 
tions— the  one  tending  to  increased  differentiation  as  new  expe- 
riences with  objects  are  found  to  be  pleasurable  or  jjainfid,  and 
the  other  tending  to  solidarity  as  some  impulses  are  left  un- 
checked to  control  the  movements,  and  others  are  themselves 
brought  under  control,  or  even  eliminated,  for  ideal  ends — that 
the  development  of  a  mental  life  characterized  by  varied  im- 
pulses, and  yet  having  some  unity  of  habits  and  of  conscious 
purposes,  is  made  possible. 

As  to  the  Classification  of  the  Impulses,/psychology  can  do 
little-^as  has  already  been  said.  There  are  as  many  impulses 
in  all  as  are  the  various  attitudes  of  felt  attraction  or  repulsion 
before  the  different  objects  j^resented  or  represented  in  con- 
sciousness. Those  of  the  lower  order  include  all  the  various 
forms  of  relief  for  uneasiness,  and  of  satisfaction  for  craving, 
which  the  discharge  of  the  bodily  functions  occasions.  Hence 
the  so-called  "  Appetites  "  may  be  considered  as  impulses  :  since, 
in  their  unsophisticated  condition,  as  it  Avere.  they  are  states  of 
consciousness  corresponding  to  the  definition  given  above.  Im- 
pulses are  also  connected  with  all  the  stronger  natural  emo- 
tions ;  since  all  these  emotions  involve  some  form  of  craving 
which  tends  to  break  over  into  a  suitable  motor  discharge.  Tlie 
same  thing  majj-  be  said  even  of  the  jesthetical  and  ethical  senti- 
ments, although  of  these — and  especially  of  the  former — the  re- 
mark is  much  less  obviously  true.  The  logical  feelings  undoubt- 
edly operate  impulsively,  as  has  already  to  some  extent  been 
pointed  out. 

§  3.  Tliat  otav  impulses  liave  their  roots  in  conative  fortli-piittiug  ooiiploil 
with  the  feeling  of  craving,  and  tending  to  break  over  into  purposeful  move- 
ments, is  implietl  in  the  various  terms  emj^loyed  to  designate  them.  They 
are  called  "  inclinations"  {Xek/img  or  Hang),  '*  strivings"  {Slreben),  or  con- 
scious "  tendencies"  or  "  states  of  tension  ;  "  whatever  is  done  impulsively 
appears  of  the  nature  of  a  leaj)  from  an  idea  seizcnl  with  feeling  to  a  conation 


i 


PRIMARY   IMPULSIVE   MOVEMENTS  595 

suffused  with  feeling.  There  is  something  like  being  driven,  when  acting 
"from  imimlse,"  as  we  say  [Trieh).  All  these  phrases  consider  the  relation 
between  the  resulting  movement  and  the  condition  of  consciousness,  as 
though  the  latter  were  a  sort  of  vis  a  tergo.  But  on  considering  the  same 
relation  from  the  reverse  point  of  view,  wo  may  speak  of  the  object  as  at- 
tractive or  repulsive,  and  so  as  accounting  for  the  state  of  consciousness  and 
for  the  purposeful  movements  alike.  Psychologically  considered,  how'ever, 
it  is  those  changes  of  feeling  as  pleasure-pain,  which  result  from  our  chang- 
ing relations  to  the  object,  that  constitute  its  attractive  or  repulsive  charac- 
ter. From  whichever  point  of  view  we  regard  the  relation  between  mental 
condition  as  appetitive  and  the  resulting  movements  as  affecting  both  our- 
selves and  the  object  imiiulsively  aimed  at,  it  is  the  "drive"  of  the  mixed 
condition  of  feeling  and  conation  which  we  have  in  mind. 

§  4. /The  vise  and  development  of  the  impulses,  as  we  are  now  using  the 
term,  im]ilies  all  that  was  previously  said  (see  p.  218  f.)  regarding  the  simplest 
stages  of  conation,  and  even  a  multitude  of  merely  physiological  (reflex  or 
automatic)  activities  as  lying  back  of  these  elementary  psychoses.  Thus  we 
may  conceive  of  ourselves  as  tracing  the  growth  of  the  more  complex  im- 
pulses out  of  blind  unconscious  reflex  or  automatic  movements.  Even  here, 
however,  some  feeling  and  ideation  and  consciousness  of  self-effort  are  very 
likely  involved.  /The  soliciting  and  guiding  influence  of  pleasure  and  the 
inhibiting  and  guiding  influence  of  pain,  are  all-important  in  the  formation 
of  comi)lex  impulses./  The  child  kicks,  strikes,  bites,  clutches  with  its 
hands,  performs  the  various  functions  of  voluntary  bodily  easement,  makes 
its  first  efforts  at  creeping  and  v.-alking,  responds  with  the  more  complex 
imitative  movements,  etc.,  etc. — impulsively.  So,  also,  very  largely,  does 
the  trained  athlete  x^lay  ball  or  perform  upon  parallel  bars,  the  boxer  box, 
and  the  fencer  thrust  and  j^arry  ;  so  also  does  the  expert  in  mental  arith- 
metic, or  the  pliysician,  artful  but  not  scientific  in  diagnosis,  seize  and  fol- 
low the  mental  clue  in  impulsive  fashion.  In  similar'  fashion  do  men  and 
women  fall  in  love  and  pursue  the  object  of  their  passion  ;  heroes  aglow 
with  excitement  hew  their  way  or  lead  their  troops  in  b'attle  •  business  men 
buy  and  sell  stocks,  or  gamblers  bet  at  cards.  That  is  to  say,  in,  all  these 
cases  we  have  complex  and  purposeful  movements  following  upon  the 
"  drive  "  toward  a  desired  object  which  arises  in  a  mixed  condition  of  crav- 
ing and  conation  ;  and  what  is  noticeably  left  out  of  our  account  of  the  ac- 
tion— because  it  is  really  wanting  in  the  conscioi;s  conditions — is  a  clear 
mental  representation  -of  an  end  to  be  reached  by  adapted  and  selected 
means,  and  the  choices  adopting  the  end  and  selecting  the  means. 

/Most  important  of  all  in  the  development  of  the  inijmlses  is  the  securing 
by  experience  of  the  right  inliibitions  or  checks  to  the  appetencies./  The 
animal,  the  child,  the  insane  and  diseased  will,  and  the  subject  of  hyp- 
notic suggestion,  are  all  lacking  in  a  sufficient  reserve  of  inhibitory  influ- 
ences. Physiologically  expressed,  we  may  say  that  the  "stock  of  reserve 
braMrpower ''  belonging  to  the  higher  and  more  purely  psychic  centers  is 
sm4li  in  these  cases  ;  the  discharges  from  the  lower  centers  are  too  jirompt 
and  explosive,  as  it  were.  Psychologically  regarded,  we  notice  in  such  per- 
sons a  lack  of  reserve  in  expressive  action  and  in  movements  designed  to  sat- 
isfy some  form  of  craving — a  lack  of  "self-control."     The  dipsomaniac  (who 


696  IMrULSE,    INSTINCT,    AND   DESIPwE 

drinks  impnlsively),  the  kleptomaniac  (who  steals  iminilsively),  the  plano- 
inaniac  (who  wanders  oii' impulsively),  the  erotomaniac  (who  gratifies  sexual 
appetite  impulsively),  are  all  examples  of  the  victims  of  unchecked  impulses. 
In  all  such  cases,  craving  i:)asses  rapidly  from  excited  feeling  over  into  the 
stress  of  initial  conation  ;  and  conation  at  once  breaks  over  into  motor  effects. 
It  is  for  reasons  which  lie  in  the  very  nature  of  these  appetencies  that,  by 
"  development "  of  the  impulses,  we  understand  almost  wholly  ilieir  cidlure 
by  inhibition.  Inhibition  is,  however,  only  a  part  of  the  real  development, 
as  well  as  of  the  highest  development,  of  the  impulsive  or  appetitive  condi- 
tions of  mind.  For,  as  has  already  been  indicated,/in  all  complex  forms  of 
movement  the  best  practical  results  require  that  cultivated  impulses  should 
take  the  initiative  and  should  keep  the  lead./  Eeasoning,  or  drawing  con- 
clusions from  consciously  accepted  grounds,  is  quite  too  slow  even  to  con- 
serve our  safety,  much  less  to  attain  the  rewards  of  skill  and  art.  Neither 
is  the  result  of  impulse  always,  by  any  means,  inferior  to  that  attained  by 
ratiocination. 

I  5,  The  three  forms  of  appetite  popularly  recognized— for  food,  for 
drink,  and  the  appetite  of  sex — may  properly  be  considered  among  the  de- 
veloped impulses ;  the  two  former  are,  even  in  man's  case,  comparatively 
direct  in  their  working  and  simple  in  character ;  the  latter  is  much  more 
complex.  The  new-born  child,  when  first  offered  food,  probably  obtains  it 
by  sucking  as  an  almost  purely  physiological  reflex.  It  is  by  experience  in 
being  fed  that  a  truly  psychical  ajjpetency  arises.  The  acquired  infantile 
appetite  consists  of  a  mixture  of  uneasy  bodily  sensations  that  are  ill-local- 
ized, of  more  definite  psychical  desire  for  an  object  already  experienced 
as  pleasure-giving,  with  revived  mental  images  of  manifold  comfortable  sen- 
sations of  warmth,  fulness  of  the  stomach,  etc.;  and  especially  of  the  cona- 
tive  tension  that  is  ready  to  break  over  into  the  actual  complex  of  sucking 
movements.  But  what  we  call  the  "  appetite  for  food  "  in  adult  life  is  a 
much  more  complex  affair.  Indeed,  in  the  case  of  many  persons  who  have 
scarcely  known  real  keen  hunger,  it  is  largely  an  ideal  affxir  ;  it  is  a  half-in- 
tellectual and  relatively  faint  desire  to  realize  certain  definite  satisfactions 
once  experienced.  It  is  an  appetite  for  breakfast,  or  for  luncheon,  or  for 
dinner ;  for  this  or  that  kind  or  combination  of  food.  It  is  even  often  a 
mixture  of  anticipated  sympathetic  feelings  of  an  associative  sort.  On  the 
other  hand,  this  appetite  in  the  case  of  those  adults  who  do  know  what  hun- 
ger is,  and  are  habitually  ill-fed,  is  even  more  unlike  the  appetite  of  infancy. 

What  is  called  the  "  appetite  of  sex  "  is  often  s^ioken  of  as  though  it 
were  a  very  simple  and  direct  aifair.  On  the  contrary,  this  so-called  appetite 
is  a  very  variable  and  always  rather  complex  mixture  of  sensation,  ideation, 
feeling,  and  will.  Even  before  the  appetency  assumes  the  more  definite 
form  which  belongs  to  the  age  of  jmberty,  it  seems  to  be  latent  in  that  dif- 
ference of  conscioiisness  with  which  children  regard  those  of  tlie  opposite 
sex.  Doubtless  it  is  difficult  hero  to  tell  how  much  is  duo  to  associations  es- 
tablished by  education,  and  how  much  is  rather  a  matter  "  of  nature,"  as 
wo  should  say.  In  its  beginnings  it  is  often,  almost  as  much  a  matter  of 
feeling  gentle  repulsions,  or  "  shyness,"  as  of  vague  attractions — miuglings 
of  curiosity,  desire  of  approbation,  and  undefined  cravings.  In  many  cases 
the  same  conflict  between  feelings  of  attraction  and  feelings  of  repulsion 


RELATION    OF    IMl'ULSE    AND    EMOTION  597 

characterizes  sexual  appetite  even  after  the  characteristic  bodily  sensations 
become  more  iiromiueut.  Wo  have  ah-cnuly  referred  to  the  fact  that  the 
age  of  puberty  is  itself  marked  by  a  wonderful  develoi)ment  of  obscure 
but  jiowerful  feelings  of  craving.  It  is  at  once  the  imi^ulsive  and  the 
sentimental  age.  And  what  we  call  "sexual  feeling,"  as  though  it  were 
a  definite  thing  instead  of  being  a  complex  mixture,  enters  into  all  the  rela- 
tions and  intercourse  which  exist  between  persons  of  ojiposite  sexes.  Sel- 
dom or  never  docs  it  sink  so  low  in  human  consciousness  as  to  be  for  a  long?) 
time  that  relatively  simple  bodily  impulse,  or  craving,  which  man  shares 
in  common  with  the  other  animals.  The  rather  does  it  ordinarily  associate 
with  itself  a  variety  of  related  feelings  ;  and,  in  connection  with  this  varied 
affective  excitement,  the  increased  activity  of  imagination  is  to  be  noted.' 
Indeed,  the  appetency  may  be  so  refined  as  to  assume  largely  the  character- 
istics of  sentiment ;  though  not  without  that  longing  for  certain  relations  to 
the  object  (that  is,  the  object  is  never  regarded  in  a  merely  contemplative 
way)  which  belongs  to  the  condition  as  appetitive.  Thus  Plato  was  able  to 
define  Eros  as  the  instinct  for  the  ideal — the  excitant  of  impulsive  move- 
ments toward  objects  held  up  by  imagination. 

§  6.  The  peculiar  character  of  impulse  is  further  seen  when  we  consider 
that  almost  all  the  emotions  have  specially  correlated  impulses  to  which  they 
give  i-ise.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  impulse  is,  in  its  very  nature,  feeling 
blended  with  initial  conation,  on  the  way  to  imrposeful  movements.  Thus 
the  impulse  of  auger  is  to  strike,  or  kick,  or  resist ;  the  impulse  of  hatred  or 
revenge  is  to  injure  the  object  of  the  feeling,  though  in  a  more  jjlauful  way, 
since  hatred  and  revenge  are  passions  or  cherished  emotions  ;  the  impulse  of 
fear  is  to  run  away  or  to  take  an  attitude  of  defence  rather  than  of  attack,  as 
in  the  case  of  anger  ;  the  impulse  of  love  is  to  fondle,  defend,  and  to  em- 
brace, etc.  Even  such  feelings  as  curiosity,  doubt,  and  belief,  if  they  reach 
an  emotional  stage,  manifest  appropriate  connected  impulses.  Thus  we  feel 
"  impelled"  to  look  "jiryingly"  at  the  object  which  excites  curiosity,  "sus- 
piciously "  at  that  which  excites  doubt,  "  confidingly  "  at  that  to  which  be- 
lief attaches  itself.  This  "  looking  "  impulse  is  significant  of  that  mi.xture 
of  craving  and  conation  which  belongs  to  all  the  conditions  of  miiul  which 
have  the  characteristics  of  appetency.  And  here  we  return  to  the  general  and 
most  important  psychological  tnith  (comp.  pp.  211-216),  that  man  is  made 
for  action,  and  that  every  mental  excitement  of  whatever  sort  is  of  the  nature 
of  an  impelling  force  upon  the  motor  organism.  Even  in  those  more  re- 
strained and  hidden  conditions  of  mind  which  only  develojied  experience 
makes  possible  the  same  thing  is  true.  For  to  restrain  is  the  correlative  of 
a  condition  of  tension  ;  and  interior  tension  is  so  connected  with  movement 
of  some  kind  as  to  find  a  natural  mode  of  outflow  and  relief  only  in  breaking 
over  into  movement. 

Few  words  have  been  employed  with  more/indefiniteuess;  and 
with  a  larg-er  amount  of  ig-norance,  than  the  word  /Instinct/    In 

1  Thus  on  the  one  side  we  flnd  Bain  saying  (The  Emotions  and  the  Will.  p.  126  f.) :  "  Love  is  com- 
pleted and  satisfied  with  an  embrace.  .  .  .  our  love-pleasures  be;:in  and  end  in  sensual  con- 
tact." Bnt  as  Oabanis  observes  f  Rappo-ts  du  Physique  et  du  Moral  de  I'nomme)  :  "  J'ai  vn  nom- 
bre  dc  foi?  la  plus  <rrande  fecoudite  d'idees,  la  plus  brillante  imagination,  une  aptitude  singiiliere  a 
tous  les  arts,  se  developper  tout  a  coup  chez  dgs  fllles  do  cct  age,"  etc. 


598  IMPULSE,    INSTINCT,    AND   DESIRE 

the  attempt  to  explain  the  wonderfully  complicated  and  purpose- 
ful movements  which  some  of  the  lower  animals  perform,  with- 
out previous  experience  and  so  without  opportunity  to  learn,  this 
term  is  of  acknowledged  convenience.  As  has  already  been  said, 
unless  we  fully  ag-ree  upon  certain  describable  conditions  of 
consciousness  which  can  be  proved  to  exist,  and  then  confine  the 
term  to  movements  dependently  connected  with  such  conditions, 
to  speak  of  "  instinct "  is  to  offer  in  explanation  of  those  move- 
ments the  mere  semblance  of  knowledge.  The  facts  in  the  life 
and  development  of  the  animals  which  are  usually  covered  by 
this  term  are,  however,  not  without  value  to  psychology.  They 
assist  us  in  making-  it  more  truly  a  study  of  the  evolution  of 
human  mental  life. 

No  perfectly  clear  distinction  can  be  made,  even  in  the  case 
of  man,  between  the  impulses  and  the  instincts.  As  we  shall 
employ  the  terms,  however,  the  latter  diifer  from  the  former 
chiefly  in  two  i^articulars  (comp.  p.  230  f.) :  (1)  In  the  case  of  the 
instincts  we  emphasize  more  tlie  purposeful  and  seemingly  intelU- 
fjent  character  of  the  resulting  movements.  They  are  relatively  (as 
compared  with  the  imiDulses)  much  more  sug'gestive  of  the  con- 
trolling presence  of  ideas  which  are  set  as  ends  before  the  mind, 
to  be  realized  by  a  series  of  voluntary  muscular  transactions. 
They  seem  like  the  deeds  of  intelligent  will  striving  to  realize 
ideas  held  up  by  imagination  and  thought.  How  far  an  actual 
examination  of  the  data  of  consciousness  justifies  the  seeming, 
is  a  question  which  can  probably  never  be  answered  satisfacto- 
rilj".  But  (2)  by  the  word  instinct  we  mean  to  designate  only  suck 
activities  as  belong  to  the  species,  and  thus  exhibit  themselves,  either 
at  pa7'ticular.  periods  or  uniformly,  in  the  development  of  the  individ- 
ual as  connected  with  its  ivelfare,  as  a  m^emher  of  the  species,  or  with 
the  propagation  and  welfare  of  the  species.  Although,  then,  the 
modifying  and  exciting  influence  of  experience  may  be  felt  upon 
the  instincts,  they  are  ordinarily  understood  to  arise  chiefly  from 
the  nature  of  the  species,  and  not  to  be  learned  hy  the  individual. 

The  attempt  to  apply  the  foregoing  distinctions  consist- 
ently to  all  the  phenomena  grouped  under  the  terms  "  impul- 
sive "  and  "  instinctive,"  whether  in  the  case  of  man  or  of  the 
lower  animals,  will  make  clear  its  own  impossibilit3^  Impulses, 
in  the  psychical  meaning  of  the  word,  and  pliysiolqgical  reflexes 
and  automatic  movements,  shade  into  eacli  other ;  and  so  do  the 
instincts  shade  into  the  so-caHcd  ini])nlses.  Both  impulses  and 
instincts  in  the  course  of  development,  come  largely  to  be  ex- 
plained as  matters  of  more  or  less  definite  desire  and  purposeful 
intelligent  volition. 


NATURE   OF   ANIMAL   INSTINCT  599 

2  7.  For  instances  of  tlie  astonishing  poiformances  attributed  to  animal 
instinct  wo  must  refer  to  the  books  which  treat  of  tliis  subject.  By  those 
authors  who  attempt  to  do  anything  more  than  tell  interesting  stories,  these 
performances  are  explained  in  one  of  the  following  three  ways:  (1)  They 
are  considered  as  wholly,  or  very  largely,  of  the  nature  of  merely  i)hysi()logi- 
c-al  reflexes.  That  is  to  say,  the  complicated  mechanism  which  tlie  animal 
inherits  is  stimulated  in  appropriate  ways  and  it  resjjonds  with  the  custom- 
ary ancestral  forms  of  reaction.  Here,  of  course,  unless  we  are  to  reduce 
the  animal  to  a  mere  physical  mechanism,  some  conscious  stimulation,  some 
irritation  of  sensibility,  must  be  supposed  to  take  i^lace.  But  whether  con- 
sciousness is  allowed  any  influence  in  determining  the  motor  reaction,  or  is 
regarded  as  only  the  concomitant  of  nervous  processes  which  would,  with- 
out any  interpolation  of  consciousness,  perform  the  result — this  depends 
much  ui^on  the  writer's  general  psychological  or  philosophical  i)oint  of  view. 
Now,  in  the  case  of  any  sentient  being  equipped  with  a  system  of  connected 
organs,  the  following  points  seem  necessarily  to  be  provided  for,  as  it  were  : 
{a)  The  possession  of  the  bodily  organs  must  be  dependent  upon  and  related 
to  their  use.  Under  the  general  princij^les  of  evolution  we  may  say  that 
without  use  the  organs  cannot  be  conserved  and  developed.  Moreover  [b], 
if  the  being  is  a  sentient  being,  and  has  an  equijiment  of  organs  of  sen- 
sation and  organs  of  motion,  the  possession  and  development  of  these 
organs  is  connected  with  the  rise  and  development  of  sentience.  That  is  to 
say,  the  proper  sensory-motor  and  even  ideo-motor  activitie.s  are  insejiarably 
linked  in,  as  it  were,  with  the  jjossession  and  use  of  the  mechanism  (the 
speciflc  set  of  organs  which  constitutes  the  so-called  "nature"  of  the 
animal).  When  then  a  writer  on  instinct  expresses  himself  as  follows:' 
"Has  the  bird  a  gland  for  the  secretion  of  oil?  She  knows  instinctively 
how  to  jjress  the  oil  from  the  gland,  and  ajiply  it  to  the  feather?  .  .  .  Has 
the  silk-worm  the  function  of  secreting  the  silk?  At  the  proper  time  she 
winds  the  cocoon  such  as  she  has  never  seen,  as  thousands  before  have  done, 
etc." — while  we  cannot  press  the  word  "knowledge,"  and  apply  it  to  the 
bird,  much  less  to  the  silk-worm  winding  its  cocoon  "at  the  prosier  time," 
we  may  maintain  that  structure  and  function  go  together,  and  that  jmrpose- 
ful  use  of  the  sensory-motor  organism  implies  a  jjsychieal  relation  between 
sensory  and  motor  consciousness. 

(2)  The  second  way  of  explaining  the  so-called  instinctive  performances 
of  animals  may  be  called  metaphysical.  The  metaphysical  explanation  of 
instinct  may  either  take  the  form  of  ascribing  such  wonderful  results  to 
"the  Unconscious"  (so  Hartmann),  or  to  the  wisdom  and  love  of  God  who 
has  "endowed"  the  animal  with  the  instinct  necessary  to  its  well-being. 
Thus  Gothe  exclaims:  "There  is  in  the  curious  and  kindly  operations  of 
animal  instincts  something  which,  whosoever  studies  and  does  not  believe  in 
God,  will  not  be  aided  by  Moses  and  the  prophets.  In  these  instincts  I 
pei'ceive  what  I  call  the  omnipresence  of  the  Deity,  who  has  everywhere 
spread  and  imi)lanted  a  portion  of  his  endless  love,  and  has  intimated,  even 
in  the  brute,  as  a  germ,  those  qualities  which  blossom  to  perfection  in  the 
noblest  forms  of  man." 

(3)  The  third  form  of  explaining  instincts  is  more  expressly  psycbologi- 

'  p.  A.  Chadboume  :  Instinct  in  Animals  and  Men,  p.  28. 


600  IMPULSE,    INSTINCT,    AND   DESIKE 

cal.  It  regards  tlie  resulting  movements  as  expressive  of  complex  states  of 
feeling,  ideation  and  conation,  which  break  over  upon  the  motor  organism 
in  the  form  of  regulated  and  habitual  impulses,  if  we  may  so  speak. 

The  comijleter  explanation  of  the  instincts  requires  the  assistance  of  all 
of  the  three  foregoing  forms.  But  the  purely  physiological  and  the  meta- 
l)hysical  explanations  fall,  of  course,  outside  of  the  domain  of  psychology. 
Since,  however,  the  psychological  explanation,"  although  solid  and  indis- 
pensable, cannot  be  complete,  it  must  be  given  and  accepted  only  for  what  it 
is  worth.  The  simple  fact  is  that  we  find  men,  and  the  lower  animals  gener- 
ally, using  the  structure  with  which  they  are  gifted  by  nature,  in  ways  sig- 
nificant of  feelings  of  craving,  of  anticipations  of  ends,  and  of  adaptation  of 
means,  which  considered  in  themselves  imply  far  higher  degrees  of  conscious 
ideation  than,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  really  exist.  To  such  complex  condi- 
tions of  consciousness,  with  their  motor  accompaniments,  we  give  the  term 
"  instincts." 

^8.  lb  is  sigaiflcaut  that  one  authority '  divides  the  instincts  in  the 
following  way: — sensation  -  impulses,  perception-impulses,  idea-impulses. 
It  is  probable,  however,  that  all  the  more  complex  instincts  in  the  higher 
animals  involve  all  three  of  these  forms  of  impulse.  This  is  certainly  the 
impression  we  get  if  we  examine  the  movements  of  the  bird  building  its 
nest,  or  of  the  spider  spinning  its  web,  or  of  the  squirrel  collecting  and 
storing  nuts,  or  of  the  infant  sprawling  on  all  fours  and  trying  to  creep,  or 
practising  its  first  articulate  sounds,  or  grasping  after  bright  objects,  etc. 
Certain  sensations,  with  a  strong  feeling-tone,  blend  in  the  particular  req- 
uisite condition  of  restlessness  and  craving ;  the  perception  of  various 
surrounding  objects  stimulates  still  further  the  feeling  of  craving  and  sug- 
gests some  dim  idea  of  the  object  toward  which  the  instinctive  craving 
jjoints  ;  and  the  idea,  although  obscure,  seems  in  some  sort  to  arouse  and 
guide  the  will  to  the  efforts  at  realization.  This  entire  condition  of  con- 
sciousness is  then  like,  but  only,  in  most  cases,  faintly  like,  that  in  which 
we  find  ourselves  when  we  are  stimulated  by  desire,  to  form  the  idea  of 
what  will  satisfy  the  desire,  to  select  the  appropriate  means,  and  planfully 
to  create  the  object. 

It  accords  with  our  view  of  instinct  that,  in  all  the  higher  mammals, 
their  instinctive  performances  are  not  absolutely  uniform  and  infallil)le,  but 
are  modifiable  by  experience.  It  also  accords,  that  so  many  of  the  instincts 
develop  in  connection  with  a  certain  maturity  of  the  organism,  or  iindei- 
certain  circumstances.  Such  are,  for  example,  the  instincts  connected  with 
sex,  with  the  acquirement  and  possession  of  property,  and  with  the  affections 
of  the  family  life.  Instincts  are  also,  in  the  case  of  the  higher  animals  and 
especially  in  the  case  of  man,  inhibited  and  well-nigh  or  qxiite  sujipressed 
by  habit,  as  embodying  the  results  of  experience. 

'i  !).  From  their  very  nature  the  number  of  the  instincts  in  man  is  far  less 
than  the  number  of  his  impulses.  The  attempt  to  classify  the  instincts 
would,  then,  be  less  formidable  and  more  likely  to  succeed.  And  yet  even 
here  we  sliall  bo  most  truly  scientific  by  not  trying  to  be  too  precise.  For 
certainly  almost  all  those  natural  emotions,  which  we  have  seen  give  rise  to 
the  impulses,  more  or  less  completely  conform  to  our  description  of  an  in- 

'  Schueider  :  Dor  ThieriBcho  Wille  ;  and  coinp.  his  Der  Menschliche  Wille,  p.  108  f. 


CLASSES   OF   INSTINCTS  GOl 

stinct.  Anger  and  fear,  curiosity  and  affection,  in  the  young  animal,  as  tlioy 
become  tinged  more  deeply  with  imagination  and  intelligence,  show  their 
relation  to  the  welfare  of  the  individual  as  a  member  of  the  species.  And  in 
the  pursuit  of  the  objects  of  its  various  forms  of  appetency,  it  may  be  said 
to  show  a  skill  which  is  only  partially  acquired — partially,  then,  it  is  to  be 
IJresumed,  its  skill  is  an  instinctive  atlair. 

Indeed,  it  has  sometimes  been  denied  that  man  has  any  genuine  in- 
stincts. The  gap  between  his  so-called  "  blind  "  ini2)ulses  and  his  intelli- 
gent acquired  aptitudes  is  thus  left  quite  untitled.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  are  some  writers  who  ascribe  long  lists  of  duly  classified  instincts  to 
human  children  and  adults.  Among  such  are  the  instincts  to  suck,  to  bite, 
to  clasp,  to  put  in  the  mouth,  cry,  smile,  creep,  walk,  to  imitate,  to  emulate, 
to  fight,  etc.  So  also  are  sympathy,  and  the  various  forms  of  fear,  acquisi- 
tiveness, and  the  tendency  to  approi)riate,  called  instincts.  We  hear  also  of 
the  instincts  of  play,  of  shyness,  and  of  sociability,  of  secretiveness,  and 
modesty,  and  of  various  forms  of  love.'  But  it  is  to  be  noted  that  many  of 
these  have  already  been  treated  as  belonging  to  the  impulses  and  to  the 
natural  forms  of  emotion  and  aftection.  And  when  we  include  only  sucli 
purposeful  complex  activities  as  belong  to  the  sjjecies,  as  arise  necessarily  in 
the  course  of  the  development  of  tlie  individual  member  of  the  species,  and 
include  vague,  restless  craving,  faint,  obscure  ideation  of  an  end  to  be  reached 
in  the  satisfaction  of  that  craving,  and  selection  of  means,  but  withoiit  clear 
mental  seizure  of  the  end  or  comprehension  of  the  relation  of  the  means  to 
it,  as  an  end — we  have  defined  psychologically  the  nature  of  instinct  ;  but 
we  have  correspondingly  reduced  its  sphere  in  tlie  development  of  the  mental 
life  of  man.  Yet  even  thus  the  term  stands  for  a  considerable  number  of 
activities  midway  between  the  impulses  and  the  more  intelligent  and  planful 
results  of  acquired  experience."  These  "  instincts  "  are  all,  however,  of  that 
indefinite  and  complex  character  resulting  from  the  fusion  of  sensational, 
ideational,  affective,  and  conative  elements,  which  belongs  to  every  form  of 
developed  mental  life.  And  the  only  valid  reason  for  not  calling  the  instincts 
"  faculties"  is,  that  their  very  nature  and  manner  of  development  make  us 
so  iincertain  as  to  how  much  of  conscious  process  is  responsible  for  the 
motor  manifestations — for  the  complex  and  i>urposeful  uses  of  mechanism. 

By  the  word  "  Desire  "  wo  understand  certain  appetitive  con- 
ditions of  consciousness  in  which  the  blended  feeling  and  conation 
("craving-"  or  "long-ing-  for")  is  directed  ioward  some  ohject  men- 
t(dly  presented  or  represented,  of  whose  "  p>leasnre-})ain''''  characteris- 
tics we  have  had p)revions  experience.  In'o-eueral,  then,  the  desires 
include  certain  more  definitely  developed  forms  of  appetency. 

1  See  the  extended  list  of  James  :  The  Principles  of  Psycholopy,  IT.,  p.  403  f. 

2  The  ambisruous  meaning  of  the  German  word  7'r!>?<»'— impulses  or  instincts  indilTcrenfly— 
favors  the  loosest  possible  classification  of  the  animal  api)etencies.  Thus  we  find  one  ^\T;tcr  vFiirt- 
lasre  :  System  d.  Psycholoirie,  I.,  p.  309  f.)  classintr  the  vegetative  physiolosrical  functions  amonir  ihc 
Triehe.  Another  (Siinthis :  Zur  Psycholoirie  d.  menschlichcn  Triebe.  p.  2  f.)  would  rodncc  them  all 
to  three  classes— those  of  Rcinu,  those  of  Function,  those  of  Life.  But  this  makes  the  word  cover 
the  "  natural"  activity  of  all  the  senses,  and  even  "  nutrition  "  as  well  as  "  love  of  independence." 
etc.  Surely  such  a  "  muddled  list  "—to  borrow  Professor  James'  expression— has  to  value  in  psy- 
cho'ogy. 


602  IMPULSE,    INSTINCT,    AND   DESIRE 

They  involve  a  more  intelligent  and  contemplative  attitude 
toward  the  objoct  than  do  the  imi)ulscs  or  the  instincts ;  although, 
like  the  latter,  all  desires  are  forms  of  craving  and  initial  cona- 
tion (or  will  in  a  state  of  tension)  ready  to  break  over  into  pur- 
poseful movements.  It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  such 
questions  as  the  following  have  been  debated  among  psychol- 
ogists :  /Is  desire  to  be  classified  as  feeling  or  will ;  or  is  it,  be- 
ing neither,  to  be  erected  to  the  position  of  a  fourth,  independent 
form  of  consciousness  ?/  Is  the  conscious  representation  of  pleas- 
ure (or— in  the  case  of  an  object  of  aversion — of  pain),  as  con- 
nected with  the  object,  necessary  to  desire  ?  Such  inquiries  are 
best  answered  as  a  result  of  our  further  consideration  of  this 
complex  phenomenon. 

The  Nature  of  Desire  must  be  understood  (1)  as  growing,  in 
part,  out  of  the  dependence  of  feeling  and  willing  on  the  Avork 
of  imagination  and  intellect.  Ileal  desires — as  distinguished 
from  impulsive  and  instinctive  appetencies — do  not  originate 
until  intellect  has  so  far  developed  as  to  make  a  presentative 
and  representative  knowledge  of  objects  j)ossible  {ignoti  nulla 
cupido).  Hence  desire  has  rightly  been  called  by  one  author  '  a 
"subjective-objective  phenomenon" — that  is  to  say,  a  phenom- 
enon in  which  subjective  feeling  is  directed  outward  toward 
an  object.  Still  further,  the  object  which  excites  desire  must 
be  contemplated  as  standing  in  some  relation  toward  ourselves. 
Yet  again,  the  more  definite,  strong,  and  persistent  desires  require 
that  the  object  should  be  held  before  the  mind  as  both  related 
to  feeling,  with  its  tone  of  pleasure-pain,  and  also  to  will. as, 
at  least,  a  possible  object  of  attainment.  In  this  respect  the 
contemplation  of  objects  which  excite  desire  difi'ers  markedly 
from  that  attitude  in  which  we  find  genuine  aesthetical  sentiment 
awakened. 

The  nature  of  desire  requires  also  that  we  should  consider  (2) 
its  relation  to  feeling.  AVithout  excitement  of  feeling  there  is 
no  desire,  and  yet  desire  is  not  mere  feeling/  Different  kinds 
of  feeling,  however,  stand  in  dift'erent  relations  to  desire,  yin 
general,  the  massive,  low-toned  pleasurable  feelings  are  freest 
from  admixture  of  desire./  The  emotions,  with  their  natural  im- 
liulsive  character,  as  intellectual  development  goes  on,  tend  to 
feed  the  desires  increasingly ;  indetnl,  there  are  certain  states  of 
mind  which  might  be  called,  almost  indifi'erently,  either  "  pas- 
sions "  or  "  desires."  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  massive,  low- 
toned  conditions  of  pain — vague  or  more  solid  miseries  endured 
passively  under  the  law  of  habit,  or  because  we  have  no  "  idea  " 

'  VolkuKimi :  Loliibuc-li  d.  Psycholog'.e,  IT.,  p.  399. 


THE   NATURE   OF   DESIUE  603 

they  can  be  helped — which ^-o  ulinost  totally  free  fn)iii  desiit'. 
Bcsich's,  as  Dr.  Ward  has  said  :  '  "  Instaiu-es  are  by  iio  means 
Avautiii*;-  of  very  imperious  desires  accompanied  by  the  clear 
knowledg-e  that  their  g-ratificatiou  will  be  positively  distaste- 
ful." /let,  doubtless,  the  general  rule  is  that  v,o  desire  those 
experiences  with  which  remembered  or  antici[)ated  pleasure  (in- 
chiding-  relief  from  pain)  is  connected  /aud  w-e  feel  aversion 
toward  those  experiences  with  which  remembered  or  anticipated 
pain  is  connected.  But  (3)/desire  is,  of  all  conditions  of  con- 
sciousness, most  nearly  coiitinuous  with,  most  closelj*  cojiiiate  to, 
what  Ave  call  '"  willinj^./  It  is  confessedly  only  a  step  from 
"  I  want  badly  "  to  "  I  w'ill  have."  And  in  the  case  of  intense 
desires  habituallj^  gratified,  it  is  difficult  to  draw  the  line  pre- 
cisely where  this  step  between  want  and  will  takes  place.  /Hence 
that  consciousness  of  striving,  of  stress,  and  of  eft'ort,  which 
belongs  to  all  strong  and  well-marked  desire^  "  I  want," 
"I  will  to  have,"  "I  strive  to  get" — these  follow  one  another 
in  their  natural  order,  unless  inhibited.  It  is  this  absence  of 
the  self-conscious  active  element,  of  the  initial  and  as  yet 
restrained  volition,  which  chiefly  distinguishes  much  of  our 
admiring  and  regretting  from  our  desires  and  our  aversions. 
In  desire,  as  such,  there  is  a  ibjnamic  element  which  does  not  - 
belong  to  feeling,  as  such.  How  desire  diflers  from  volition  and 
choice — the  genuine  and  completed  *'  deed  of  will  " — we  shall  see 
later  on.  J 

^  10.  There  are  few  subordinate  subjects  in  i^sychology  wliicli  have  been 
more  vaguely  and  unsatisfactorily  treated  than  this — the  nature  of  desire. 
It  will  be  of  service  to  illustrate  and  enforce  the  right  view,  which  regards 
desire  as  a  peculiar  complex  development  resulting  from  the  combined  ac- 
tivity of  ideation,  of  feeling  with  its  experience  of  its  own  tone  of  pleasure 
or  pain,  and  of  conation— as  given  above—by  citations  from  a  few  authors. 
Herbart'  and  his  followers  regard  the  desires  as  forms  of  the  striving  of  the 
soul  after  the  appearance  in  consciousness  (the  "  realization  ")  of  certain 
ideas.  So  Yolkniann*  considers  desire  as  the  becoming  conscious  of  the  ef- 
fort {(lea  Strehenx)  toward,  or  against,  some  idea.  This  fanciful  definition 
implies  the  truth  that  desire  is  a  condition  of  consciousness  in  which  knowl- 
edge of  some  object,  as  possibly  or  actually  related  to  our  pleasures  or  pains, 
gives  rise  to  a  feeling  of  longing  and  effort,  indicative  of  combined  affective 
and  conative  activity.  Apin-oaching  the  matter  still  from  the  same  point  of 
view,  we  may  go  on  to  show  how  desires  vary  in  content,  strength,  and 
rhythm  ;  and  how  they  accord  or  conflict  with  each  other,  as  the  presence 
of  the  objects  in  consciousness  varies,  or  our  knowledge  of  the  actual  and 
possible  relations  in  which  they  stand  to  the  ego  undergoes  change. 

'  Article  Psycho'ogy,  Encyc.  Brit.,  p.  T4.  '  Psychologle  als  Wissenschaft,  I.,  p.  149. 

»  Lehrbuch  d.  Psychologie,  EL.,  p.  397  f. 


604  IMPULSE,    INSTINCT,    AND   DESIUE 

Another  autlior,'  while  showing  that  Bfcry  desire  has  three  elements — a 
sensational,  a  reiwcsentative,  a  dynamic — adds,  in  somewhat  sentimental 
fashion,  that  all  desire  springs  from  love — arising  at  the  point  where  the 
emotion,  passing  beyond  its  actual  object,  aspires  to  have  a  more  conaplete 
possession  of  it.  Joy,  which  is  desire  in  possession  of  its  object,  differs  from 
pleasure — the  former  being  a  passion,  and  the  latter  a  sensation  or  emotion. 
Thus  we  have  emphasized  the  affective  side  of  desire,  as  inii>ulsive  feeling. 
Yet  another  writer,''  after  remarking  that  the  feelings  form  the  foundation 
of  the  desires,  that  rarely  does  any  feeling  exist  long  in  a  man  without  pro- 
ducing one  or  more  desires,  and  that  there  is  perhaps  no  desire  which  does 
not  have  its  root  in  some  feeling,  goes  on  to  say  :  "  A  desire  is  a  force." 
"A  desire  in  any  being  is  a  striving  of  that  being  either  to  attain  some  feel- 
ing of  pleasure  or  to  be  relieved  from  some  feeling  of  pain."  These  words 
emphasize  the  impelling  or  conative  and  stressful  nature  of  the  feeling-fac- 
tor in  all  desire.  Hence  the  proposal  to  call  Hie  desires  "active  feelings." 
But,  finally,  we  find  many  authorities  regarding  the  desires  as  almost  if 
not  quite  purely,  exhibitions  of  wiil.  Effort,  one  such  writer^  holds,  is  the 
jieculiar  kernel  of  the  ego  and  of  its  activity.  *'  We  designate  an  effort  as  ef- 
fort after  an  a  (i.e.,  some  jDarticular  desire),  when  we  know  that  the  effort 
attains  its  end  in  the  actualization  of  an  a.  We  call  it  our  effort  after  an  a 
so  much  the  sooner,  the  more  comprehensive  the  iDsychical  effort  which  at- 
tains its  end  in  the  actualization  of  an  a." 

I  11.  Two  arguments  may  be  adduced  against  the  dependence  of  desire 
■upon  definite  mental  representation  of  an  object  as  related  to  the  self  in  a 
way  to  excite  interest.  First,  it  may  be  claimed  that  children  exhibit  plain 
signs  of  this  affection  before  intellect  is  suificiently  developed  to  furnish  the 
knowledge  which  such  a  theory  of  the  nature  of  desire  requires  ;  second,  it 
may  be  said  that  all  adults  at  some  time,  and  adults  of  a  certain  temperament 
habitually,  have  states  of  intense  craving  which  are  not  fixed  by  any  definite 
process  of  ideation.  The  facts  involved  in  both  these  objections  must  be 
admitted.  But  as  to  the  first  objection,  it  may  be  replied  that,  while  such 
unintellectual  appetencies  must  be  admitted  to  exist  in  infancy,  it  is  just 
the  growth  of  experience  as  affecting  mental  representation  which  makes 
the  difference  between  blind  impulse  and  genuine  desire.  The  child  im- 
pulsively reaches  for  the  fire,  and  after  experience  of  its  effects  shrinks  from 
it  with  aversion ;  but  after,  and  on  account  of,  his  experience  he  reaches, 
with  desire,  for  his  nursing-bottle.  So  that,  even  in  the  case  of  the  earliest 
and  intellectually  most  -undeveloped  desires,  there  is  truth  in  the  view 
which  regards  them  as  "  powers  of  memory,"  or  as  "inner  powers  of  appre- 
hension "  determined  "  feeling-wise."*  Nor  do  the  states,  or  temperaments, 
which  might  be  called  "  intellectually  impulsive,"  disprove  the  view  wo 
have  taken  of  the  nature  of  desire.  On  the  contraiy,  they  confirm  it.  Here 
rests  the  psychological  account  of  that  general  restlessness,  and  fleeting, 
manifold,  but  vague  desire — that  feeling  of,  and  yet  striving  against,  the  iu- 

'  Kabior,  I^c-ons.  etc.  Ppycholofrie,  pp.  149  f..  4S3  f.  This  author  seems  to  acce])t  Spinoza's 
view  that  tlie  one  principle  of  all  the  personal  inclinations  is  the  love  of  beinj^,  or  the  effort  to  con- 
tinue in  bcinir. 

''  Hartsen.  (irundziipe  d.  Psycholof;ie,  pp.  112  f.,  ITT. 

3  Iyii)pH,  (JruiKhatsachen  d.  Seelen'.ebens,  p.  602. 

*  Comp.  IJcneke,  Pragnuitische  Psychologic,  i.,  p.  200  ;  278  f. 


DESIRE   AND   MENTAL    KEPIIESENTATION  605 

tolerable  oppression  of  onmii — which  is  the  fatilt,  charm,  danger,  and  se- 
cret, of  the  most  brilliant  intellectual,  aisthotical,  and  ethical  life.     For  the 
ceaseless  entertainment  by  inuijj;ination  of  various  ideals  operates  upon  a 
sensitive   mind    to  j'roduco  something  like  the  same  vagueness  of  craving 
and  impulsiveness  of  will  (here,  however,  directed  into  certain  channels  of 
attention  to  objects  of  thought  and  to  speech  about  themj  which  character- 
izes infantile  desire.     In  this  regard  Madame  do  Stael,  for  exami)lo,  and  the 
yoimg  child,  may  be  said  to  be  alike  in  the  indefinite  character  of  their  desires. 
^  12.  The  question  whether  we  can  have  desire  without  consciously  rep- 
resenting to  ourselves  the  attainment  of  pleasure  as  resulting  from  some- 
Ijossible  relation  to  the  object  (its  possession,  use,  affection,  etc.),  has  been 
much  debated.     On  this  question  we  find  two  extreme  views,  one  of  which  • 
asserts  that  what  we  desire  is  the  pleasure  or  the  relief  from  pain  (which  is 
only  a  form  of  j^leasure)  ;  the  other  of  which  holds  that  the  object  oi  desire 
need  ?/o<  be  represented  as  "  good  "  at  all,  or  even  that  the  idea  may  pass 
into  volition  without  any  connection  by  way  of  pleasurable  or  i)ainful  feel- 
ing.    Such  truth  as  these  bald  forms  of  statement  have  can  be  apprehended 
only  as  we  remember  how  complex  and  variable  are  the  elements  and  forms 
of  desire  ;  and  also  how  the  desires  are  liable  to  modification  under  the 
laws  which  control  all  mental  develoj^ment.     We  have  seen  that/the  very 
meaning  of  desire,  as  the  most  intellectual  form  of  appetency,  implies  that 
what  is  desired  has  already  been  exjierienced  as  a  goodV  But  intense  desire 
is  itself  a  painful  state  of  mental  tension  ;  when  prolonged,  it  may  become 
an  intolerable  condition,  relief  from  which,  even  if  such  relief  is  accom- 
panied by  sorrow  and  i>ain,  may  be  of  all  things  most  to  be  desired.     Thus 
we  find  persons  afflicted  with  morbid  and  insane  desires  doing  deeds  which 
— say  they — "  we  had  to  do  ;  "  but  to  which  in  themselves  they  feel  an  in- 
tense aversion.     Moreover,  the  immense  and  overpowering  influence  of  habit  , 
must  not  be  neglected.     Certain   desires  grow  "  imperious  "  by  being  in-/ 
dulged.     By  habit  also  the  memory  or  anticipation  of  pleasure  or  of  pain 
becomes  so  attached  to  the  object  that  it.  irrespective  of  any  conscious  rep- 
resentation of  its  possible  relation  to  the  self,  becomes  attractive  or  repul- 
sive.    Still  further  must  there  be  acknowledged  the  existence  of  morbid  and 
"  unnatural "  appetencies  or  desires.     Some  of  these  have  their  roots  in  con- 
cealed diseases  of  the  organism,  some  in  irrational  curiosity,  some  in  the 
binding  power  of  strange  associations  ;  and  some  originate  we  know  not 
why  or  whence.     On  account  of  the  connection  between  desire  and  "  deeds 
of  will"  we  find  in  such  desires  the  "causes"  (rather  than  the  "reasons") 
of  many  grotesque  actions  and  terrible  crimes. 

^  13.  Desires  range  themselves  either  in  series  upon  the  same  side  as  in-\ 
volving  and  furthering  each  other's  ends,  or  on  opposite  sides,  as  iucompat-  / 
ible.  Hence  the  possibility  of  desiring,  on  "some  account"  and  as  means 
to  a  desired  end,  what  in  itself  is  an  ol)ject  of  aversion.  Thus  the  lazy  boy 
desires  to  get  his  hated  lessons,  because  ho  desires  the  promised  half-holi- 
day or  has  a  strong  aversion  to  the  punishment  which  follows  failure.  In 
the  complex  life  which  all  men  live,  almost  all  their  desires  are  conditional 
—another  proof  that,  while  impulse  is  blind,  and  instinct  only  seems  to  sec 
the  end,  desire  is  more  dependent  than  either  of  the  other  conditions  of  ap- 
petency upon  imagination  and  thought.     Hence  also,  liveliness  of  imagina- 


G06  IMPULSE,    IlSrSTINCT,    AND   DESIRE 

tion  and  conseqiientiality  of  thinking  are  necessary  to  give  strength  and 
guidance  to  desire.  He  who  cannot  steadily  hold  an  end  in  mind,  and  think 
out  the  consequences  of  conduct,  is  likely  to  be  fickle  in  his  desires. 

In  that  conflict  of  desires  which  necessarily  takes  place — since  most 
"  goods  "  are  incompatible  with  each  other  and  experience  makes  us  know 
this  to  be  so— one  desire  may  overcome  the  other  and  lead  on  to  its  own  ap- 
propriate deed  of  will ;  or  the  two  may  hold  each  other  in  check  and  pre- 
vent the  satisfaction  of  either,  while  dividing  the  appetitive  states  between 
themselves,  as  it  were.  Or,  again,  both  may  subside  into  quiescence,  or 
yield  the  stream  of  consciousness  to  some  new  desire  stronger  than  either  of 
the  two.  Habitually  triumphant  desires  may  become  dominant  and  even 
monstrous  passions  ;  and  this  no  matter  how  "  noble  "  they  in  themselves 
are.  Thus  we  read  of  one  Montelli,'  whose  desire  for  knowledge  had  grown 
to  such  proportions  that  he  led  the  sordid  life  of  an  intellectual  miser,  and 
died  a  most  learned  and  yet  useless  wretch. 

g  14.  Finally,  the  nature  of  desire  is  shown  by  a  consideration  of  that 
complementary  condition  of  consciousness  which  we  call  "  satisfaction." 
Feelings,  ideas,  and  volitions  as  such,  do  not  imply  either  dissatisfaction  or 
satisfaction.  But  we  have  seen  thatywill  desire  is  essentially,  as  respects  its 
emotional  element,  a  condition  of  craving  or  dissatisfaction/  The  attain- 
ment of  that  which  is  desired  is  followed  by  an  unique  form  of  "  easement," 
— the  pleasurable  state  of  satisfaction.  The  principal  part  of  satisfaction 
seems  to  be  negative  and  reactionary,  as  it  were.  The  particular  form  of 
complex  and  painful  craving  which  characterized  the  desire,  as  well  as  that 
conative  condition  which  has  been  recognized  as  the  "effort  "  belonging  to 
desire,  are  now  at  an  end.  In  most  cases,  indeed,  these  are  succeeded  by  a 
condition  of  pleasant  relaxation  from  strain,  or  of  massive  comfortable  feel- 
ing, or  of  positive  happiness  amounting  to  joy  in  possession  and  use  of  the 
desired  object.  In  cases  of  satisfied  desire,  where  the  cessation  of  the  de- 
sire is  followed  by  jjains  of  body,  thouglit,  or  conscience,  the  unique  pleas- 
urable character  of  the  satisfaction,  in  itself  considered,  is  no  less  certain. 
The  man  who  with  a  weak  organism,  a  sensitive  imagination,  or  a  tender 
ethical  sentiment,  has  gained  his  desire,  is  no  less  satisfied  of  that  particular 
form  of  painful  craving,  because  he  has  replaced  its  pains  by  yet  keener  and 
more  lasting  ones. 

In  general,  the  pure  and  complete  satisfaction  of  the  desires  becomes 
more  difficult  and  rare,  with  the  increase  of  intellectual,  resthetical,  and 
ethical  development.  As  a  rule,  the  richer  the  life  of  the  mind  becomes,  the 
more  imperfect  are  its  satisfactions.  In  compensation  for  this,  however,  we 
are  to  consider  the  lessening,  under  control  and  the  formation  of  habits,  of 
the  painful  intensity  of  unsatisfied  desires,  and  the  increased  amount  of  mild 
•and  complex  satisfactions  which  the  very  multiplication  of  the  forms  of  de- 
sire makes  possible. 

If  we  were  to  beo-in  our  attempt  at  stating-  the  Kinds  of  De 
sire  by  an  analysis  of  the  conscious  life  of  different  individuals, 
wo  should  have  to  say  thatxhere  are  as  many  desires,  for  eacli 
individual,  as  there  are  kinds  of  objects  which  he  has  found  pro- 

'  See  Bcnuuis  :  Les  Sensations  Internee,  p.  57. 


THE   CLAS8ES   OF   DESIIIES  607 

dnctive  of  {i^ood.  On  the  otlicr  hand,  the  nnmifohl  aversions  of 
the  individual /are  determined  by  liis  experience  with  the  pain- 
[)roducin^-  qujuity  of  different  presentativc  and  representative 
objects.  Nor  shouhl  we  thus  exhaust  tin;  list  i)ossibl(; ;  for 
there  exist  also  ctu'tain  abnormal  or  i)atholof^ical  desires,  and 
other  desires  which  persist  in  spite  of  the  experience  that  their 
satisfaction  is  accompanied  or  followed  by  painful  feeling".  In 
tine,  t\ien,/\w,  very  individuality  of  every  individual  consists 
larg't>ly  in  just  this — the  character  and  number  of  his  dominant 
or  subordinate  desires/^  Of  course,  we  may  generalize  and  clas- 
sify according  to  the  origin  of  the  craving  and  the  character  of 
its  corresponding  satisfaction.  "We  thus  arrive  at  this  division 
of  the  desires  :  (1)  Sensuous  desires,  or  those  which  arise  out  of 
bodily  cravings  and  find  their  satisfaction  in  the  possession  and 
use  of  some  physical  object ;  (2)  Intellectual  desires,  or  the  crav- 
ings that  arise  from  the  constitution  of  the  mental  faculties  and 
find  their  satisfaction  in  mental  exercises,  or  states,  regarded  as 
objects  or  ends  to  be  attained  ;  (3)  Sentimental  desires,  or  those 
which  arise  in  the  contemplation  of  some  form  of  the  beautiful 
(;estlietical),  or  of  the  morally  good  in  conduct  or  character 
(ethical).  To  these  might  be  added  (4)  a  fourth  class  of  desires 
to  which  we  have  already  given  the  title,  pathological. 

The  foregoing  classification,  like  all  attempts  at  classification, 
only  serves  to  make  more  obvious  the  shifting  and  complex  nat- 
ure of  all  the  principal  forms  of  desire  as  they  are  actuall}^  ex- 
perienced by  the  developed  human  consciousness. 

I  15.  For  example,  the  "  desire  of  wealth"  may  he  a  mixture  of  the  sen- 
suous, intellectual,  and  sentimental,  combined  in  varying  proportions — as 
we  should  doubtless  discover  if  we  could  get  at  the  full  conscious  content  of 
this  desire  in  the  minds  of  those  who  have  it  most  powerfully.  In  many 
cases  the  descriptions  would  emphasize  the  sensuous  satisfactions  whicli 
M'ealth  secures,  in  others  the  possbssion  and  use  of  wealth  as  a  means  for  the 
satisfaction  of  intellectual,  or  resthetical,  or  even  ethical  desires;  while  in 
still  other  cases  this  desire  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  restless  craving  for  the  in- 
tellectual and  practical  excitement  connected  with  the  jiursuit  of  wealth,  or 
has  taken  a  really  pathological  character  and  become  a  "  craze  "  after  an  ob- 
ject which  the  jiursuer  himself  knows  will  give  more  jiain  than  pleasure  in 
its  possession.  Somewhat  similarly  complex  are  the  so-called  desires  foi' 
"  fame"  and  "power,"  etc.  But  the  desire  with  which  w^e  regard  our  vari- 
ous objects  of  personal  affection  is  most  obviously  a  compound  of  all  the 
principal  classes  of  normal  desire.  Particularly  true  is  this  of  the  desire 
that  enters  into  the  more  refined  forms  of  love  between  the  sexes. 

Finally,  we  note  that  the  complex,  higher  forms  of  appetency . 
cause  us  to  take  a  significant  and  comprehensive  survey  of  the 


608  IMPULSE,    IXSTINCT,    AND   DESIRE 

mental  life,  both  iu  the  backward  and  also  in  the  forward  direc- 
'  tion.  For  desires  derive  all  their  wealth  of  content  from  the 
various  developments  of  memory,  imagination,  and  thought ; 
while  they  imply  every  possible  form  of  feeling-,  with  its  charac- 
teristic tones  of  pleasure  or  of  pain.  Their  development  is, 
therefore,  to  be  understood  in  the  light  of  all  that  has  thus  far 
been  said  reg-arding  the  development  of  the  intellective  and  af- 
fective aspects  of  consciousness.  But  just  as  plainly  do  they 
point  forward  to  the  development  of  that  other  aspect  of  mental 
life  which  we  are  now  to  consider — the  unifjdng  of  the  phenom- 
ena in  the  "  willing-"  mind. 

[On  Impulse  and  Instinct,  comp.  James:  The  Principles  of  Psj'chology,  II.,  xxiv. 
(Ihadbourne  :  Instinct  in  Animals  and  Mpn.  Lindsay  :  Mind  in  Lower  Animals.  Ro- 
manes ;  Mental  Evolution  in  Animals.  Lloyd  Mori;an  :  Animal  Life  and  Intelligence. 
Schneider  :  Der  Thierische  Wille  ;  and  Der  Menschliche  Wille.  Spencer :  Principles  of 
Psychology,  II. ,  p.  4o3  f.  Miinsterberg  :  Willenshandlung,  p.  92  f.  San  this  :  Zur  Psy- 
chologie  d.  menschlichen  Triebe.  Grube :  Triebleben  d.  Seele.  Preyer :  Mind  of  the 
Child,  I.,  xi.  Perez:  L'Education  des  le  Berceau,  iv.,  5.  Beaunis  :  Les  Sensations  In- 
ternes, ii.-vi.  and  xvi.  On  Desire,  besides  the  sections  devoted  to  this  topic  in  other 
works  on  psychology  and  ethics,  see  especially,  Sidgwick  :  The  Methods  of  Ethics,  iv. 
L.  Stephen  :  Science  of  Ethics,  ii.  Waitz  :  Lehrbuch  d.  Psychologie,  §  40.  And  Volk- 
mann  :  Lehrbuch  d.  Psychologie,  II.,  p.  o9T  f.  ] 


• 


CHAPTEE   XXVI. 
WILL  AND   CHAEAOT'EK  .* 

The  mental  phenomena  which  it  is  ctistomary  to  group  to- 
gether under  the  term  "  the  Will,"  are  of  all  perhaps  the  most 
subtle  and  comiDlex.  The  reason  for  this  fact  is  chiefly  found, 
however,  in  the  relations  sustained  to  each  othev-by  the  three 
classes  of  factors  (intellective,  affective,  conative)  -which  enter 
into  all  mental  states.  As  the  development  of  mental  life  pro- 
ceeds, the  work  of  perception, .  ideation,  and  thought  becomes 
increasingly  elaborate  ;  while  the  varietj^  of  emotions  and  senti- 
ments grows  .to  be  correspondingly  great.  Now,  v:iU  is  a  word 
traditionally  used  to  express  the  sum-total  of  all  our  perform- 
ances— whether  in  the  form  of  physical  movement  or  of  more 
jourely  intellectual,  pesthetical,  and  ethical  pursuits,  under  the 
"'  guidance  " — as  we  say  of  reason,  and  because  of  the  "  motives  " 
furnished  by  our  various  emotions,  sentiments,  and  desires. 
Thus  "  willing  "  ( VToUen)  comes  to  be  almost  coextensive  in  our 
thought,  with  that  entire  sj)here  of  "  acting  "  {Handcln),  and  even 
of  "  doing  "  {Thun),  which  .we  call  our  otmi.  In  this  same  way  are 
Ave  led  to  apply  to  human  beings,  with  comparative  rareness,  the 
distinction  between  action  and  conduct ;  the  rather  are  men  in- 
clined to  regard  each  other  as  somehow  responsible  for  all  that 
they  do,  unless  the  doing  is  known  to  be  in  no  respect  under 
the  control  of  the  voluntary  motor  apparatus.  Even  the  per- 
ceiving, imagining,  thinking,  and  believing  of  others  are  chiefly 
considered  by  us  as  matters  of  conduct ;  and  thus  we  hear 
it  poj^ularly  said  : — He  cnight  to  be  able  to  see  this;  and  ought  to 
know  that ;  and  even,  It  is  irrong  for  him  to  think  in  that  way,  or 
to  believe  in  tlie  other  way,  etc.  Such  language,  and  the  im- 
pressions and  expapiiMi^  oAii^iich  it  is  based,  however  crude 
and  psychologically  unsatisfactory,  are  exceedingly  significant ; 
for  they  show  how  strong  the  tendency  is  to  regard  a  man's  will 
as  extending  over  all  hi^actions,  and  to  identify  with  the  sphere 
of  "Will  the  whole  of  what  we  call  character. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  real  psychological  kernel  of  this  so 
complex  group  of  phenomena,  in  so  far  as  they  belong  distinc- 


>^ 


610  AVILL   AND   CHARACTER 

tively  to  "will,''  seems  remarkabl}^  simple.  It  is,  indeed,  so 
simi^le  as  to  defy  analysis,  for  the  very  opposite  reason  from 
that  which  makes  aualj'sis  so  difficult  in  the  sphere  of  the  feel- 
ings. In  treating-  of  the  primitive  character  of  conation  it  was 
said  (p.  211  f.)  that  psychic  facts,  considered  simply  in  this  as^iect, 
"have  only  one  kind."  "As  such,  there  is  one  and  only  one  sort 
of  conation."  We  shall  not  really  depart  from  this  position  now 
as  we  resume  the  discussion  of  the  development  of  mental  life, 
considered  chiefly  in  its  conative  asjiect.  We  shall  indeed  speak 
of  volitions,  choices,  purposes,  and  plans ;  but  all  these  process- 
es in  consciousness  must  be  considered  as  modifications  of  the 
intellectual  content  and  affective  condition  under  which  one  and 
essentially  the  same  phenomenon  of  conation  takes  place. 

When  then  we  speak  of  the  development  of  the  will,  our 
reference  is  really  to  the  progressive  acquirement  of  those  com- 
jDlex  intellectual  and  emotional  conditions  under  which  the  cona- 
tive activity  of  the  individual  takes  place.  Development  of  will 
is  development  of  knowledge  as  to  ends  to  be  chosen  and  real- 
ized, and  as  to  means  for  the  realization  of  the  chosen  ends ;  de- 
veloj)ment  of  feeling  in  the  formation  of  emotions,  sentiments, 
and  desires ;  development  of  skill  in  the  use  of  the  motor  mech- 
anism, whether  external  and  obvious,  as  in  the  movements  of 
the  limbs,  or  internal  and  concealed,  as  in  the  mechanism  con- 
nected with  the  fixation  and  re-distribution  of  attention,  and  the 
control  of  the  mental  train.  But  the  repeated  activities  of  cona- 
tion— like  all  the  phenomena  of  mental  life,  and  especially  so, 
because  we  may  regard  this  law  as  having  its  seat,  so  to  speak, 
in  the  will — fall  under  the  law  of  habit.  In  the  development  of 
intellect,  of  feeling,  and  of  motor  manifestation  of  conscious 
processes,  the  conative  factor  appears  ever  present ;  it  also  r<7>- 
pears,  at  least,  as  a  determining  fact.  Thus — to  speak  popularly 
— if  it  be  true  that  I  am  always  dependent  upon  ideas  of  ends  and 
of  means  and  upon  motives  of  emotion  and  desire  for  what  I  will ; 
it  is  also  true  that  what  ideas  get  accepted  as  my  ends,  and  my 
means  for  attaining  the  ends,  and  what  motives  become  most 
powerful  vntli  «2e, depends  upon  what  "I  will."  For  the  present, 
this  popular  way  of  representing  the  apparent  truth  may  be  taken 
to  mean  that  the  whole  mind — intellect,  feeling,  and  conation — 
develops  together.  But  in  what  sense  there  can  be  a  develop- 
ment of  will  considered  as  abstracted  from  all  development  of 
intellect  and  feeling,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  This,  however, 
need  give  us  no  anxiety ;  for  the  difficulty  arises  from  that  ab- 
stract way  of  speaking  of  the  faculties  as  though  they  were 
entities,  or  at  least  modes  of  being  or  behavior,  separable  from 


MEANING   OF   THE   TEKM    "WILL"  611 

each  other.  The  siiniilo  truth  witli  wliit-h  we  arc  now  concerned 
is  this — in  the  course  of  their  development,  and  as  dependent 
upon  the  growing-  life  of  memory,  imagination,  thought,  and 
feeling,  men  come  to  be  able  to  make  choices,  to  select  ends  and 
means,  to  shape  conduct,  and  to  form  far-reaching  purposes  and 
plans. 

"  To  will "  {in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word)  is  then  the  result  of 
a  decdopnient  ;  it  is  something  which  no  one  can  do  at  the  heginning 
of  mental  life,  hit  n'hich  all  men  learn  to  do  in  the  course  of  its  un- 
folding. To  exercise  "  free  will  " — in  anj'^  conceivable  meaning 
of  this  term— is  not  a  birth-right ;  it  is  rather  an  achievement 
which  diflferent  individuals  make  in  greatly  differing  degi*ees. 
But  willing,  as  conscious  self-activity,  does  not  manifest  itself  as 
early  and  as  persistently  as  sensation  or  feeling  ;  and  in  the  de- 
veloped consciousness,  that  which  we  mean  to  indicate  when  we 
say  "  I  will "  is  a  unique  phenomenon.  It  is  not  to  be  confounded 
with  emotion,  affection,  or  desire  ;  much  less  is  it  mere  conscious- 
ness of  movement  following  upon  sensation,  ideation,  or  thought. 

1 1.  Savs  Hofftling  '  pertinently  :  "  As  in  Greek  niytliology  Eros  was  made 
one  of  the  oldest  and  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  youngest  of  the  gods,  so 
in  psychology  the  will  may,  according  to  the  point  of  view,  be  represented 
as  the  most  jjrimitive  or  as  the  most  complex  and  derivative  of  mental  prod- 
ucts." The  failure  to  observe  and  give  due  weight  to  this  truth  has  re- 
sulted in  much  confusion  on  the  part  of  writers  on  psychology  and  ethics. 
The  primitive  root  of  will  in  conation — that  which  in  respect  of  the  third 
aspect  of  all  conscious  psychic  facts  makes  conduct,  as  distinguished  from 
mere  action,  possible — has  already  been  discussed  (Chap.  XI.)  ;  it  has  also 
been  seen  how  conation  stands  related  to  movement  and  motor  conscious- 
ness, and  to  the  fixation  and  distribution  of  attention  in  the  different  fields 
of  consciousness.  All  our  conclusions  upon  these  jioints  must  now  be  re- 
called and  understood  anew  in  relation  to  the  development  of  so-called 
"  Will."  Fin-thermore,  the  entire  nature  of  the  life  of  intellect  and  feeling, 
and  the  tj-end  and  laws  of  the  development  of  that  life,  must  be  borne  in  mind 
and  ajiplied  to  the  understanding  of  volitions,  choices,  resolutions,  planning, 
etc.  In  the  intellective  aspect  the  important  thing  to  notice  in  reference  to 
a  correct  psychological  theory  of  will  is  its  increasing  "  teleological "  signifi- 
cance, as  belonging  to  the  very  life  of  memory,  imagination,  and  thought. 
As  intellect  develops,  more  and  more  remote  and  comprehensive  ends  are 
set  before  the  mind,  and  a  wider  and  more  precise  knowledge  of  moans 
adapted  for  the  realization  of  these  ends  is  acquired.  Memory,  imagination, 
thought — all  necessarily  take  part  in  this  increased  recognition  of  the  teleo- 
logical idea,  this  conscious  awareness  and  pursuit  of  ends  by  use  of  means. 
Indeed,  each  act  of  recognitive  memory,  of  productive  imagination,  of  logi- 
cal conclusion  on  recognized  grounds,  is  in  itself  an  act  of  obedience  to  the 
principle  of  final  cause.     Even  in  those  cases  where,  luider  the  beneficent 

>  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  308. 


612  WILL   AND   CHARACTER 

eflfect  of  another  principle  (wliich  we  may  call,  somewhat  vaguely,  the  "  j)rin- 
ciple  of  habit ")  these  activities,  having  been  frequently  performed  with  more 
or  less  recognition  of  some  end  in  view,  come  to  resemble  instinctive  per- 
formances, their  teleological  import  as  affecting  the  development  of  mental 
life  is  only  the  moi-e  ajiparent. 

What  is  true  of  the  intellectual  faculties  is  true  of  feeling  as  well.  The 
unfornied  life  of  feeling  consists  of  relatively  few  and  simple  affective  states 
(connected  chiefly  with  bodily  sensations  and  appetencies)  which  furnish 
blind  and  unchecked  stimuli  to  the  movements  of  the  bodily  organism.  As 
this  life  develops  in  dependence  upon  the  development  of  the  life  of  per- 
ception and  ideation,  the  variety  of  feelings,  and  of  their  consequent  con- 
flicting emotive  discharges,  is  gi'eatly  increased.  And  if  some  infliience  from 
the  principle  of  teleology  were  not  exercisetl  in  the  realm  of  emotions,  con- 
tinued development,  and  even  continued  existence,  would  be  psychologically 
impossible.  As,  however,  the  feeling-impulses  become  desires,  and  some  of 
the  desires  are  weakened  or  eliminated  by  being  habitually  inhibited,  while 
others  grow  into  either  deep-seated  passions,  or  elevated  sentiments,  or  into 
disi3ositions  and  tendencies  and  habits,  by  freqiiently  "  having  their  own 
way,"  the  organization  of  the  life  of  feeling  goes  on.  And  here  that  very 
dependence  of  complex  affective  states  upon  intellect,  which  contributes  to 
their  variety,  also  makes  it  certain  that  they,  too,  will  shape  themselves  ac- 
cording to  some  system  of  means  and  ends.  This  is  true  even  when  the  ends 
are  no  other  than  the  satisfaction  of  the  momentarily  stronger  desires  or  of 
the  more  permanent  passions. 

Now,  it  is  into  this  self-forming  system  of  means  and  ends,  as  securing 
the  organization  of  the  life  of  intellect  and  feeling  that — we  may  figuratively 
say — Will  enters  ;  nay,  within  it  is  the  willing  mind,  regarded  as  definitely 
adapting  the  ends,  selecting  the  means,  checking  or  indulging  the  ai^peten- 
cies;  and  planning,  resolving,  controlling,  as  resjiects  the  entire  trend  and 
issue  of  the  course  of  development.  And  if  we  are  reminded  that  such  lan- 
guage is  figurative  and  encourages  a  psychologically  false  division  into  facul- 
ties, we  admit  the  partial  justice  of  the  accusation.  Btit  we  repeat  that  the 
other  style  of  speaking,  which  represents  the  phenomena  of  "willing"  as 
only  the  resultant  of  a  superiority  in  strength  of  two  contending  muscular  sen- 
sations, or  of  two  desires,  is  equally  figurative.  We  are  obliged  by  the  very 
nature  of  our  science,  which  describes  the  phenomena  of  consciousness  as 
such,  to  reaffirm  the  reality  of  conation  as  an  irresolvable  factor  in  all  psy- 
chic states  ;  and  to  maintain  the  perfectly  unique  character  of  that  which 
we  know  takes  place  when  we  use  intelligently  the  words,  "I will"  In  view 
of  the  prevalence  of  the  teleological  principle  in  mental  life  there  is  certainly 
ground  for  asserting  with  M.  Pattlhan  :  "  Every  idea,  .  .  .  eveiy  senti- 
ment, in  brief,  every  psychic  system  tends  to  complete  itself  by  volitions  and 
motor  phenomena  ;  eveiy  system  has  its  own  will."  '  But  the  essence  of  what 
we  call  preC'minently  "(he  will  "involves  "a  sort  of  trial  of  psychic  sys- 
tems"— each  tending  to  impose  itself  upon  all  the  others,  to  the  end  of 
completing  itself,  and  of  the  conscious  adoj^tion  of  one  of  these  systems  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  others.  All  the  way  through,  then,  the  complex  jihe- 
nomena  involved  show  their  conformity  to  the  idea  of  final  purpose.     "  Will- 

'  Comp.  L'Activit6  Mentale,  p.  69  f .  .] 


NATURE   OF   THE   VOLITION  G13 

ing,"  in  all  its  developed  manifestations,  implies  knowledge  and  feeling  with  refer- 
ence to  means  and  ends. 

By  the  word  "  Volition  "  we  understand  a  defimte  conatlve  ac- 
tivity conscioudy  directed  toward  the  realization  of  a  mentally  rep- 
resented e?id,  preceded  or  accompanied  by  t/te  condition  of  desire,  and 
usually  accompanied  or  followed  hy  the  feeling  of  effort.  A  volition 
is  then  a  complex  activity  in  which  conation  is  emphasized  as 
central  and  determinative,  but  as  dependent  upon  intellect  for 
its  direction  and  upon  feeling-  for  its  so-called  "  motive  "  or  im- 
pulse. In  considering-  the  nature  and  development  of  the  voli- 
tions we  enter  the  sphere  of  conduct ;  and  every  single  volition 
may  be  called  "  a  deed  of  will."  In  actual  exi)erience,  here  as 
everywhere  else,  the  principle  of  continuity  is  maintained. 
Looking-  at  this  exercise  of  so-called  faculty,  we  cannot  draw  the 
line  precisely  through  the  place  where  it  emerges  in  obvious  dis- 
tinction from  previous  involuntary  conative  acts ;  nor  can  we, 
in  the  case  of  individual  volitions,  always  say — just  here,  and  no- 
where else,  in  the  swift-Howing  stream  of  consciousness  did  im- 
pulse or  desire,  wishing  and  craving,  give  way  to  a  genuine  deed 
of  will.  In  fact,  most  of  our  volitions  How  forth  so  silently  and 
smoothly,  as  it  were,  from  the  very  interior  of  the  self,  that  we 
have  to  turn  to  those  rarer  and  relatively  extreme  cases,  where 
the  Avill  asserts  itself  more  definitely  and  even  violently,  as  it 
were,  in  order  to  understand  its  distinctive  character.  In  two 
respects,  however,  all  volitions  are  distinguished  from  viere  co- 
native  activity ;  for  they  imply  mental  representation  of  an  end  to 
be  realized,  and  excitement  of  at  least  some  faint  form  of  desire. 

There  are,  moreover,  several  respects  in  which  different  forms 
of  volition  differ  greatly  ;  and  these  differences,  bj'^  the  many 
combinations  of  which  they  admit,  result  in  coloring  our  deeds 
of  will  so  strongly  that  they  scarcely  all  seem  alike  fit  to  be 
brought  under  the  same  term.  Among  these  differences  the 
following-  are  most  important  :  (1)  The  end  toward  which  voli- 
tion is  directed  may  be  conceived  with  more  or  less  distinctness  ; 
or  it  may  be  more  or  less  familiar  or  strange  ;  or  it  may  be  in  its 
nature  more  or  less  remote  and  difficult  of  realization.  Thus  the 
character  of  the  intellectual  activity  connected  with  the  presenta- 
tion or  representation  of  that  which  is  willed  profoundly  modifies 
the  complex  nature  of  the  volition  itself.  The  character  of  every 
volition  depends  on  the  content  of  what  is  willed.  It  is  one  thing 
for  the  child  voluntarily  to  stretch  out  its  hands  to  the  nurse  or 
to  the  toy,  and  another  thing  for  the  man  of  science  to  decide 
upon  the  course  of  experimentation  which  has  just  flashed  into 


614  WILL   AND   CHARACTER 

his  mind  as  a  means  proper  to  a  remoter  end  in  the  discovery 
of  some  ulterior  scientific  truth. 

But  (2)  two  or  more  ends  may  be  presented  to  the  mind  in 
quick  succession,  both  of  which  cannot  be  willed,  because  they 
are  presumably  or  certainly  incompatible  ;  and  in  connection 
with  their  mental  presentment  conflicting-  desires  may  be  excited. 
Here — whereas  in  the  preceding  case  we  may  suppose  the  voli- 
tion to  be  "  unimotived,"  since  only  one  end,  and  that  a  desired 
one,  is  presented — there  is  need  for  choice.  And  choice  itself 
may  be  either  between  two  or  more  ends,  or  it  may  be  choice 
between  acting  and  not  acting.  In  all  cases,  however,  volitions 
which  are  choices  have  a  somewhat  distinctly  different  character 
from  unimotived  volitions. 

Yet  again  (3)  the  amount  of  the  desire  excited  varies  greatly 
in  different  cases  of  volition  ;  and  so  does  the  character  of  de- 
sire, whether  it  be  sensuous,  or  intellectual,  or  sentimental,  or 
pathological.  The  various  amounts  and  kinds  of  desire  w'hich 
form  the  so-called  motives  for  our  volitions,  greatly  influence 
the  coloring  taken  by  the  deed  of  will  itself  as  it  emerges  in 
consciousness.  Sometimes  the  volition  is  pale  and  nerveless,  as 
it  were  ;  because  desire  has  been  faint,  or  having  at  first  been 
strong,  has  finally  suff'ered  a  collapse.  Sometimes  it  is  blood- 
red,  because  stained  with  the  streams  that  have  poured  out  from 
the  vital  centers  of  appetite  and  passion.  In  connection  with 
the  two  just  foregoing  differences  occurs  another — namely,  (4) 
the  amount  and  character  of  i:)receding  "  deliberation."  It  is 
this,  indeed,  which  emphasizes  our  most  genuine  and  unmistak- 
able deeds  of  will.  But  deliheration.  is,  in  truth,  itself  a  sort  of 
mixture  of  intellect  and  inhibitory  volition.  We  speak  here  not 
simply  of  the  influence  which  this  mental  process  of  weighing 
ends  and  of  comparing  means  and  consequences,  has  upon  the 
question,  which  one  of  two  or  more  possible  volitions  our  choice 
shall  be  :  wo  speak  also  of  the  fact  that  the  psychological  char- 
acter of  the  choice  is  itself  greatly  dependent  upon  the  amount 
and  kind  of  the  preceding  deliberation  ;  the  resulting  deed  of 
will  has  a  different  tone,  according  as  it  has,  or  has  not,  been 
preceded  by  deliberation.  Eeckless  will,  hasty  will,  excited 
will,  cool  Avill,  rational  will,  reluctant  will,  exhausted  and  breath- 
less will,  etc.,  are  among  the  many  ])()pular  ways  of  expressing 
these  differences. 

Volitions  differ,  moreover,  (5)  as  to  the  relations  in  which  they 
stand  toward  the  psycho-physical  ai)paratus  for  control  of  the 
organism.  Hero  one  chief  distinction  is  between  {a)  volitions  of 
inhibition  and  {h)  volitions  of  positive  innervation  ;  or  between 


CONDITIONS   OF   DEVELOPED   WILL  615 

those  "which  arc  adapted  to  check  the  impulse  to  act  in  a  certain 
way,  and  those  which  are  adapted  to  produce,  as  we  say  (and 
are  actually,  in  the  order  of  nature,  followed  by),  a  certain  deter- 
minate^ form  of  action.  In  connection  with  these  distinctions  we 
experience  the  intiuence,  upon  the  entire  state  of  volition,  of  all 
the  various  modiiications  of  the  feeling  of  effort,  whose  nature 
and  oriq-in  have  already  been  discussed  (p.  221  f.)-  Both  volitions 
of  inhibition  and  volitions  of  jiositive  innervation  have  their 
characteristic  feelings  of  effort.  In  the  one  case,  this  feeling 
may  be  described  as  that  of  offering  resistance  to  the  tension 
connected  with  every  form  of  appetency  or  desire  ;  in  the  other 
case,  it  is  rather  described  as  that  of  overcoming  resistance. 
Figuratively  speaking,  in  the  one  case  "  I  will "  not  to  let,  at 
once,  impulse,  appetite,  desire,  have  its  own  way  with  me  and 
bring  on  its  appropriate  form  of  action  ;  in  the  other  case,  "  I 
will  "  that,  in  spite  of  certain  resistance  from  impulse,  appetite, 
desire  (and  these  may  take  the  form  of  disinclination  to  do  any- 
thing), a  certain  form  of  action  shall  take  i)lace.  Here  it  is 
customary  to  speak  of  the  longer  or  shorter  period  of  struggle 
which  blends  with,  or  follows,  the  more  purely  interior  deed 
of  will,  as  a  nisas  added  to  the  volition.  This  nisus  itself,  how- 
ever, is  necessarily  "  backed  up,"  as  it  were,  b}^  a  repetition  or 
prolongation  of  the  volition.  All  these  elements,  in  their  com- 
plex resultant,  enter  into  the  conditions  of  willing,  as  we  are 
now  using  the  term.  But  other  volitions  of  both  classes  (wheth- 
er of  inhibition  or  of  positive  innervation),  instead  of  being 
marked  by  more  or  less  intense  feelings  of  effort,  are  character- 
ized in  precisely  the  opposite  way.  They  are  marked  by  a 
wonderfully  grateful  sense  of  relief.  The  will  to  "  let  go," 
"  to  surrender  the  struggle,"  "to  yield  to  desire,"  etc.,  are  voli- 
tions of  this  sort.  So  also,  in  cases  where  deliberation  has  been 
long  and  painful,  the  making  of  the  choice  is  characterized  by 
the  very  opposite  of  the  feeling  of  effort.  Even  where  the  task 
set  by  the  volition  is  in  itself  a  severe  one,  whether  of  obvious 
bodily  movements  or  of  the  control  of  attention  and  the  train  of 
ideas,  it  seems  lightened  as  it  is  voluntarily  assumed — so  con- 
spicuous is  the  feeling  of  relief  accompanying  and  folloAving  the 
resolution  of  the  nisus  and  the  perfecting  of  the  deed  of  will. 

\  2.  The  developed  form  of  Will,  to  which  M'e  give  the  name  volition 
(proper),  differs  from  mere  conation  or  primitive  attention,  by  being  con- 
sciously determined  according  to  some  recognized  "content."  It  is  will 
ifliich  knows  what  it  wants.  Such  an  act  of  will  was  recognized  by  ns  long 
ago  when,  in  the  chapter  on  this  subject  (p.  61  f.),  we  spoke  of  vohintai-y  at- 
tention as  a  "  purposeful  volition  ;  "  and  yet  again  when,  in  a  later  chapter, 


616  WILL   AND   CHARACTER 

we  sjjoke  of  ideo-motor  and  voluntary  movements  as  developed  forms  of  co- 
nation. Here  the  distinctness  with  which  the  content  of  the  conative  activity 
is  presented  in  consciousness  admits  of  an  indefinite  number  of  degrees ; 
and  these  degrees  separate  the  most  blindly  impulsive  from  the  most  intelli- 
V:»,__gent  of  our  conations.  This  relation  of  volition  to  intellectual  content  is  ob- 
served when  men  try — as  they  habitually  do — to  excuse  themselves  from  the 
charge,  both  of  ignorance  and  of  immorality,  by  saying  :  "I  did  not  think 
what  I  was  doing."  On  the  other  hand,  they  excuse  themselves  from  the 
charge  of  immorality,  but  not  of  ignoi-ance,  by  alleging  :  "I  did  not  know 
what  I  was  about."  In  the  one  case,  the  volition  closely  resembles  a  mere 
impulse ;  in  the  other,  it  has  the  character  rather  of  a  volition  j^roper,  but  of 
one  determined  on  insuflScient  grounds.  A  child  who  did  not  remember  the 
unpleasant  consequences  which  followed  previous  impulsive  states  of  fear,  or 
anger,  or  desire,  and  so  did  not  recognize,  on  its  renewed  presentation  in 
consciousness,  the  character  of  any  particular  action  or  course  of  conduct, 
would  remain  incapable  of  volition.  It  would  continue  to  run  away,  to 
strike,  to  bite,  to  reach  out  its  hand  for  the  candle — impuhivehf ;  it  would 
not  inhibit  these  movements  by  a  genuine  deed  of  will.  The  dependence 
of  volition  proper  upon  the  recognition  of  objects  as  ends,  and  upon  the 
mental  representation  of  the  consequences  of  previous  impulsive  acts,  is 
further  illustrated  by  the  pause  which  often  occurs  when  unfamiliar  objects 
are  presented.  This  pause  is  indicative  of  the  question — What  to  will. 
The  sensuous  attractiveness  or  aversion  awakened  toward  the  object  is,  of  it- 
self, sufficient  to  occasion  impulsive  movement ;  b^^t  the  demand  to  act  in 
view  of  an  intellectual  determination,  to  know  beforehand  what  we  are  going 
to  do  and  what  consequences  we  are  to  experience  as  the  result  of  our  doing, 
is  necessary  to  a  genuine  voluntary  movement.  Shall  I  eat  this  strange 
kind  of  food  ?  or  drink  this  unfamiliar  form  of  drink  ?  or  trust  myself  to  this 
unaccustomed  vehicle  [kago  or  sampan)  ? — such  are  some  of  the  inquiries  be- 
fore which  hungry,  and  thirsty,  and  huri'ying  travellers  have  to  form  voli- 
tions when  in  foreign  lands. 

All  these  variations  in  the  character  of  our  volitions,  as  dependent  upon 
intellectual  attitude  toward  the  ends  jiroposed,  are,  of  course,  connected 
with  variations  in  stress  of  desire,  in  amount  of  deliberation,  etc.  Volitions 
are  also  characteristically  different  for  different  persons.  Some  wills  are 
rapid  and  impulsive  in  movement ;  others  are  equally  rapid  in  movement 
but  clear  and  strong  in  intelligence.  So  the  individual  volitions  may  at 
certain  times  be  characterized  by  a  comprehensive  and  firm  mental  grasp,  al- 
though the  necessity  for  making  up  one's  mind  at  once  bo  imperative.  For 
example,  let  a  horse  be  running  away  in  a  crowded  street,  or  a  child  fall 
overboard  from  a  ferry-boat,  and  one  looker-on  will  stand  "  will-less  "  be- 
cause intellectually  stupefied,  another  will  rush  to  action  blindly,  while  still 
another  will  choose  the  best  means  of  action  Avith  a  coolness  of  judgment 
that  furthers  instead  of  hindering  promptness  of  movement. 

^  3.  The  dei^endonce  of  the  character  of  volition  upon  the  amount  and 
character  of  desire,  and  upon  the  relation  whicli  the  will — so  to  speak — as-- 
sumes  to  the  desire,  is  most  marked  and  influential.  In  tliis  respect  men  of 
different  temperaments  and  habits  of  action  differ  greatly  ;  so  also  do  dif- 
ferent volitions  in  the  voluntary  life  of  all  individuals.     Some  men  of  little 


EFFECT   OF   DELIBERATION   ON   WILL  617 

passion  or  excitement  from  any  form  of  feeling,  habitually  exhibit  great 
energy  and  tirrauess  in  volition.  Hero  again,  "  the  Will "  may  bo  intellectual 
and  directed  by  a  clear  mental  grasp  upou  ends  ;  or  it  may  seem  to  be  more 
largely  blind,  mere  couative  energy,  a  relatively  unthinking  and  unemo- 
tional forth-initting  of  volition,  but  with  marvellous  strength  and  tenacity. 
Men  of  the  latter  class  often  acquire  a  reputation  for  "  strong  -will "  (more 
correctly,  obstinate  will).  Even  in  cases  of  equally  intense  emotional  influ- 
ence immediately  preceding  the  volition,  great  differences  ajipear  in  the  way 
in  which  this  atfective  influence  gets  taken  up  into  the  volition,  or  adopted 
by  the  will.  Frequently  the  experience  occurs  which  is  described  as  being 
"  swept  away  "  by  desire,  and  so  willing  the  thing  wanted  because  one  can 
scarcely,  or  not  at  all,  help  doing  so. 

At  other  times  desire  or  passion  is  itself  voluntarily  espoused  and  made 
an  adopted  child  of  the  will.  Then  "  I  will"  means  not  simply  that  desire, 
although  resisted,  has  at  last  got  its  own  way  ;  but  rather  that  desire,  even 
perhaps  after  being  brooded  over  and  resisted,  /.s  7iow  itself  inirt  of  wJiat 
I  will.  Such  phenomena  occur  not  only  in  cases  where  the  deed  of  will  is 
one  that  needs  for  itself  the  continual  influence  of  passion  to  hold  it  firm 
and  strong,  but  also  in  cases  where  this  deed,  under  the  influence  of  some 
ulterior  consideration,  is  itself  directed  toward  doing  a  certain  action  with 
the  accompaniment  of  a  certain  frame  of  mind.  The  frame  of  mind  is  then 
willed  as  a  part  of  the  complex  action.  So  fanatics  and  reformers  often  act 
with  a  voluntary  passion.  Indeed,  as  Balzac  pertinently  says:  "Fanat- 
icism, and  all  other  sentiments,  are  living  forces.  These  forces  become  in 
certain  beings  rivers  of  Will,  which  gather  up  and  carry  away  everything." 
So  also  is  the  steady  glow  which  many  of  our  afi'octions  display,  due  to  the 
manner  in  which  we  will  that  attention  shall  be  given  to  them,  and  that  they 
shall  be  motifs  which  lead  to,  and  suffuse,  our  actions,  or  indeed  our  entire 
life  of  conduct.  For  example,  this  voluntaiy  adoption  of  i)assion  and  desire, 
so  that  the  character  of  the  adopting  volition  is  itself  modified,  is  distinctive 
of  the  mental  attitude  of  the  lover  to  his  mistress,  of  the  patriot  to  his  coun- 
try, of  the  student  to  his  pursuits,  and  of  all  passionate  devotees  to  any  per- 
son or  cause.  It  is  as  tnie  in  its  way  that  there  are  voluntary  passions 
(states  of  emotion  and  desire  which  are  willed)  as  that  there  are  so-called 
voluntary  acts  which  are  little  more  than  unwilled  resultants  of  passionate 
feeling.  And,  indeed,  generally,  there  are  many  degrees  of  the  mixture  of 
emotive  and  volitional  elements  which  we  characterize  by  such  words  as 
volition,  choice,  and  puri^ose.  For,  it  cannot  be  said  too  often  :  In  every 
developed  "  deed  of  roill "  the  whole  man  acts ;  and  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
"  loilling"  to  do  which  is  not  a  complex  resultant  of  all  these  fundamental  forms 
of  so-called  f acidly. 

I  4.  That  what  is  called  "  deliberation  "  is  a  most  important  modifier  of 
the  character  of  our  volitions,  is  a  truth  assumed  by  all  naive  as  well  as  elab- 
orate ethical  theories,  and  illustrated  by  the  language  and  practice  of  men 
on  every  hand.  This  truth  is  evident  at  once  on  considering  the  influence 
from  the  lapse  of  time  over  both  the  intellectual  and  the  affective  antecedents 
of  volition.  If  volition  is  to  be  intelligently  directed  toward  an  end  that  is  at 
all  complex  or  remote,  and  especially  in  case  both  end  and  means  for  its 
attainment  are  unfamiliar,  the  process  called  "making  up  one's  mind"  as 


G18  WILL   AND   CHARACTER 

to  what  to  do  cannot  take  place  without  deliberation.  The  study  of  mental 
development  shows  us  how  the  infant's  instinctive  pause  of  surprise  and 
hesitation  before  the  unfamiliar  becomes,  as  the  intellect  develops,  the 
deliberate  inhibition  of  action  and  the  weighing  of  considerations  [libero ;  I 
weigh  in  a  libra,  or  pair  of  scales)  that  bear  upon  intelligent  action.  As  has 
been  said,  not  only  is  the  volition  thus  determined  as  to  what  it  shall  be, 
but  its  very  character  as  an  act  of  will  is  thus  changed.  In  this  way  voli- 
tion itself  becomes  the  conscious  adoption  of  an  end.  In  the  most  highly 
developed  cases,  then,  the  "  I  will  "  takes  place  only  after  memory,  imagina- 
tion, and  thought  have  been  employed  to  set  forth  in  consciousness  the 
value — sensuous,  sesthetical,  or  ethical — of  the  end  to  be  willed  ;  and  per- 
haps (in  cases  where  choice  is  made  between  this  and  some  other  end)  to 
estimate  carefully  its  place  in  the  "psychic  systems"  which  are  nearly  si- 
multaneously bidding  for  supremacy  in  the  allegiance  of  the  soul.  At  the 
same  time,  the  effect  of  deliberation  upon  affective  consciousness  is  even 
more  obvious.  It  takes  time  for  one  to  think  what  one  is  about  to  do,  and 
to  make  up  one's  mind  what  to  do  under  all  the  circumstances.  But  during 
this  time  the  play  of  feeling  goes  ceaselessly  on  ;  and  how  it  goes  on,  in  any 
case  of  deliberate  volition,  is  a  matter  characterized  by  all  the  uncertainty 
which  belongs  to  affective  phenomena  generally.  For  the  love  or  the  aver- 
sion with  which  the  end  was  regarded  at  the  beginning  of  deliberation  may 
cool  off  or  be  pacified.  Indifference  may  take  its  place ;  or  some  rival  desire 
may  spring  uj)  and  eclipse  it.  Or,  on  the  contrary,  what  was  originally 
faint  desire  or  latent  passion  may  become  a  burning  flame.  Thus,  we  know 
that,  if  we  can  succeed  in  saying  to  ourselves  or  to  one  another:  "  Hold  on  " 
— "  You  may  wish,  and  desire,  and  crave,  but  do  not  will  just  now  " — it  can- 
not be  confidently  predicted  what  the  state  of  "motive"  will  be  that  imme- 
diately antedates  the  final  deed  of  will.  The  more  fierce  and  intensely  sen- 
suous are  the  desires  thus  held  in  check  while  we  deliberate,  the  more 
uncertain  in  many  cases  is  it,  whether  they  will  keep  hot  until  the  volition  be 
formed.  Nor  is  this  effect  of  deliberation  manifest  simply  in  determining  what 
the  volition  will  be  ;  the  imlition  to  do  the  same  thing,  ivhich  is  issued  after  de- 
liberation, is  not  psi/cliologicaVy  the  same. 

Most  important  of  all,  however,  is  it  to  note  the  part  which  the  will 
itself  plays  in  every  process  of  so-called  deliberation.  Such  a  process  is,  of 
its  very  nature,  preeminently  a  volition  ;  the  rather  is  it  a  more  or  less  syste- 
matic series  of  volitions  under  the  headship  of  a  controlling  act  of  will. 
The  will  to  deliberate — the  volition  which  answers  the  call  to  "  hold  on,"  to 
check  the  immediate  procedure  from  representative  idea,  or  emotive  con- 
dition, to  a  deed  of  positive  adoption  of  the  end — is  as  thoroughly  charac- 
teristic of  a  highly  developed  faculty  of  conation  as  any  mental  activity  can 
possibly  be.  And  during  the  entire  process  of  deliberation — whether  it 
last  but  for  a  minute,  or,  at  fi-equontly  renewed  and  prolonged  intervals,  for  a 
year — volitions  are  constantly  to  be  recognized  as  determining  the  resultant 
content  of  consciousness.  When  I  deliberate,  I  will  to  attend  now  to  this 
consideration  and  now  to  that,  to  encourage  this  desire  at  the  expense  of 
that  so-called  higher  sentiment ;  or  to  repress  the  other  sensuous  appoteiu'v 
by  entertaining  an  ethical  feeling — and  so  on,  throughout.  Psycliologicallji 
considered,  it  is  no  less  true  that  I  will  the  influential  ideas,  feelings,  and  desires 


UNIQUE   CHAKACTER   OF   VOLITION  Gll> 

than  that  the  ideas  and  feelings  and  desires  influence  the  final  ^'^  I  will." 
Nothing  can  well  be  more  shallow  ami  misleading,  in  description  and  expla- 
nation of  the  facts  of  consciousness,  as  such,  than  to  regard  deliberation  as 
a  mere  struggle  for  supremacy  in  consciousness  of  ideas  and  feelings  and 
desires  that  strictly  determine  will.  [But  to  this  point  we  shall  refer  again 
later  on.] 

I  5.  Little  can  be  added  to  what  has  already  been  said  regarding  the  phys- 
iology of  volition,  considered  as  conation  (p.  21(5  f.)  or  attention  (p.  05  f.), 
regarding  the  psycho-physical  mechanism  of  movement  and  its  inhibition 
(p.  228  f.),  or  regarding  the  nature  and  origin  of  that  "  feeling  of  effort  "  (p.  221 
f.)  which  has  so  conspicuously  to  do  with  all  deeds  of  will.  In  all  developed 
volitions  the  physiological  basis  of  the  entire  mental  condition  includes  both 
such  centrally  initiated  and  such  i)eripherally  originated  nerve-commotions 
as  answer  to  the  intellective,  and  affective,  as  well  as  to  the  purely  conative, 
factors  of  the  complex  mental  state.  Volitions,  even  physiologicuUy  consid- 
ered, are  not  comparable  to  simple  sensations  or  feelings,  whether  of  the  muscu- 
lar or  of  any  oilier  sort.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  ample  reason  to  suppose 
that  the  whole  round  of  cerebral  centers  is  hard  at  work  when  we  are  de- 
liberately (that  is,  with  intelligent  selective  attention  under  the  influence 
of  motives)  "  making  up  "  our  minds.  The  exhaustion  and  psycho-physical 
collapse  which  frequently  follows  choice,  in  the  case  of  prolonged  mental 
struggle  and  alternation  of  conflicting  desires,  is  significant  enough.  Into 
no  other  form  of  psychoses  does  a  man  "  put  more  of  himself,"  and  suffer 
more  for  it,  than  into  such  complex  activities  as  lead  up  to,  and  terminate 
in,  deeds  of  will. 

At  the  same  time  tlie  distinct  and  unique  experience  which  consummates 
the  process  of  deliberation,  and  although  temporarily  terminating  the  con- 
flict of  motives  so  called,  often  begins  another  process  of  endeavor  to  "  carry 
out  one's  will,"  is  quite  unmistakable.  To  say  with  a  recent  writer  :  '  "The 
act  of  will,  even  in  its  highest  forms,  admits  of  explanation  as  a  motor  pro- 
cess by  means  of  the  customary  presupjiositions  of  natural  science  without 
the  assistance  of  an  immaterial  principle  " — is  a  theoretical  statement  which 
we  believe  to  be  contradicted  by  a  fair  and  comprehensive  interpretation  of 
all  the  facts  of  psycho-ijhysics.  But  to  say  also,  as  the  same  writer  does, 
that  "between  the  mental  imago  of  the  effect  and  its  perce2)tion — i.e.,  be- 
tween the  peripherally  excited  sensation  of  motion  and  the  previously  re- 
produced memory-image  of  the  same — there  is  absolutely  nothing  of  a 
psychical  character;"  and  so  to  conclude  that  Will  is  nothing  but  "a 
sensation-complex  bound  to  the  sensory-motor  centers  of  the  brain  ; "  or, 
"Will  is  a  general  term  which  serves  the  purpose  of  ethical  considerations, 
but  has  absolutely  nothing  corresponding  thereto  in  inner  experience  ;  " 
— all  this  is  flatly  to  deny  the  plainest  facts  of  consciousness  which,  as 
such,  it  is  the  very  business  of  psychology  to  describe  and  to  explain. 
For  the  distinctive  and  well-recognized  feature  of  difference,  when  we 
compare  the  most  i^rimitivo  forms  of  impulse  with  the  higher  develoi?- 
ments  of  will,  is  just  this — Between  idea  and  motion  something  does  intervene 
which  is  unique  in  psychical  character,  viz.,  that  ivhich  ice  express  by  the  words 

"I  WiLIi." 

'  Miinsterbcrg,  Die  Willenshandhing,  eee  pp.  101,  118,  122,  etc. 


620  WILL   AND   CHARACTER 

^  6.  Those  who  would  reduce  the  characteristics  of  volitions  proper,  or 
deeds  of  will,  to  the  "feeling  of  effort"  do  not  sufficiently  consider  the 
great  variety  of  phases,  so  to  speak,  which  this  feeling  exhibits  in  connection 
with  equally  unmistakable  voluntary  processes.  As  the  distinctions  just 
made  remind  us,  we  sometimes  find  ourselves  willing  with  all  our  might  to 
restrain  ourselves  from  actually  doing  that  which  we  desire  to  do,  and  should 
have  done  impulsively,  if  we  had  not  willed  to  deliberate,  or  to  resist  desire. 
At  other  times  we  seem  to  ourselves  engaged  in  overcoming  some  resistance 
to  the  movement  of  the  bodily  organs,  or  to  the  direction  of  attention  upon 
the  mental  train  toward  the  end  desired.  Such  resistance  may  arise  from 
what  is  called  sluggishness  of  body  or  of  mind  ;  or  it  may  come  from  the 
apparently  inherent  difficulty  of  the  action  willed.  Thus  we  express  a  fre- 
quent jjaiuful  experience  by  saying,  "I  can't  bring  myself  to  do  this"  (to 
spring  out  of  bed  when  the  hour  for  rising  strikes ;  to  take  the  cold  jjlunge  ; 
to  have  the  aching  tooth  drawn  ;  to  work  out  the  required  problem  ;  to  write 
the  promised  article  ;  to  engage  in  conversation  with  a  notable  bore).  At 
another  time — the  next  day,  or  perhaps  no  later  than  just  as  the  words  of 
despair  have  escaped  our  lips — we  find  that  our  will  has  rallied,  and  that  the 
difficulties  have  disappeared  or  are  being  overcome. 

But  if  in  a  large  number  of  cases  volition  seems  to  brace  us  up' 
against  the  "  temptation  "  of  desii-e,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  increase  the 
feeling  of  effort  by  intensifying  and  prolonging  the  inhibition  of  action 
toward  a  certain  end,  or  by  engaging  us  in  the  pursuit  of  a  certain  end  ; 
in  another  large  number  of  cases  volition  is  signalized  by  relief  from  the 
feeling  of  effort.  This  is  true  —  as  has  been  said  —  when  we  voluntarily 
"  let  go  "  instead  of  continuing  to  "  hold  on  ;  "  or  when  we  solve  the 
doubt  whether  we  can  do  a  certain  thing  by  actually  starting  the  mech- 
anism of  motion  or  of  attention  in  the  jirocess  of  doing  it ;  or  when, 
again,  we  settle  the  conflict  of  motives  by  making  a  choice.  Apparently 
the  physiological  condition  of  this  sense  of  relief  which  accompanies  many 
volitions  is  the  breaking  forth  of  nerve-commotions  from  the  "occupied" 
cerebral  centers  into  the  appropriate  motor-tracts.  But  much  of  the  relief 
— whether  considered  physiologically  or  from  the  point  of  view  of  conscious- 
ness— is  due  to  the  changed  condition  of  feeling  which  results  from  the  voli- 
tion. For,  confessedly,  the  strain  of  excited  emotion  and  passion,  esi^ecially 
of  the  "  conflicting  "  sort,  is  always  great.  And  much  of  the  "burden" 
under  which  we  feel  ourselves  to  be  when  "  weighing  "  motives  is  caused  by 
our  being  necessarily  more  or  less  "  subject  "  to  the  power  of  motives.  Here, 
again,  reference  might  be  made  with  profit  to  the  theory  of  the  cerebral  and 
psycho-physical  nature  of  the  intenser  forms  of  feeling  (comp.  p.  173  f. ) .  Other 
l^art  of  the  sense  of  relief  is  doubtless  caused  by  the  privilege  which  volition 
often  brings  of  ceasing  from  the  tension  of  attention.  The  more  deliberate 
is  any  deed  of  will — the  interests  involved  being  supposed  to  be  equal — the 
greater  is  the  required  attention  ;  and  voluntary  attention  has  been  seen  to 
be  an  exhausting  activity. 

I  7.  Finally,  the  reactionary  effect  of  volition  upon  the  various  intellec- 
tive processes,  and  its  fusion  with  them  in  the  total  process  which  may 
properly  bo  called  the  process  of  "willing,"  should  be  kept  in  mind.  All 
the  intellectual  faculties,  whose  development  has  thus  far  been  traced,  are,  in 


EFFECT   OF   VOLITION   ON   INTELLECT  G21 

their  higlier  exercise,  themselves  vohintary.  That  is  to  sav,  we  iierceive, 
within  certain  not  easily  assignable  limits,  what  ive  vill  to  perceive  ;  we  re- 
member what  u-e  will  io  remember,  and  think  and  conclude  as  we  determine  by 
volition  the  content  and  direction  of  our  thought.  The  effect  of  voluntaiy 
attention,  as  a  consciously  directed  focusing  and  distributing  of  psychic 
energy  over  the  successive  fields  of  consciousness,  upon  (or  rather  within) 
all  these  forms  of  intellectual  faculty,  has  already  been  noted  in  detail.  So 
important  is  this  ettect  that  some  psychologists  stand  ready  to  write  down 
the  equation  :  Volition  =  Attention,  in  the  most  fundamental  and  compre- 
hensive meaning  of  both  words.  A  brief  summary  of  a  related  view  has  been 
made  as  follows  :  '  There  exists,  besides  mere  content  of  mental  representa- 
tion, a  subjective  personal  activity.  This  is  proved,  in  the  first  place,  by  the 
efiiect  of  apperception  (or  selective,  attentive  i^erceiition)  on  the  mental  image 
in  elevating  it  to  the  point  of  fixation,  and  in  reinforcing  its  intensity  there. 
"We  have  a  measure  for  this  increase  of  intensity  in  the  case  of  those  images 
which  we  voluntarily  evoke  in  memory,  and  upon  which  we  direct  attention. 
The  consciousness  of  this  process  considered  as  an  effort  of  attention,  and  of 
the  feelings  of  tension  which  accompany  it,  receives  the  name  of  "  T\'ill  " — 
just  as  soon  as  we  take  into  consideration  the  external  actions  which  result 
from  it. 

Not  only  in  perception  and  memory  does  volition  exercise  a  determining 
influence  over  the  resulting  mental  condition  ;  in  affirmative  and  negative 
judgment,  also,  the  will  expresses  itself  in  a  peculiarly  impressive  way.  In- 
deed, the  essence  of  these  two  kinds  of  judgment  may  be  said  to  lie  in  the 
Jirit  and  yieget  of  the  voluntary  mind.  When  volition  is  comj^leted,  the 
language  in  which  it  expresses  itself  is  the  affirmative  judgment — with  an 
emphasis:  "I  will  this,"  or  the  negative  judgment :  "  I  will  not  that."  No 
matter  how  purely  logical  our  thinking  may  seem  to  us  to  be,  or  how  color- 
less, disj^assionate,  and  strictly  consequential  oiir  conclusions,  certainly  in 
all  judgments  relating  to  matters  of  conduct,  and  probably  also  in  all  scien- 
tific judgments  as  well,  we  will  to  judge  what  we  think  it  fit  to  judge.  That 
is  to  say,  the  more  deliberate  our  consideration  of  the  grounds  on  which  the 
concluding  thoiight  must  be  seen  to  rejiose,  the  more  deliberate  our  weigh- 
ing of  evidence,  the  more  does  the  final  act  of  "drawing  "  the  conclusion  es- 
cai^e  the  nature  of  a  blind  impulsive  leaji  and  assume  the  character  of  a  deed 
of  will.  So  also  do  men  accept  or  reject  those  judgments,  to  which  they  are 
solicited  or  from  which  they  are  repelled  by  ethical  sentiment,  in  the  form 
of  a  volitional  activity.  Tlmf;  nil  the  faculties  are  tcelded  together  in  their 
higher  manifestaiiona  and  developments  ;  thus  what  we  will  is  not  onhf  depend- 
ent on  what  ue  think,  and  what  ice  icill  on  what  we  icish,  but  also  what  we  think 
071  what  we  wish  and  will.  For  the  development  of  that  so-called  faculty  to 
which  we  ascribe  the  origin  of  conduct  is — we  rejieat — a  most  complex  affair  ; 
and  its  deeds,  the  so-called  volitions,  imply  the  fusion  of  all  the  various 
fundamental  processes  of  mind  in  the  relations  acquired  by  experience. 

It  is,  however,  the  wonderful  mental  phenomenon  (or  rather 

complex  of  mental  processes)  which  is  called  Choice,  that  most 

I 

»  Comp.  Dwelshauvere,  Psychologie  de  I'Apperception,  p.  129  f.— an  attempt  to  summarize  the 
theory  of  Wundt. 


622  WILL   AND   CHARACTER 

exhibits  the  many-sided  nature  of  the  developed  Will.  In  order 
to  determine  most  satisfactorily  the  "  moments "  which  enter 
into  this  phenomenon,  we  must  analyze  our  protracted  condition 
of  mind  when  we  are  most  plainly  and  elaboratel}',  as  it  were, 
making-  a  choice.  Here  i^hysiological  theory  and  experimental 
data  are  of  little  assistance.  For  almost  no  knowledge  of  facts 
exists  on  which  to  base  such  a  theory  ;  and  experiments  have  a 
direct  bearing-  only  on  those  relatively  simple  cases  of  reaction- 
time  which  show  that,  instead  of  really  "  choosing-  " — in  the  most 
peculiar  meaning-  of  that  word — the  subject  of  the  experiments 
is  only  reacting  impulsively  under  the  influence  of  habitu- 
ally associated  mental  images.  The  psychological  basis  for  a 
discussion  of  the  questions  in  debate  between  the  advocates  of 
determinism  and  free  will  has  not  yet  been  laid  in  experiment ; 
it  jDrobably  never  will  be  laid,  to  any  satisfactory  extent,  in  work 
done  in  iih3'^siological  or  psycho-physical  laboratories.  The  com- 
plex phenomena,  or  series  of  phenomena,  which  we  call  making- 
a  choice  must  be  taken  as  they  are  given — actual  data  of  con- 
sciousness, as  such.  And  instead  of  minimizing  them,  and  ex- 
plaining them  away,  they  are  to  be  described,  as  they  actually 
occur  in  the  mental  life,  by  scientific  psychology ;  to  philosophy 
it  must  be  left  to  reconcile  tjiem  with  any  proposed  statement 
of  a  so-called  "  law  of  causation." 

In  the  most  elaborate  and  prolonged  processes  of  "  making  a 
choice,"  the  following  stages,  or  "moments,"  may  be  discovered: 
(1)  Mental  representation  of  two  or  more  ends  regarded  as  de- 
pendent upon  our  action,  and — usually  also — of  the  more  or  less 
detailed  courses  of  conduct  which  are  regarded  as  means  to  the 
attainment  of  these  ends.  But  since  detailed  mental  represen- 
tation of  several  ends  and  of  their  appropriate  means  cannot,  on 
account  of  the  limitations  of  consciousness,  be  simultaneous,  it 
must  take  place  by  a  sort  of  alternate  dwelling  upon,  first  one 
and  then  another  of  these  ends.  (2)  Excitement  of  sensibility  in 
the  form  of  some  desire  or  sentiment  which  implies  appreciation 
of  the  value  of  the  ends,  and  which  constitutes  the  "  motives,"  or 
affective  "  reasons,"  Avhy  either  one  should  be  chosen  rather  than 
the  others.  But  the  very  nature  of  (1)  and  (2),  as  occurring  under 
the  most  general  conditions  of  mental  life,  implies  (3) — delibera- 
tion, involving  the  estimating  of  the  relative  values  of  the  ends, 
and  of  the  risks  and  difficulties  of  their  attainment,  together  with 
the  excitement  of  a  conflict  of  desires.  [Here,  however,  the 
volitional  character  of  the  deliberation  itself,  with  its  involved 
regulation  of  the  ideas  by  voluntary  attention  and  its  possible 
suppression  of,  or  allowance  of,  or  adoption  of,  certain  motives, 


THE   PROCESSES   IN   CHOICE  623 

must  not  bo  forq-otton.]  But  into  the  midst  of  this  jn-ocess  of 
deliberatiou  there  either  breaks  as  a  sort  of  surprise,  or  follows 
as  its  rational  conclusion,  (4)  decision — or  the  appropriation  to 
self  of  one  end,  and  its  system  of  means,  to  the  exclusion  of 
others  (that  psychical  process  which  coiresponds  to  tlie  words 
"  I  will,"  as  terminating  deliberation  ;  selective  volition  or  choice, 
peculiarly  so  designated — what  is  ordinarily  called  "  fiat  of 
will").  It  is  this  number  (4)  which  is  often  called  ////;  choice; 
although  this  word  is  more  i>roperly  used  for  the  complex  pro- 
cess of  choosing,  or  making  a  choice,  since  the  final  decision 
may  often  be  of  itself  considered,  a  unimotived  volition,  or  even 
almost  a  blindly  impulsive  act.  Then  follows,  both  in  the  order 
of  necessary  sequence  and  in  the  order  of  time,  (5)  that  more 
distinctly  colored  consciousness  of  doing  something — "letting 
go,"  or  "gripping  on,"  with  the  api>aratus  of  muscular  motion 
and  attention  (Avhat  is  sometimes  called  "executive  volition,"  or 
the  carrying-out  of  the  decision). 

While,  however,  these  several  stages  or  "moments"  may  l)e 
recognized  in  certain  most  elaborate  deeds  of  will  as  the  faculty 
of  choosing,  they  are  customarily  more  or  less  "  huddled  to- 
gether," or  even  fused,  in  choices  so  called.  Almost  constantly 
in  our  daily  lives  alternative  courses  of  action  leading  to  difierent 
ends  are  presented  before  us  for  our  choice  between  them.  In 
many  of  these  cases  the  mind  is  helped  to  an  almost  immediate 
and  yet  intelligent  and  genuine  decision  by  previous  experience. 
Is  it  a  choice  between  going  and  not-going,  between  going  to 
the  place  a  or  to  the  place  h,  between  employing  our  time  in  the 
work  7)1  oi'  spending  it  in  the  recreation  n,  between  believing  the 
report  brought  us,  or  the  opinion  expressed  by  x  or  by  y  ? — it  is 
already  known,  on  familiar  grounds,  which  part  of  each  alterna- 
tive to  clioose.  Indeed,  in  many  cases  so-called  choices  are  scarce- 
ly such  to  any  aiopreciable  degree ;  they  are  rather  almost  entire- 
ly the  exjjression  of  conscious  but  instinctive  or  impulsive  cona- 
tive  acts.  For  in  its  development  Will — like  all  the  so-called 
faculties  or  forms  of  mental  life — comes  under  the  principle  of 
habit :  or  rather,  as  we  have  already  said,  here  is  the  very  seat 
and  stronghold  of  the  principle  of  habit  itself. 

In  this  "  huddling  together,"  or  partial  fusion,  of  the  pro- 
cesses involved  in  choice,  any  one  of  the  five  "moments"  may 
suffer  more  or  less,  both  as  respects  the  degree  in  which  it  is 
awakened  and  also  as  respects  the  time  which  it  absorbs. 
Here,  of  course,  degree  of  intensity  and  length  of  persistency  in 
consciousness  are  intimately  connected  ;  although  they  may 
vary   either  directly,   or  inversely,   or  in   other  unpredictable 


624  WILL   A^D   CHARACTER 

waj'^s.  Thus  mental  representation  of  the  ends,  between  which 
choice  is  to  be  made,  may  be  clear  and  comprehensive  from  the 
very  beginning-  of  the  process  of  making  the  choice  ;  and  in  this 
case  deliberation  consists  in  estimating  the  affective  values  of 
the  two,  or  in  being  swayed  by  alternating  waves  of  desire 
that  move  in  different  directions.  In  other  cases,  however,  the 
very  pause  before  decision  and  the  entire  process  of  deliberation 
may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  a  demand  is  made  to  know  more 
definitely  "  what  we  are  going  into,"  before  making  a  decision ; 
and  now  when  knowledge  is  gained,  the  decision  follows  as  a 
matter  of  course.  In  still  other  cases  the  excitement  of  sensibil- 
ity and  the  motivation  which  desire  furnishes,  make  compara- 
tively little  show  in  the  complex  process  of  choice.  This  may 
happen  either  through  lack  of  intensity  to  the  feeling,  or  because 
the  time  through  which  deliberation  ranges  is  too  short  for  desire 
— to  speak  figuratively— to  get  a  firm  hold  on  will.  For  there  is 
such  a  thing  even  as  very  deliberate,  intelligent,  and  yet  unfeel- 
ing, choice.  Yet  again,  the  "  strong  desire  eclipses  the  aim,"  and 
shortens  up  the  entire  process  of  deliberation,  bringing  it  to  a 
decision  before  either  knowledge  of  ends  and  consequences,  or 
higher  sentiments,  have  had  a  chance  greatly  to  influence  the 
process.  In  calling  attention  to  these  differences  the  same 
truths  appear  as  those  which  characterize  the  nature  of  all 
volition ;  but  the  peculiarity  of  choice  consists  in  just  this 
preparatory  vacillation  of  attention  between  ends,  and  in  the 
corresponding  shorter  or  longer,  fainter  or  more  intense,  conflict 
of  affective  states. 

It  is  the  Decision  or  "  cutting -sliort"  of  the  process  of  deliberation, 
in  which  will  expresses  itself  as  tlie  faculty  distinctive  in  cdl  maJcing 
of  choices.  But  will  also  expresses  itself — so  we  have  repeatedly 
been  compelled  to  notice — in  the  jirocess  of  deliberation  all 
through.  Yet  the  decision  is  the  very  acme  of  the  activity  of 
will,  the  triumph  of  developed  conation  over  sensation,  feeling, 
and  desire,  with  their  impulsive  and  instinctive  powers.  This 
central  activity  of  Will  is  also  called  "determination  "  or  "reso- 
lution ;  "  and  by  these  words  it  is  indicated  that  the  period  of 
vacillation  of  intellect  between  ends,  and  of  desires  considered  as 
appetencies  prophetic  of  possible  volitions,  is  terminated ;  that 
which  was  a  question,  a  problem,  is  now  settled  or  resolved.  In 
its  own  nature,  however,  considered  as  isolated  by  a  fictitious 
analysis  from  the  complex  presiding  intellective  and  affective 
processes,  decision  does  not  differ  from  volition  in  general.  Not 
infrequently  decisions,  following  upon  long  and  painstaking  de- 
liberation, are  made  in  an  impulsive,  and  almost  or  quite  invol- 


ATTEMPTS   TO   EXPLAIN   CHOICE  025 

uutary,  way.  The  intellectual,  sesthetical,  and  ethical  quality  of 
the  decision  depends,  then — psycholog-ically  considered — upon 
the  character  of  the  intellective  and  affective  processes  in  the 
midst  of  which  it  is  set.  This  is  only  to  say  that  intelligent, 
admirable,  and  morally  rig-ht  decisions  must  be  made  in  view  of 
consciously  represented  ends,  and  as  motived  by  correct  lesthet- 
ical  and  ethical  sentiments. 

I  8.  The  varions  attempts  of  physiological  and  experimental  psychology 
to  sophisticate  the  facts  of  consciousness  instead  of  faithfully  describing  and 
cautiously  explaining  them,  are  nowhere  else  more  unbecoming  than  in  tlie 
phenomena  of  choice.  There  are,  indeed,  certain  reasonable  conjectures  as 
to  the  probable  condition  of  the  brain  while  the  psychical  i)henomenon  of 
making  a  choice  is  going  on.  In  general,  this  may  be  described  as  a  state 
of  tension  in  which  alternating  depression  and  heightening  of  nerve-com- 
motion takes  place  in  the  various  cerebral  centers  that  have  control  of  the 
mechanism  of  motion  and  of  the  innervation  of  the  sense-organs.  This  state 
of  tension  comes  to  an  end  when,  with  the  decision,  some  definite  direction  is 
given  to  the  neural  excitement  and  it  is  "drawn  off,"  or  discharged,  into  tlie 
connected  nerve-tracts.  In  this  way  the  feeling  of  effort,  the  feeling  of  ex- 
haustion and  strain,  the  feeling  of  relief,  etc.,  which  accompany  the  dif- 
ferent phases  of  deliberate  choice,  are  explained  jihysiologically  as  having 
both  a  central  and  a  peripheral  origin.  But  all  this  is  far  enough  from  ex- 
plaining, and  farther  yet  from  explaining  aa-ay,  the  more  important  psychi- 
cal processes  which  enter  into  this  unique  act  of  will.  There  are  such  mental 
activities  as  we  can  exiiress  in  no  other  1Tt'iT^lai!,o.»tUan  some  such  as  the 
following  :  /  "  hold  on  "  before  deciding  ;  /  voluntarily&mi^ider  and  esti- 
mate the  value  of  the  ends  jiroposed  ;  /  su])press  this  desire,  and  encourage 
or  adopt  another,  or  decide  by  a  preliminary  volition  to  be  guicTcd  by  sucli 
an  aBsthetical  or  ethical  sentiment ;  and,  finally,  /decide  for  this  f^id  and  its 
involved  course  of  action,  rather  than  that.  When,  then,  a  writer — like  M. 
Luys '  for  example — asserts  that  all  this  psychical  process  is  illusory,  and 
that  the  object  chosen  is  "  only  forced  on  us  by  the  cunning  conjurer,  the 
brain,"  because  "  the  cell-territory  where  that  object  resides  has  been  pre- 
viously set  vibrating  in  the  brain,"  he  is  not  explaining  but  rather  contra- 
dicting the  facts  of  consciousness,  as  such,  on  the  basis  of  a  purely  mythi- 
cal physiology  of  tlie  cerel)val  centers.  And  in  no  sjihere  of  so-called  science 
is  unadulterated  myth-making  more  easy,  fascinating,  and  yet  dangerousV 
than  in  cerebral  pliysiology. 

'  Little  better — if,  indeed,  tliey  are  at  all  an  improvement — are  the  conclu- 
sions of  Miinstevberg  and  others,  as  placed  upon  an  alleged  basis  of  exjieri- 
mental  psychology  (p.  619).  Experiments  in  reaction-time,  have,  indeed, 
established,  with  a  fair  amount  of  conclusiveness,  an  answer  to  this  question  : 
"  About  how  long  does  it  take,  under  given  circumstances,  to  set  free  a  vol- 
untary impulse?"  The  first  experimenter  (Bonders)  answered  this  question 
with  the  number  36  a.  Later  exiieriments  (by  Merkel)  made  the  time  re- 
quired to  "set  free  "  the  cerebral  processes  involved  in  a  very  simple  choice be- 

'  The  Brain  and  its  Functions,  p.  254  f. 
40 


626  WILL   AND   CHARACTER 

tween  two  possible  coiirses  of  action  (e.g.,  to  react  with  one  finger  rather  than 
another)  vary  from  24  a  to  155  o-.  To  choose  one  of  the  ten  fingers  with 
which  to  react,  required  "will-time"  of  298-448  a.  As  might  be  expected, 
it  was  fonnd  that  by  establishing  fixed  associations  between  certain  percep- 
tions and  their  assigned  modes  of  reaction,  the  will-time  could  be  greatly 
redxiced  or  even  wholly  eliminated.  The  data  brought  out  by  still  subse- 
quent experiments  in  "question-answer"  associations  have  already  been  men- 
tioned (p.  303).  By  all  this  elaborate  experimentation,  however,  nothing 
has  been  shown  that  changes  our  estimate  of  the  unique  psychical  character 
of  choice  as  a  conscious  activity,  nothing  that  was  not  perfectly  familiar 
before  ;  namely,  that  delibei'ation  takes  time,  and  the  more  of  it,  the  more 
time ;  that  actions  which,  to  begin  with,  require  time  for  choice  may  be- 
come, by  even  a  little  practice,  almost  or  quite  impulsive  ;  that  there  are 
many  questions  of  apparent  choice,  about  w'hich  our  minds  are  already 
made  up,  or  which  we  answer  impulsively,  etc.  But,  here  again,  to  explain, 
or  to  exi^lain  away,  the  complex  and  subtile  psychoses  that  are  emphasized 
by  these  highest  transactions  of  developed  Will,  in  the  name  of  such  ex- 
perimental psychology,  is  a  quite  unwarrantable  j^rocedure.  Indeed,  it  can 
scarcely  be  too  emphatically  said  :  There  is  not  a  fact  knoim  to  ph/siological 
w  experimental paycliolngif  that  makes  avy  less  unique,  mysterioits,  and  impres- 
sive, but  necessary,  that  assumption  of  inexp)licable  spontaneity,  of  self- activity 
determinatire  of  follomng  psychoses  and  bodily  movements  tchich  belongs  to  the 
conscious7iess  of  viaking  a  deliberate  choice. 

^  9.  The  complexity  and  length  of  the  mental  jDrocesses  involved  in  all 
genuine  choices  may  be  said  to  be  invariably  ' '  fore-shortened  "  in  our  mem- 
ory of  the  choices  themselves.  In  all  cases  of  elaborate  choice  it  is  the  deci- 
sio)i,  and  not  the  preceding  deliberation,  which  is  of  chief  i^sychological  and 
jiractical  interest.  And,  indeed,  how  the  decision  was  reached  may  be  be- 
yond the  possibility  of  recall ;  may  even  never  have  come,  with  any  approach 
to  entirety,  into  consciousness  so  as  to  fix  itself  in  memory.  Moreover,  the 
entire  development  of  mental  life  requires  that  a  large  number  of  our  choices, 
while  retaining  their  character  as  choices,  shall  be  made  either  as  guided  by 
established  principles  of  action  or  by  that  quick  leap  to  judgment  which 
we  call  intuition  or  tact.  It  is  in  this  way  indeed,  that  many  of  the  most 
notable  and  heroic  choices  are  made — whether  the  life  of  the  individual  or 
the  history  of  the  race  be  considered.  For  example,  it  is  sufficient  to  note 
how  the  swimmer  proceeds  who  makes  it  his  choice  to  attempt  the  rescue  of 
a  drowning  jierson  ;  how  he  selects  the  means  of  assisting  himself  that  are 
at  hand,  or  can  be  ordered,  and  the  manner  of  handling  his  biirden  in  the 
water,  and  of  reaching  shore  or  the  ship's  side  again  ;  or  how  the  locomotive 
engineer,  on  seeing  an  obstruction  on  the  track,  chooses  whether  to  shut  off, 
or  to  let  on  more  steam,  and  chooses  the  time  to  jump  through  the  cab's  win- 
dow, etc.  All  such  deeds  of  will,  although  the  time  of  deliberation,  with  its 
mingling  of  voluntary  attention,  of  ratiocination,  and  ferment  of  affective  in- 
fluences, is  short,  cannot  properly  be  called  impiilsive  or  instinctive  ;  they 
are  rather  genuine  choices.  The  wonderful  mingling  of  grasp  upon  the  situ- 
ation, pressure  of  feeling,  and  promptness  of  decision,  which  characterizes 
them,  properly  excites  both  a?sthetical  admiration  and  moral  approbation. 
And  men  who  can  habituallv  choose  in  this  wav  are  often  not  onlv  "  men  of 


CKUTAIN   FALSE   ASSUMPTIOXS  027 

decision,"  but  men  of  that  clearness  of  intelligence  and  strength  of  feeling 
which  is  as  far  as  possible  removed  from  rashness  or  the  relatively  unintel- 
ligent and  ?io?j-moral  character  of  merely  impulsive  action. 

While,  on  the  one  hand,  the  word  choice  should  not  be  limited  to 
those  deeds  of  will  where  i)rolonged  deliberation  over  two  possible  ends 
precedes,  on  the  other  hand,  it  should,  of  course,  include  the  unimportant 
as  well  as  the  most  significant  deeds  of  will.  Choice  is  something  con- 
stantly going  on  in  the  development  of  mental  life.  Figuratively  speaking, 
we  may  say  that  the  path  to  be  followed  in  this  development  is,  at  every  mo- 
ment, an  ©lien  question.  So  far  as  either  observation  of  others  or  of  our 
own  self-consciousness  gives  us  the  data,  we  are  compelled  to  affirm  :  In 
every  stream  of  consciousness,  which  we  call  a  "  mind,"  there  is  constantly 
an  unsolved  problem  occurring.  The  decision  or  resolution,  which  is  the 
essentially  conative  act — this  alone  actually  solves  each  such  problem. 
That  is  to  say,  there  is  an  almost  ceaseless  mental  representation  of  two  or 
more  possible  courses,  with  their  ai)iuopriate  affective  accompaniments — of 
an  a  or  b  or  c,  as  possible  of  realization  by  the  ego  ;  either  a  or  b  or  c 
must  be  realized  ;  it  is  antecedently  much  more 2yrobable  that  a  will  be  real- 
ized (or  that  b  will  be,  etc.)  ;  but  onl)/  the  decision  decides,  only  the  resolu- 
tion resolves  the  problem.  When  attention  is  called  to  this  aspect  of  all 
mental  development,  as  dependent  upon  choice,  it  only  sets  forth  the  most 
obvious  of  facts — however  the  metaphysics  of  physics  or  of  psychology  may 
be  disposed  to  regard  the  ultimate  significance  of  the  facts.  Scientific  psy- 
chology cannot  give  a  faithful  picture  of  soul-life,  and  of  its  development, 
without  emphasizing  this  unique  phenomenon,  or  rather  comjilex  of  phe- 
nomena, called  "  making  a  choice." 

^  10.  Although,  then,  it  does  not  belong  to  psychology,  as  we  are  pursu- 
ing it,  to  refute,  or  even  to  consider  the  arguments  of  determinism,  or  the 
theory  of  a  complete  causal  connection,  whether  between  the  decision  and 
the  desire,  or  between  the  psychical  j^rocess  of  choice  and  the  i^hysiology  of 
the  cerebral  centers,  a  protest  may  properly  be  entered  against  the  way  in 
which  the  deterministic  arguments  are  customarily  presented.  In  this  mat- 
ter there  are  few  more  unpardonable  "sinners"  than  Hoffding '  has— in  his 
generally  fair  and  always  interesting  book— allowed  himself  to  become, 
"Psychology,"  says  this  author,  "like  every  other  science,  must  be  deter- 
ministic ;  that  is  to  say,  it  must  start  from  the  assumption  that  the  causal 
law  holds  good  even  in  the  life  of  the  will,  just  as  this  law  is  assumed  to  be 
valid  for  the  remaining  life  and  for  material  nature."  Such  an  assertion  as 
this  may  properly  be  met  with  the  flattest  kind  of  denial.  Psychology  has 
absolutely  no  right  to  make  any  such  assumption.  Psychology  must  first  of 
all  faithfully  describe,  and  then,  as  far  as  possible,  explain  (and  never  ex- 
plain away)  the  facts  of  consciousness,  as  such.  Among  these  facts  it  finds 
the  complex  phenomenon  of  choice.  And  this  phenomenon  certainly  does 
not  look  like  a  phenomenon  to  be  explained  off-hand  a.s  it  were,  by  assuming 
that  the  causal  law  is  valid  for  it  throughout  ;  "just  as  this  law  is  assumed  to 
be  valid  for  material  nature."  On  the  contrary,  no  one  can  deny  that  choice 
"  looks  like  "  a  phenomenon  the  very  opposite  of  such  a  natural  jihenome- 
non.     To  test  this  let  any  one,  in  an  unprejudiced  way,  consider,  what  goes 

'  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  345  f. 


628  WILL   AND   CHARACTER 

on  in  his  own  consciousness  wlien  a  choice  is  being  made.  Let  him  particu- 
larly mark  the  fact  that  every  rise  and  fall  of  the  ideas  of  the  ends,  and  every 
increase  and  decrease  in  the  so-called  influence  of  the  motives,  is  itself  a 
matter  largely  dependent  upon  the  same  apparent  spontaneity  of  conation  ; 
while  the  decision,  as  such,  is  a  sort  of  ai^otheosis  of  such  apparent  sponta- 
neity. Let  him  remember  that  the  primary  obligation  of  psychology  is  to 
remain  true  to  the  facts  of  consciousness,  as  such  ;  and  then  he  may  feel  the 
more  confident  that  psychology,  instead  of  ' '  assuming  "  determinism  to  be 
true,  must  turn  the  question  of  its  truth  or  falsehood  over  to  j^hilosophy. 
But  even  this  it  will  do  icith  a  strong  inclination  against  the  deterininist'ic  doc- 
trine, an  inclination  legitimately  based  upon  the  indubitable  character  in  con- 
sciousness of  the  plienomenon  we  call  "  making  a  choice." 

By  such  words  as  "  Plan  "  and  "  Purpose  "  certain  activities  of 
Will  are  emphasized,  that  are  of  even  more  comprehensive  and 
indirect  relations  to  conduct  than  are  so-called  choices.  And  by 
the  terms  "  self-control  "  and  "  courses  of  conduct,"  the  relation 
of  subordination  is  indicated  in  which  many  individual  volitions, 
whether  unimotived  or  g-enuine  choices,  stand  to  these  plans  and 
purposes.  Properly  speaking,  every  genuine  volition  and — even  more 
ohviously — every  choice,  is planfi/l  or  2)ar2)oseful.  In  its  very  nat- 
ure, as  has  already  been  shown  (p.  618  f.),  the  deed  of  will  deter- 
mines or  organizes,  in  the  direction  of  a  certain  end,  a  system  of 
psychic  activities,  intellective,  affective,  and  motor.  But  deeds 
of  will  admit  of  being-  arranged  in  a  series  of  hierarchies,  as  it 
were.  Some  of  them  rule  only  momentarily  and  by  way  of  lim- 
ited monarchy  over  the  psychic  train  and  the  motor  conscious- 
ness. Others  of  them  extend  their  influence  over  years  of  time,  or 
even  over  the  whole  of  life  and  its  complex  of  experiences  ;  and 
this  tlie}^  do  in  a  more  or  less  nearly  absolute  'svny.  In  such 
cases  there  is  ahvays  left  abundant  room  for  that  elasticitj'  and 
apparent  spontaneity  of  the  individual  choices  to  Avhich  refer- 
ence has  just  been  made.  For  even  when  the  stream  of  con- 
sciousness is  intelligently  and  voluntarily  directed  toward  a  cer- 
tain goal,  or  deliberately  turned  aside  by  a  well-calculated 
curve,  there  is  the  same  possibility  of  either  a  or  b  or  c  being- 
the  subordinate  end,  or  the  means,  chosen  at  every  minute  sub- 
division of  that  curve. 

Plans  and  purposes — considered  as  formed  by  difterent  wills, 
or  by  the  same  will  under  different  conditions,  or  at  diflerent 
stages  of  mental  development — differ  in  the  following  among 
other  particulars  :  (1)  Both  the  end  proposed,  and  the  means 
necessary  to  its  realization,  may  be  more  or  less  comprehensive 
in  themselves,  and  clearly  and  st(>adily  held  before  the  mind  by 
mental  representation.  (2)  Steadiness  or  firmness  of  will  ("  tlie 
very  backbone  of  what  we  call  will " — Sully),  or  its  opposite,  is 


Tin:   FOKMATIOX    OF    A    PLAN  G29 

characteristic  of  plans  and  purposes  more  obviously  than  of 
volitions  or  choices.  (3)  These  comi)rehensivc  deeds  of  will  are 
reciprocally^  related  to  the  control  of  the  "Self" — the  intellect, 
feelings,  and  habits  of  action.  In  other  Avords,  Avhat  we  call  con- 
duct is  determined  by  plans  ;  and  jDlans  are  themselves  modified 
or  even  determined  by  experiencing^'-  the  n'sults  of  conduct.  (4) 
In  this  way  a  man's  plans — as  respects  the  ends  i)ursued,  the 
means  employed,  the  relation  of  thouj^ht  and  feeliiif:;-  and  will  to 
them, — are  indicative  of,  and  co-extensive  with,  his  character. 
When  it  is  said  of  a  man,  "  he  clianges  his  purposes  frequently 
and  causelessly  ; "  or,  "  he  has  no  fixed  plans  ; "  or,  "  he  liv(!s  ac- 
cording- to  such  a  plan"—  it  is  iinderstood  as  defining-  what  sort 
of  a  man  he  is. 

The  formation  and  adoption  of  plans  is  a  matter  of  choice — 
the  former  having,  how^ever,  the  characteristics  rather  of  delib- 
eration and  the  latter  of  decision  ;  yet  in  both  f(n-mation  and 
adoption  the  act  of  will  is  obviously  involved.  Here  the  deter- 
mination of  will  is  much  more  interior  than  w  here  the  exjiression 
of  volition  and  choice  in  external  action  is  immediate.  In  all 
forming-  of  plans,  " I  will "  to  think  out  the  probable  conse- 
quences of  my  future  bodily  movements  or  of  other  forms  of  my 
"  doing  ; "  to  elaborate  certain  ideas  of  ends  to  be  reached  and 
of  means  to  be  employed ;  to  anticipate  feeling-s  of  one  kind  or 
another,  on  my  own  part  and  on  the  part  of  others,  etc.  That 
is,  in  brief,  by  a  choice  that  is  overruling  I  voluntarily  direct 
attention  into  certain  channels  of  cognitive  memory,  j^roduc- 
tive  imagination,  and  logical  conclusion.  Such  a  deed  of  will 
undoubtedly  results  in  innervating  certain  cerebral  centers 
rather  than  others,  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  their  connected 
organs  of  sense  ;  but  it  is  inhibitory  of,  rather  than  productive 
of,  obvious  bodily  movements.  So  also  in  the  deed  of  will  which 
adopts  the  plan  I  do  not  necessarily  set  agoing  by  my  fiat  of 
will  any  easily  marked  train  of  associated  bodily  movements. 
Some  plan  has,  indeed,  been  adopted  by  the  choice,  but  its  ex- 
ecution may  not  begin  immediately ;  it  may  not  even  be  con- 
templated for  a  considerable  time  to  come.  Thus  the  entire 
observable  motor  result  of  a  most  comprehensive  plan  being 
decided  upon,  may  be  only  the  saying  to  one's  self  (probably,  if 
under  the  breath,  yet  still  with  an  internal  emphasis)  :  "  Yes,  so  I 
inlll  do," — that  is,  when  the  time  comes,  and  as  often  as  it  comes, 
again  and  again,  for  the  contemplated  series  of  actions.  But 
tills  "  wdll  "  is  not  merely  the  future  tense  of  "to  be ;  "  it  signifies 
a  highly  organized  volition,  a  choice  of  a  plan  which  henceforth 
stands  to  the  ego  in  a  peculiar  relation. 


630  WILL   AND   CHARACTER 

§  11.  The  i^lanful,  i^urposeful,  character  of  all  volitions  and  choices— in 
the  most  general  meaning  of  the  words  "  plan"  and  "  purpose  " — has  already 
been  noted  in  cousideiing  the  conscious  teleology  which  belongs  to  devel- 
oped will.  For  example,  if  I  choose  to  draw  a  circle  rather  than  a  triangle, 
or  to  run  a  line  from  A  to  B  rather  than  from  A  to  C,  in  the  attempt  to 
solve  a  geometrical  jDroblem,  my  choice  operates  as  a  controlling  plan  over 
the  succeeding  movements.  So  also,  if  I  choose  to  walk  to  the  station  by 
the  way  of  the  post-office  rather  than  to  take  the  street-car  there  from  the 
next  corner  ;  or  choose  to  eat  an  apple  rather  than  a  peach,  from  the  dish  of 
fruit  offered  to  me.  Even  those  simiDle  uniraotived  volitions,  which  approach 
the  character  of  the  more  purely  impulsive  or  instinctive  activities,  in  so  far 
as  they  are  genuine  volitions  at  all,  may  be  said  to  involve  the  formation  of 
a  plan.  Choice  of  a  plan,  indeed,  may  be  said  to  be  involved,  as  a  sequence, 
in  certain  uuimotived  volitions.  For  not  infrequently  the  one  thing  willed, 
as  the  only  end  before  the  mind,  may  be  accomplished  in  either  one  of  sev- 
eral ways.  Thus  a  skilled  fencer  who  has  willed  to  attack  his  opponent 
at  what  he  knows  to  be  his  only  weak  point,  and  under  the  influence  of 
this  volition  is  watching  his  opportunity,  may  with  incredible  speed,  and  yet 
with  conscious  intelligent  choice,  select  the  particular  form  of  giving  his 
thrust — some  new  trick  he  has  recently  learned. 

In  the  more  restricted  use  which  is  here  made  of  the  words  jDlan  and 
purpose,  however,  emphasis  is  laid  upon  the  more  deliberate  and  com- 
prehensive choices  whose  execution  is  reserved  for  the  future.  Into  such 
a  supreme  manifestation  of  will  all  the  highest  develoi^ment  of  the  entire 
mental  life  may  enter,  as  making  contributions  to  its  character.  To  plan, 
to  purpose,  in  this  meaning  of  the  words,  is  to  exercise  all  the  faculties  of 
developed  manhood,  under  the  control  of  will.  Yet  this,  like  all  t)ther 
complex  manifestations  of  those  faculties,  is  also  matter  of  degrees.  We 
should  not,  therefore,  by  any  means  confine  our  estimate  of  such  products 
of  will  to  those  who  can  say  with  the  Paracelsus  of  Browning  : 

"I  have  subdued  my  life  to  the  one  purpose  X 

'  Whereto  I  ordained  it  ; "  f 

or,  again  : 

"  I  have  made  my  life  consist  of  one  idea," 

however  grand  the  idea  and  noble  the  sentiment  belonging  to  the  plan. 
The  lower  order  of  savages,  and  the  average  man  of  the  civilized  community, 
do  indeed  suffer  themselves  to  be  swayed  by  internal  passions  and  external 
circumstances  rather  than  "  subdue  "  their  lives  to  any  "  one  purpose."  And 
yet  there  is  another  side  to  all  this.  They,  too,  as  sharers  in  the  possibilities 
of  human  development,  habitually  take  large  sections,  as  it  were,  of  their 
own  lives  into  their  own  keeping  ;  they  "ordain "  them  to  some  one  purpose 
(though  it  may  be  no  nobler  imrjtose  than  to  take  vengeance  on  an  enemy, 
to  excel  in  trajiping  game,  or  in  outdressing  and  outranking  others,  or  in 
"bulling"  or  "bearing"  the  market)  ;  and  they  subdue  ideas  and  feelings 
and  minor  volitions  to  this  one  puri)o.se.  They  thus  rise  above  the  lower 
animals  and  show  the  leading  characteristics  of  a  distinctively  human  de- 


PLAXNING   AND    MOTOIl   MKCIIANISM  Cuil 

voloi^mcnt,  bj*  the  kind  aud  amount  of  imagination,  thought,  and  fcfling, 
which  they  rally  under  the  deed  of  will,  in  the  formation,  adoption,  and 
execution,  of  some  jjlau. 

^  12.  As  to  the  execution  of  i)lans,  it  should  bo  noticed  that  this,  as  a 
rixle,  takes  i)laco  in  i)art  by  means  of  impulsive  and  habitual,  or  i)erhaps 
purely  reflex  activity  ;  aud  in  part  as  a  matter  of  consciously  ordered  con- 
duct according  to  the  plan  already  formed.  This  is  true,  however  compre- 
hensive the  plan  may  be.  If  it  be  only  to  draw  a  certain  line  or  figure,  oi'  to 
go  in  a  certain  direction  ;  or  if  it  be  one  of  tho.se  plans  to  which  the  whole  life 
is  "ordained"  and  ''subdued" — the  unconscious  and  the  con.scious  together 
share  the  responsibility  for  the  execution  of  the  plan.  For  example,  let 
us  analyze  all  that  the  savage  does  in  execution  of  his  purpose  to  hit  with 
his  poisoned  arrow  just  that  imrticular  man  among  the  opiDOsite  hosts  of  the 
enemy  whom  he  has  selected  for  this  imrpose  ;  the  series  of  transactions, 
from  the  picking  out  of  the  arrow  to  the  lifting  of  the  fingers  to  let  it  fly, 
will  involve  the  whole  realm  of  unconscious  reflex  and  automatic  activities, 
as  well  as  the  conscious  guidance,  by  sight,  touch,  and  muscular  sense,  of  the 
conduct — rallied  and  "backed  up"  continuously  by  resolution  of  will.  In 
every  man's  daily  life  of  work,  or  play,  most  of  what  he  does  is  in  like  man- 
ner capable  of  being  considered  as,  to  a  large  extent,  the  execution  of  i)lans 
formed  previously — it  may  be,  long  before.  For  what  I  have  already  willed 
shall  be  the  ends  of  my  conduct  steadies^and  determines  what  I  think,  feel, 
and  will,  hour  by  hour — sometimes  cufitrolling  in  a  largely  or  wholly  latent 
way,  and  sometimes  tinging  the  memal  life  through  and  through  with  con- 
scious resolution.  Thus  the  workman  works,  the  artist  sings  or  paints  or 
composes,  the  scholar  studies  and  lectures,  the  soldier  marches  and  fights  and 
bivouacs,  the  lawyer  pleads,  the  minister  preaches,  the  lover  pursues  his 
suit,  and  the  mother  manages  her  household  ;  thus  also,  in  large  measure, 
does  the  pleasure-seeker  amuse  himself,  the  criminal  commit  crime  ;  and 
only  the  hopeless  idiot  manifests  no  manner  of  "  will  to  live  "  in  some  defi- 
nite and  chosen,  rather  than  some  other  way.  .  And  when  we  think  out  the 
import  of  what  has  just  been  said,  we  obtain  additional  reasons  for  rec- 
ogiiiz'ing  the  very  important  distinction  between  'wishes,  or  cravings,  or  desires, 
and planfnl  deeds  of  will. 

I  13.  The  interior  and  unexi^ressed  character  of  one's  Will  in  the  for- 
mation aud  adoption  of  plans  has  a  marked  influence  over  the  psycho-phys- 
ical and  muscular  mechanism.  In  doing  iilanful  work  I  seem  to  concentrate 
all  my  voluntary  attention  on  what  goes  on  within  myself  :  nay,  more — upon 
tcddng  charge  of  what  goes  on  within  myself.  I  n-iJl  bend  consciousness  to 
my  will ;  I  roill  make  my  imagination  and  my  thought  put  into  shape  for 
me  some  end,  together  with  the  means  for  its  realization,  which  I  may  adopt 
for  my  own.  Physiologically  considered,  these  states  show  a  susjiension  of 
the  more  obvious  motor  accom])animents  of  volition.  And  so  we  read :  "  Sits 
fi.red  in  thought  the  mighty  Stagirite."  Tluis  our  attention  is'called  to  the 
fact  that  in  jilanning  men  are  a]it  to  inhibit  external  movements  ;  as  thought 
deepens,  if  they  have  been  walking,  they  not  infrequently  stop  and  stand 
still  while  they  plan.  Not  only  the  muscles  but  also  the  external  sense-oi'- 
gans  cease  to  be  innervated.  While  thus  engaged  in  planning  we  neither 
see,  nor  hear,  nor  feel ;  distinct  and  most  irritating  emotions  are  apt  to  fol- 


032  WILL   AND   CHARACTER 

low  on  our  being  aroused  from  tins  condition  by  demands  to  turn  our  atten- 
tion outward  again. 

Yet  even  in  the  most  extreme  cases  we  are  not  warranted  in  assuming 
that  all  motor  accompaniment  of  volition  is  suspended.  On  the  contrary,  the 
true  exi^ressive  motor  accompaniment  of  the  higher  activities  of  imagination 
and  thought  is  tlien  likely  to  be  particularly  emphasized.  The  state  of  con- 
scious and  detailed  planning  is  one  in  which  we  are  "  reasoning  with  "  ourselves 
and  "talking  to"  ourselves  ;  and  the  language  employed  is  not  only  in  its 
character  but  also  in  the  manner  of  its  interior  utterance,  colored  strongly 
with  the  currents  of  conscious  thought  and  feeling.  When,  moreover,  we 
are  adopting  a  plan,  we  are  inclined  actually  to  bring  down  our  list,  or  to  set 
our  foot  hard  upon  the  ground — thus  giving  expression  to  a  finished  com- 
Ijrehensive  resolution.  All  these  and  other  evidences  indicate  that  the  inti- 
mate connection  between  conation  and  motor  consciousness,  and  between  jjsychoses 
of  a  markedly  volitional  order  and  the  tensions  and  movements  of  the  muscular 
mechanism,  is  by  no  means  broken  in  the  case  of  the  higher  manifestations  of 
planful  will. 

All  the  foregoing  statements  hold  of  those  purposes  which  control  the 
trains  of  thought,  or  the  arrangement  of  our  ideas,  in  the  search  after  truth 
or  in  the  production  of  works  of  art.  Here  the  quest  for  mental  images  and 
logical  conclusions,  or  for  the  happy  and  fit  exj^ression  of  them — the  right 
word  or  phrase,  the  suggestive  turn,  the  apt  metaphor,  etc. — is  taken  in  hand, 
as  it  were,  by  the  will.  But  the  execution  of  any  such  plan  is  always  very 
largely  a  matter  of  the  unconscious  or  largely  impulsive  Avorking  of  the  psy- 
cho-physical mechanism.  This  is  felt  to  be  true  by  the  subject  of  the  willing, 
himself.  Hence  we  hear  much  in  all  such  cases  of  the  influence  of  sugges- 
tion, of  flashes  of  imagination  and  leaps  of  logic — all  of  which  seem  like 
contributions  from  the  unconscious  to  the  execution  of  the  conscious  plan. 
On  the  other  hand,  those  who  have  not  these  helps  cannot  by  willing,  how- 
ever persistently  and  intensely,  obtain  either  the  material  or  the  arrange- 
ment necessary  for  such  a  j^lan.  In  illustration  we  may  recall  the  humorous 
picture  in  one  of  Fritz  Eeuter's  novels,  of  the  worthy  dame  who  undertook 
to  write  jaoetry  as  a  mere  "  deed  of  will :  "  "  Here  I  sit  and  sweat,  and  bring 
nothing  to  pass." 

It  is  further  interesting  to  notice  how  certain  plans — such  as  those  which 
the  general  actually  follows  in  an  engagement,  or  the  musician  in  improvis- 
ing or  composing,  or  the  orator  in  speaking  impromptu,  or  the  thinker 
while  pursuing  and  yet  guiding  his  own  thoughts — are  progressively  formed, 
adopted,  and  realized.  Here  general  ideas,  quite  vague  as  to  outlines  and 
details,  may  be  consciously  adopted  by  the  will;  and  the  planfnl  character 
of  the  resulting  activity  is  itself  a  sort  of  growth  in  which  all  the  factors  of 
unconscious  and  conscious  life  ai'e  combined.  So  splendid  and  unexpected 
are  sometimes  the  results  thus  realized  that  an  impression  is  made  as  of  an- 
other Will,  and  another  thinking,  feeling  Mind,  than  our  own,  welling  up  in 
the  stream  of  o;ir  conscious  existence. 

I  Wo  have  already,  in  ])art,  passed  in  review  those  phenomena 
of  consciousness  in  which  the  disputed  question  of  the  Freedom 
of  Will  has  its  rise.     It  has  also  been  declared  that  this  ques- 


QUESTION   OF   FREEDOM    STATED  633 

tion,  for  its  profouiuler  and  tiuiil  cousidcriitiou,  must  bo  Imnded 
over  from  jisycholo^y  to  philosophy.  More  precisely,  it  is  the 
relations  iu  Avhich  the  conclusions  drawn  hoin  the  mental  phe- 
nomena stand  to  the  so-called  law  of  causation  that  need  ad- 
justment by  the  more  ultimate  reflective  treatment  which  phi- 
losophy gives.  But  while  descriptive  and  explanatory  psychology 
cannot  perform  the  ofhce  of  philosophy,  on  the  other  hand,  a 
crude  metaphysics  cannot  properly  embody  itself  in  some  uncrit- 
ical statement  of  the  law  of  causation,  and  then  in  the  name 
of  this  "  law,"  explain  away  the  phenomena  of  consciousness. 
Moreover,  psychologically  considered,  the  law  of  causation  itself 
arises  from  the  projection  of  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason 
upon  the  world  of  things — the  demand  which  the  intellect  makes 
upon  itself  to  keep  on  trying  to  explain.  If  this  were  the  place 
it  could  be  shown  that  most  of  the  arguments  for  what  is  custom- 
arilj'  called  Determinism  arise  from  unwarrantable  ways  of  stat- 
ing and  applying  this  so-called  law  of  causation  ;  it  could  also 
be  shown  that  most  of  the  objections  to  a  full  recognition  of  the 
obvious  meaning  of  phenomenal  free-will  arise  in  the  same  way. 
In  a  work  on  descriptive  psychology,  however,  it  is  in  place 
only  to  attempt  these  two  things  :  (1)  To  state  those  more  obvi- 
ous aspects  of  volitional  conditions  and  acts  which  constitute  the 
consciousness  of  "  being  free "  in  the  widest  sense  of  these 
words  ;  and  (2)  to  make  such  inferences  as  seem  to  arise  directly 
from  the  facts,  withovit  entering  upon  the  attempt  to  estimate 
man's  place  in  nature,  or  the  propriety  of  applying  to  conscious- 
ness the  law  of  causation,  or  the  relations  of  bod}'  and  mind  ; 
or  to  answer  other  ulterior  questions  of  a  similar  kind.  But  two 
or  three  preliminary  remarks  are  important ;  ami  these  remarks 
must  constantly  be  borne  in  mind.  First,  the  phrase  "  freedom 
of  will "  is  an  abstract  term,  to  use  which  in  its  customary  mean- 
ing is  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  all  our  previous  psychological 
discussion.  The  term  in  itself  seems  to  imply  that  some  separ- 
able entity,  or  at  least  separable  faculty,  called  "  "Will,"  exists, 
and  that  to  it  alone  the  quality,  or  predicate,  of  "  being  free  " 
applies.  But  to  put  the  question  with  the  concreteness  which 
scientific  psychology  demands  and  which  corresponds  to  actual 
experience,  it  is  this  :  Do  /avUI  freely  ?  and,  "U'hat  do  I  mean  by 
the  word  freedof/i  as  applied  to  myself  when  I  will  f  And  here 
at  once  we  see  that  the  entire  course  of  our  previous  exam- 
ination provides  a  partial  answer.  My  willing,  like  all  my  action, 
nay — like  my  being  a  Self  at  all,  is  a  development.  I  come,  then, 
to  will  freely,  only  under  certain  conditions  and  as  a  result  of 
development.    And  further  what  I  mean  by  willing  freely  is  (A) 


634  WILL   AND   CHARACTER 

that  I  am  not  compelled  by  any  force,  external  to  consciousness, 
to  the  deed  of  will ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  my  deed  of  will.  I 
have— as  is  ordinarily  said — "  freedom  from  compulsion."  But 
plainly  I  mean  something-  more  than  this  when  I  affirm  all  that  I 
know  and  believe  when  I  say  :  I  will.  I  mean  to  express  {B)  the 
conviction  that  no  condition  of  consciousness — no  idea,  or  emo- 
tion, or  desire — regarded  as  external  to  the  deed  of  wdll,  comjDels 
me  to  will.  This  amounts  to  saying  that  men  generally  do  not 
make  the  assumption  which  Hoffding-,  as  already  quoted  (p.  627), 
says  the  ^Dsychologist  must  make — namely,  that  "  the  causal  law 
holds  good  for  the  will  as  for  material  nature."  On  the  contrary, 
the  general  conviction  is  that  the  deed  is  entitled  to  be  called  my 
"  will " — whatever  may  be  my  desire,  or  wish,  or  thought — be- 
cause it  is  7iot  connected  with  any  other  event  in  consciousness, 
as  iDhysical  science  assumes  events  in  material  nature  to  be  con- 
nected. And  history  further  shows  us  that  the  naive  assump- 
tion attributes  free  will  to  nature  rather  than  causal  law,  as 
modern  science  assumes  it  to  exist  for  material  nature,  to  hu- 
man free  will. 

But,  second,  no  deed  of  will,  however  free  it  may  be  con- 
ceived of  as  being-,  is  an  isolated  or  unrelated  psychosis.  Every 
deed  of  will  has  content ;  it  is  will — to  some  particular  end. 
It  is  g-enerally,  if  not  always,  motived  by  some  excitement  of 
feeling,  some  interest  in  some  good  to  be  gained.  If  we  rec- 
ognize as  genuine  deeds  of  will  at  all  those  random,  automatic, 
and  unimotived  psychical  forthputtiugs,  which  appear  to  arise 
in  consciousness,  they  are  of  all  others  least  worthy  to  be  called 
free.  And  to  tr}^  even  to  frame  the  conception  of  myself  as  will- 
ing freely,  without  also  willing  intelligently  and  feelinglj^  is  to 
try  to  think  of  myself  as  a  machine  and  not  as  a  free  will. 
Moreover,  the  very  thing  that  the  development  of  mental  life 
most  demands  is  the  possibility  of  adopting,  by  acts  of  will, 
progressively  higher  and  more  comprehensive  ends,  and  nobler 
and  purer  sentiments. 

Yet,  again,  no  "  consciousness  of  freedom  "  in  the  sense  of  an 
immediate  awareness  that  the  law  of  causation  does  not  apply  to 
so-called  deeds  of  will  is,  of  course,  possible.  To  substantiate  a 
claim  to  such  consciousness  of  freedom,  one  must  first  formu- 
late the  universal  conscioiisness  corresponding  to  the  law  of 
causation  ;  and  this  is  something  for  which  an  appeal  to  imme- 
diate consciousness  is  utterly  inadequate.  It  has  already  been 
said,  however,  that  fJie  conviction  '^  I  freely  iciW''  is  equivalent  to 
<i  denial  of  the  helief  that  any  influence,  even  from  my  own  de- 
sires, compels  me  to  will.      In  fine,  then,  developed  Will  seems 


CONSCIOUSNESS   OF   FREEDOM  635 

to  biiu<i-  us  around  a<^aiu  to  that  limit  to  all  .sciontitic  e\- 
plauatiou  which  we  lind  fixed,  in  physiology,  by  the  mysterious 
automatism  of  tlu;  central  origans,  and,  in  consciousness,  by  tin* 
self-activity  which  the  conative  asiject  of  consciousness,  by  vir- 
tue of  its  very  nature,  displays.  And  nt)  reliance  on  the  law  of 
causation  takes  us  beyond  this  limit.  Indeed,  by  following- 
this  law  faithfully  we  are  led  to  the  candid  recognition  of  these 
ultimate  facts ;  all  scieutitic  explanation  ends  in  the  unex- 
plained. 

Those  who  argue  for,  and  those  who  argue  against,  the  de- 
terministic position  by  an  appeal  to  immediate,  uncriticised  data 
of  consciousness,  are,  therefore,  alike  thrown  out  of  court.  Psy- 
chology must  be  left  unprejudiced  to  determine  what  is  meant 
b}^  the  consciousness  of  freedom  ;  and  this  it  must  do  by  analyz- 
ing that  peculiar  complex  of  feeling,  thinking,  and  conation,  of 
which  we  become  immediately  cognizant  when  we  direct  atten- 
tion to  certain  unique  states  of  our  conscious  life,  called  "  will- 
ing," in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word.  The  "  highest  sense  "  of 
the  words  "  I  will  "  (or  "  /  choose,"  "  /  plan,"  "  /  make  up  my 
mind,"  etc)  is  that  which  most  emphasizes  the  unique  character- 
istics of  this  same  complex  psychosis.  And  now,  once  more,  we 
will  briefly  review  what  those  characteristics  are. 

§  14.  In  willhig  we  attain  (1)  the  highest  consciousness  of  self-activity. 
In  all  such  experiences  the  obvious  fact  is :  I  know  myself  as  the  one  that 
wills — that  "  does  something,"  rather  than  as  tlie  one  that  suffers  some  af- 
fective excitement  or  receives  some  presentative  or  representative  impres- 
sion. This  consciousness  is  tinged  Avith  the  conviction,  derived  from  my 
knowledge  of  self,  that,  while  I  can  deny  or  reject  my  desire  for  having  sur- 
prised and  overcome  me,  on  my  willing  my  "  Ego  "  has  "stamped  itself" 
with  a  conclusive  signature.'  This  is  a  figurative  way  of  saying,  when  I  re- 
gard a  deed  of  will  as  such,  I  regard  it  as  in  a  peculiar  meaning  of  the 
words,  my  own.  Willing  is  thus  distinguished  from  mere  desire,  which  is 
also  the  consciousness  of  striving  after  somewhat  regarded  as  at  present 
external  to  the  Self,  by  having  in  appearance  a  deeper  and  wider  inte- 
rior origin.  To  represent  this  unique  experience  of  willing  as  merely 
the  consciousness  of  the  triumph  of  one  of  several  cerebral  processes  con- 
testing the  supremacy  of  the  sensory-motor  mechanism,  or  as  merely 
the  consciousness  of  the  stronger  of  several  muscular  sensations,  or  of 
the  prevalent  ideation- processes,  or  of  the  more  j^otent  desire,  is  to  sophis- 
ticate consciousness  instead  of  faithfully  describing  or  satisfactorily  explain- 
ing it. 

The  consciousness  of  freely  willing  manifests  itself  especially  when 
we  consider  (2)  the  appropriate  activities  in  their  more  pronounced  and 
highly  develoi^ed  form,  from  two  points  of  view.     When  after  deliberation, 

'  Comp.  Volkmann  :  Lehrbuch  d.  Psychologic,  n.,  p.  459  £. 


636  WILL    AND    CIIAEACTER 

and  previous  to  final  decision,  I  stand  in  the  position  of  a  contemplator  of 
my  own  future  deed  of  will,  my  conviction  with  reference  to  it  is  expressed 
by  the  words  :  "I  can."  To  this  "lean,"  which  has  reference  to  the  al- 
ternatives involved  in  the  choice,  I  may  prefix  the  words  "  I  know  ; "  and 
mv  total  conviction  is  then  expressed  by  the  words,  "  I  know  that  I  can  " — 
i.e.,  decide  for  a,  or  b,  or  c,  as  I  will.  Here  the  word  '' knoic,"  as  we  have 
already  shown,  is  not  equivalent  to  a  jihilosophical  knowledge  of  the  exemp- 
tion of  the  deed  of  will  from  the  law  of  causation,  however  that  law  may  be 
stated.  It  simply  expresses,  as  belonging  to  that  compound  of  thinking  and" 
feeling  (including  belief)  which  we  call  self-knowledge,  the  conviction,  I 
can  really  choose  ;  tlie  choice  to  be  made  is  now  potentially  mine,  and  will, 
when  made,  be  imputable  to  me. 

Yet  again,  when,  in  the  light  of  consequences,  both  external  and  internal 
(the  excitement  of  sensuous  and  a3sthetical  and  ethical  feeling — as  of  regret, 
shame,  remorse,  etc. )  I  review  the  deed  of  will,  I  reaffirm  it  to  be  mine.  If 
the  doing  was  mere  doing,  and  did  not  arise  in  consequence  of  my  willing, 
then  my  judgment  and  conviction  may  be  expressed  by  the  words  :  "  I  could 
not  have  done  otherwise,"  and  so  am  not  to  blame,  or  do  not  feel  shame,  etc. 
But  in  the  degree  in  which  I  recognize  the  doing  as  genuine  deed  of  willing 
— m?/  own  doing,  in  the  unique  sense — I  say  :  "  I  could  have,"  but  "  did 
not,"  etc.  That  such  a  contemplative  attitude  toward  my  own  willing,  as 
regarded  from  these  two  points  of  view,  i^roduces  the  consciousness  which 
expresses  itself  in  ways  like  the  foregoing,  there  can  be  no  doixbt.  The 
conviction  of  potentiality  thus  arising  is  an  important  part  of  the  "  con- 
sciousness of  freedom." 

Such  ' '  consciousness  of  freedom  "  as  is  jieculiar  to  willing  may  (3)  suf- 
fuse all  the  activity  of  our  developed  faculties  ;  for,  as  has  been  maintained 
from  the  beginning,  will  is  no  isolated  entity  or  sej^arable  faculty.  Really, 
then,  we  may  say  that  all  exercise  of  faculty  is  capable  of  being  free,  in 
so  far  as  it  may  be  influenced  by,  or  penetrated  with,  the  willing  mind.  In 
other  words,  it  is  the  universal  presence,  in  all  developed  conscious  life,  of 
the  couative  aspect  of  consciousness,  on  which  we  direct  attention  Avhen  we 
become  aware  of  our  freedom.  Just  here,  however,  no  mistake  should  be 
made.  To  illustrate  :  We  find  one  author  '  maintaining  that  freedom  = 
spontaneity  of  thinking.  Another  writer  ^  gives  it  as  his  oi^inion  that,  in- 
stead of  assigning  all  freedom  to  the  will,  there  is  a  freedom  of  the  soul  in 
all  our  doing  ;  and  that  the  soul  produces  the  ideas  as  they  are  without  any 
need  of  a  special  Will.  Now  this  freedom  of  the  soul  in  the  control  (not  in 
the  production)  of  the  ideas  is,  indeed,  will,  in  one  of  its  many  particular 
forms  of  manifestation.  But  "  freedom  =  spontaneity  of  thinking  "  is  not 
the  equivalent  of  freedom  of  will.  In  dream-life  and  reverie,  as  well  as  in 
conditions  of  exalted  productive  and  artistic  activity  of  imagination  and  in- 
tellect, we  enjoy  or  suffer  from  a  wonderful  spontaneity  of  thinking.  In  its 
extreme  form  such  spontaneity  may  become  a  condition  of  consciousness 
where  freedom  of  u'ill  is  not  exemplified,  but  overthrown.  So-called  inspira- 
tion and  mania  are  examples  of  this  sort.  In  such  spontaneity  of  thinking, 
the  impression  made  upon  us  by  the  tone  of  our  whole  consciousness  is  that 

'  Ilorwicz  :  Ps.vcholo<rinche  Aimlyseu,  ii.,  p.  181  f . 

"  lappa  :  Gruudtatsacbcu  d.  Seelculebens,  pp.  15  f.,  45  f.,  C53  f. 


IMPUTABILITY   AND    RESPONSIBILITY  6'M 

of  being  "  cariioil  awuy  "  by  our  own  iileas  or  fcolings  ratlior  than  that  of 
ourselves  being  in  control  of  onr  ideas  and  feelings.  Tiio  principal  factors 
of  this  marked  difference  in  the  two  kinds  of  consciousness  are  precisely 
those  which  distinguish  willing  from  the  mere  having  of  ideas  and  feelings. 
So  then  the  freedom  =  mere  spontaneity  of  thinking  is  not  =  freedom  of 
will ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  my  spontaneity  in  controlling  my  thinking  is 
one  exhibition  of  my  freedom  of  will. 

In  connection  with  the  consciousness  of  freedom,  when  accompanied 
by  the  development  of  lesthetical  and  ethical  sentiments,  (4)  the  important 
conceptions  of  "  imputability  '"  and  "  resjjonsibility  "  are  gained.  These  con- 
ceptions, when  analyzed,  are  shown  to  imply  that  external  deeds  are  de- 
pendent upon  willing,  and  that  willing  is  preeminently  the  act  of  him  who 
wills.  If  then  the  doing  (or  the  refraining  from  doing ;  for  to  inhibit  or 
check  inclination,  or  to  will  not  to  do,  is  also  a  true  act  of  will)  follows  in 
the  regular  and  expected  way  upon  the  willing,  the  judgment  imputing  this 
doing  to  the  willing  agent  is  invariably  made.  Its  formula  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  willing  agent  is  :  '•  I  myself  have  done  it."  For  such  willing,  and 
for  the  doing  which  thus  follows  upon  the  willing  (the  choice,  purpose,  or 
plan,  and  also  the  regular,  expected  consequences  in  external  changes),  he 
who  wills  is  held  responsible.  As  to  the  ultimate  grounds  and  validity  of 
this  feeling  and  judgment  of  iminitability,  and  as  to  degrees  of  responsibil- 
ity, ethics  and  metaphysics,  rather  than  descriptive  psychology,  are  inter- 
ested to  investigate. 

The  consciousness  of  freedom  in  willing  is  further  illustrated  (5)  by 
cases  in  which,  as  we  are  accustomed  to  say,  such  freedom  is  imi>aired  or 
lost.  Here  all  our  habitual  expressions  and  formulas  of  judgment  are  sig- 
nificant of  an  opposite  tone  of  thought,  feeling,  and  conviction,  as  respects 
the  nature  of  our  own  consciousness.  We  now  say  :  "It  was  not  (either 
wholly,  or  at  all)  ;»?/  fault  "  ("  The  woman  .  .  .  tempted  me  and  I  did 
eat  "—where  the  external  deed  is  acknowledged,  but  not  as  arising  wholly 
from  free  will),  or  "  I  can  not,  or  could  not,  do  otherwise  ;  " — a  form  of  excuse 
which  covers  all  degrees  of  the  invasion  of  will,  so  to  speak,  by  different 
forms  of  external  compulsion,  and  by  strong,  impulsively  acting  emotion,  or 
"overpowering  passion,"  from  within.  All  such  phrases  are,  however,  am- 
biguous in  meaning  and  relative  in  application  to  the  great  variety  of  con- 
ditions under  which  the  intellective,  affective,  and  truly  conative,  aspects  of 
consciousness  get  recognition.  Indeed,  these  same  phrases  are  used  to  ex- 
press the  most  deliberate  and  firm  resolutions  of  will,  in  view  of  high  ideals, 
and  backed  by  the  most  worthy  of  josthetical  sentiments  (As,  for  exami)le : 
"  God  help  me  ;  I  cannot  do  otherwise  "). 

Similar  phases  of  consciousness  in  willing  are  illustrated  by  various 
classes  of  abnormal  phenomena  :  Such  are  the  cases  of  persistent  hallucina- 
tions and  ideea  fixes,  where  the  perceptions  and  imaginations  are  recognized 
as  "  too  strong"  to  be  corrected  or  inhibited  and  controlled  by  voluntary  at- 
tention and  ratiocination.  Whenever  this  impoteney  of  will  is  habitual  and 
is  presumed  to  rest  upon  a  basis  of  physical  and  organic  derangement,  it  may 
be  called  a  "  disease  of  will."  The  opium-eater  and  user  of  other  drugs  to 
excess,  the  kleptomaniac  or  victim  of  other  intense  passions  or  desires,  the 
subject  of  the  hypnotic  trance,  the  morbidly  nerveless  and  doless,  are  suffer- 


G38  WILL   AND   CHARACTER 

ers  from  pathological  conditions  of  will.  So  far,  however,  as  jisychologT  is 
concerned,  all  such  phenomena,  instead  of  justifying  the  denial  of  the  con- 
tent and  import  of  the  consciousness  of  freedom,  only  serve  by  contrast  to 
make  plainer  its  unique  and  unmistakable  character. 

?  15.  The  more  immediate  inferences  from  our  study  of  the  lohenomena 
of  develoi^ed  will  are  not  particularly  difficult  to  make.  The  "  will-asjject " 
of  all  mental  life  and  mental  development  brings  us  face  to  face  with  the 
most  mysterious  and  interior  nature  of  the  so-called  Self.  In  some  sort  "I" 
and  "my  will  "  stand  related  as  so-called  Ego  and  no  other  so-called  faculty 
(than  will)  stand  related.  It  is  here,  and  not  through  the  enforced  synthe- 
sis of  sensations  and  their  representative  images  under  the  laws  of  associa- 
tion, that  the  deepest  root  for  the  unity  of  mental  life  and  mental  develop- 
ment is  found.  Descriptive  and  eorplanatory  psychology  thus  brings  ns  to  the 
place  tchere  we  have  to  acknowledge  that,  not  something  external  to  consciousness, 
but  something  manifesting  itself  in  consciousness,  contains  the  secret  of  the  kind 
of  life  the  phenomena  are,  of  the  course  of  the  development  ivliich  actually  takes 
place.  Considered  on  its  every  side — passive  and  active,  intellective  or  affec- 
tive or  conative— we  call  this  something,  "the  Mind,"  or  "the  Soul."  But 
considered  on  its  seemingly  self-active  side — considered  as  shaping  itself  to 
chosen  ends,  controlling  its  own  manifestation  and  marking  out  the  course 
of  its  own  development — we  call  this  something,  "the  Will."  Were  there 
not  this  side  of  mental  life  and  of  mental  development,  the  stream  of  con- 
sciousness would  be  fit  to  be  regarded  as  forever  definitely  marked  out  by  its 
surrounding  banks.  But  this  side,  so  palpably  real  and  so  obviously  unfit  to 
be  explained  in  such  external  fashion,  compels  us  to  take  another  view  of 
mental  life  and  of  mental  development.  It  compels  us  to  recognize  a  unique 
and  self-active  being  as — within  limits,  to  be  sure,  and  often  indeed  narrow 
limits — interiorly  determining,  in  a  quite  inexplicable  way,  its  own  course. 
We  say  "  inexplicable  "  way — that  is,  so  far  as  scientific  psychology  is  con- 
cerned ;  it  is  for  philosophy  to  say  how  far  this  self-determining  activity  is 
ultimately  explicable,  not  to  say  permissible  to  reflective  thought. 

It  would  be  easy  enough,  but  would  take  us  too  far  one  side,  to  show  how 
this  unique  consciousness  of  freedom  is  most  intimately  related  to  all  men- 
tal development.  On  it  very  largely  depends  the  development  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  Self,  and  indeed  of  the  knowledge  of  Things.  All  high  sesthetical 
and  ethical  development  is  connected  therewith.  And,  indeed,  the  infer- 
ential and  scientific  knowledge  of  the  world  as  concatenated  phenomena, 
expressive  of  "  forces,"  and  "  potencies,"  and  "  natures  "  of  various  kinds,  is 
largely  dei^endent  upon  this  same  consciousness  of  freedom. 

vi 

The  word  Character — althoug^h  somewhat  loosely  used — has 
two  tolerably  well-marked  meauing-s,  one  wider  and  one  nar- 
rower. In  the  wider  meaning-  of  the  word  we  understand  by  the 
character  of  any  individual  the  whole  complex  of  his  mental  ac- 
tivities, and  indeed  passivities,  as  compared  with  some  recog- 
nized standard.  When  charactcn-izing:  the  individual  in  this  way 
we  have  to  say  what  amounts  and  kinds  of  sensations,  perceptions, 
acts   of  imag-ination   and  thought,   what  feelings   and   desires, 


MEANING   OF   TIIK   TEUM    ClIA  K  ACTKi:  030 

choices,  i)uriH)ses,  aud  plans,  aiid  especially  liahitnal  modes  of 
external  behavior,  serve  to  mark  ofi'this  individual  from  others  by 
application  of  some  measure  common  to  all.  In  such  a  nieanin<>- 
of  the  word,  one's  character  is  equivalent  to  one's  individual- 
it}' — the  Avliole  that  one  is,  as  a  distinct  member  of  the  species 
man.  We  shall  have  something-  to  say  of  certain  points  involved 
in  this  use  of  the  word — under  such  heads  as  "  temperament," 
"  disposition  "  "  habit,"  etc. — in  the  following  chapter.  In  the 
narrower  and  more  precise  meaning  of  th(!  Avord,  however, 
(Character  i^  preeminently  a  matter  of  the  A\'ill,  and  of  its  ciis- 
tomary  modes  of  behavior,  and  of  its  development.  Thus  "  my 
character"  is  for  every  man  what  "  I  am" — not  as  formed  at  the 
beginning"  according  to  the  mould  of  an  inherited  nature,  nor 
as  merely  passively  shaped  by  an  environment.  Character  im- 
plies, to  be  sure,  being  "  stamped  "  (Greek  x'^P'^'^'^'iP  =  mark,  or 
stamp) ;  and  without  the  formation  of  fixed  habits,  of  modes  of 
behavior  that  admit  of  being  characterized,  or  stamped  as  be- 
longing to  a  certain  kind,  no  character  is  possible  of  attainment. 
Nevertheless  the  word  implies  such  stamping  as  the  agent  is 
thought  chiefly  to  give  himself  ;  and  the  habits  which  enter  into 
our  character  are  regarded  not  so  much  as  having  and  holding 
us  in  certain  directions  of  conduct,  but  rather  as  expressing 
those  lines  of  conduct  in  which  we  make  ourselves  to  go,  or 
hold  ourselves  against  the  motives  to  forsake  them  for  other 
paths. 

Formation  of  Character  in  this  sense  of  the  words  implies 
the  self-formed  habit  of  Will.  It  is  above  all  the  stamp  which 
the  agent  gives  himself  by  habitually  choosing  and  holding  to 
certain  ends  ;  and  then  by  bringing  "  to  heel "  all  the  content  of 
consciousness,  an^  all  the  service  of  the  psycho-physical  mechan- 
ism, in  the  progressive  realization  of  the  chosen  ends.  Or  to 
carry  the  distin«*ion  further ;  so  far  as  I  have,  or  am,  a  certain 
culture  or  disposition,  this  has  been  formed  ./br  me,  by  the  neces- 
sary reaction  of  consciousness  upon  the  excitements  to  which  my 
organism  has  been  siibjccted  by  its  (environment,  in  the  larger 
sense  of  the  latter  word.  But  so  far  as  I  have,  or  am,  a  certain 
character,  this  is  to  be  regarded  as  progressively  formed  both 
for  myself  and  hy  myself  ;  from  the  points  of  view  of  imputabil- 
ity,  or  responsibility,  it  coin  prises  so  much  of  what  I  am  as  I 
have  contributed,  and  am  therefore  liolden  for. 

Two  modifying  remarks,  however,  immediately  suggest  them- 
selves :  (1)  It  is  never  practically  possible  to  make  a  satisfactory 
separation  between  what  belongs,  and  what  does  not  belong,  to 
character,  in  this  narrower  meaning  of  the  word.     Upon  the  at- 


640  "WILL   AND   CHAEACTEE 

tempt  at  such  separation,  systems  in  ethics,  dogmas  in  theology, 
and  even  principles  and  laws  in  social  and  political  life,  have 
staked  their  right  to  existence  ;  and  have  been  obliged,  when 
leaning  hard  upon  the  distinction,  to  fall.  For  the  impossibility 
of  practically  carrying  out  this  distinction  depends  upon  the  en- 
tire nature  of  psychical  being  and  psychical  development.  From 
the  start,  our  nature  is  far  too  complex,  and  our  development  too 
subtly  continuous,  to  allow  of  such  an  attempt  being  successful. 
(2)  But  no  less  the  theoretical  recognition  of  the  distinction 
obliges  us  at  once  to  emphasize  the  immense  complexity  of 
character,  in  even  this  narrower  meaning  of  the  word.  For  will 
itself  has  already  been  seen  to  involve  in  its  development  the 
most  complex  related  activity  of  all  the  other  faculties.  Will  in 
itself,  bare  will,  cannot  develop,  cannot  see  to  do  any  particular 
thing,  cannot  estimate  or  feel  the  value  of  any  particular  deed  or 
course  of  conduct,  cannot  choose  any  definite  end  in  preference 
to  another  end.  So  that,  character  as  willed  cannot  be  esti- 
mated or  characterized,  without  taking  knowledge  and  feeling, 
as  well  as  conation,  into  the  account.  Self-formed  character, 
then,  involves  all  the  shaping  which  I  have  given  to  my  own  in- 
tellectual and  emotional  life.  Nay  :  especially  does  it  involve 
and  depend  ux^on  the  principles  intelligently  accepted,  and  the 
emotions  and  sentiments  selected  and  controlled — the  chosen 
ends  and  motives — according  to  which  I  habitually  act.  In  say- 
ing this  it  is  implied,  on  the  one  hand,  that  blind  will  is  no  Will 
(psychologically  speaking,  whatever  may  be  philosophically 
true) ;  and  also,  on  the  other  hand,  that  ends  mentally  repre- 
sented and  motives  consciously  felt,  must  he  loilled  and  followed 
as  principles,  in  order  thd  they  may  enter  into  character — in  the 
more  precise  meaning  of  the  latter  word. 

Character  is  then,  in  both  meanings  of  the  word,  a  sort  of 
resultant  of  two  different  (and  almost  opposed)  sides  of  mental 
life  and  of  mental  development.  It  results — so  far  as  science  can 
observe  it— //>>//«  a  yninrjling  of  self-determination  (mysterious,  in- 
explicable, lying  at  the  very  base  of  psychical  existeice,  and 
really  serving  as  the  point  of  origin  for  all  our  conceptions  and 
convictions  respecting  '"  force,"  "  influence,"  "  causal  efficiency," 
etc.)  and,  psychic  reaction  predetermined  and  necessitated  hy  eninron- 
ment.  Here,  in  the  term  "  environment  "  we  must  include  for  the 
present,  all  physiological  preconditions  and  accompaniments  of 
consciou-sness.  And  when  we  try,  as  it  were,  to  absorb  either 
one  of  these  sides  wholly  in  the  other,  we  only  succeed  in  con 
tradicting  the  facts  of  con.sciousness,  as  such,  in  the  interests  of 
a  theory  which  ends  in  unmeaning  verbiage. 


1 1 


TEMPERAMENT   AND   CIIAIlACTEIt  041 

g  16.  The  conception  of  character  as  including  the  whole  (but  only  it)  to 
which  the  activity  and  effect  of  willing  may  be  thought  of  as  extended,  is  very 
old,  very  natural,  and  very  persistent.  It  has,  therefore,  an  important  psycho- 
logical significance.  The  word,  when  thus  used,  fixes  in  a  vague  way — and 
only  in  a  vague  way  can  we  use  words  here — the  limits  of  conduct,  of  respon- 
sibility, of  merit  and  blame,  and  even  largely  of  a^-sthetical  admiration  or 
distaste.  We  do  indeed  extend  these  limits  in  our  language  as  expressive 
of  judgment  and  feeling,  so  as  to  comjjrehend  a  much  wider  realm  under 
even  vaguer  words,  such  as  "  nature,"  "  temperament,"  and  the  like.  The  de- 
terministic theory,  in  its  attempt  to  be  strictly  scientific,  is  actually  com- 
pelled to  resort  to  an  explanation  which  is  no  explanation;  it  exi)lains  (!) 
by  virtually  asserting  that  souls,  like  atoms  and  other  things,  behave  as  they 
do  behave,  because  "it  is  their  nature  to."  But  here,  as  so  frequently  else- 
where, the  popular  language  is  refreshingly  naive,  to  be  sure,  but  truer  to 
life  and  nearer  to  the  heart  of  the  case,  than  that  of  a  pseudo-science.  It 
would  be  quite  impossible  even  to  refer  to  all  of  the  many  ways  in  which 
such  testimony  is  given.  But  to  select  a  few  examples  ;  we  find  that,  to  a 
large  extent,  crude  peoples,  and,  to  some  extent,  all  peoples,  estimate  by  quite 
different  standards  the  deeds  ascribed  to  insanity,  inspiration,  demoniac 
jjossession,  and  even  to  genius,  and  those  deeds  which  are  imputed,  as  freely 
willed,  to  the  Ego  of  the  doer.  The  indwelling  god,  or  diemon,  or  genius,  is 
admired  or  deprecated  in  the  one  case  ;  the  agent  himself  is  held  responsi- 
ble in  the  other  case.  Yet  even  in  the  former  case  it  is  considered  that 
one  may  consent  or  resist,  to  some  extent  at  least  (and  yet  again.  Who  can 
successfully  resist  Divinity?),  such  originally  foreign  influences.  But  the 
degi'ee  of  successful  consent  or  resistance  depends  upon,  and  in  the  future 
further  determines,  the  character. 

vThe  obvious  disposition  at  jiresent  to  make  public  penalties  independent 
of  motive  and  of  any  debate  concerning  freedom  of  w  ill,  and  all  the  increased 
subtleties  of  modern  i^sychological  and  ethical  j^hilosophy,  do  not  essenti- 
ally alter  this  distinction.  The  distinction  will  continue  to  be  made,  be- 
cause it  belongs  to  the  very  depths  of  our  conscious  mental  experience.  In 
fact  the  increase  of  jisychological  knowledge  chiefly  sei-ves  to  complicate 
the  problems,  rather  than  to  solve  them,  much  less  to  show  that  they  may, 
with  safety,  be  curtly  dismissed.  Not  only  experts,  but  even  ignoiant  jury- 
men, are  called  upon  to  distinguish  nice  shades  of  imputability,  and  to  ap- 
l^ortion  the  rewards  and  punishments  that  character  merits.  The  strange 
phenomena  of  hypnotism  and  the  investigations  into  the  causes  of  crime, 
into  the  constitution  of  the  so-called  criminal  classes,  and  into  morbid  con- 
ditions of  will,  keep  this  distinction  ever  before  us  ;  while  all  investigation 
shows  how  much  more  complicated  the  entire  .subject  is  than  had  formerly 
been  supposed.  Meanwhile  our  daily  practice  is  full  of  enlightenment. 
Thus  we  say  of  ourselves  :  "  I  cannot  (easily,  or  at  all)  acquire  that  type  of 
good  character  ;  my  tcmi^erament  is  so  unfortunate."  Or,  again  :  "There  is 
no  merit  in  my  being  good  in  this  way,  it  is  so  natural  for  me."  But  on  the 
other  hand,  we  add  to  our  sesthetical  repulsion  the  genuine  ethical  feeling 
of  horror,  when  we  conceive  of  monstrous  and  "unnatural"  conduct  as  be- 
ing accepted,  or  as  not  being — at  least  tentatively — inhibited,  by  a  deed  of 
will.     With  such  crude,  but  most  significant  exercise  of  judgment,  more  or 

41 

Y 


^'. 


642  WILL   AND   CHAEACTER 

less  jH'ejudiced  by  emotional  impulses,  we  send  some  to  the  prison  or  the 
"•allows,  and  let  others  go  scot-free  ;  and  vibrate  our  criminal  classes  be- 
tween the  hospital,  or  the  insane  asylum,  and  the  jail.  The  constant,  psy- 
cholo"icallv  significant  thing  is,  not  that  our  judgment  is  so  necessarily 
faulty,  but  that  we  venture— nay,  that  we  feel  i^ositively  impelled — to  set 
ourselves  up,  as  gods,  over  ourselves  and  over  our  fellow-men.  But  such 
procedure  necessarily  results  from  the  development  of  experience  in  the 
lines  of  consciousness  of  freedom,  conception  of  character  as  imputable,  and 
ethical  sentiment. 

§  17.  We  shall  subsequently  see  that  the  principle  of  habit  is  regnant 
in  every  form  of  mental  life.  Yet  in  the  case  of  will  we  do  not  say  "reg- 
nant over,"  with  the  same  meaning  of  the  words.  Settled  character  (^6os) 
is  indeed,  according  to  the  Stoic  conception,  "  always  to  tvill  the  same  and 
nil  the  same."  But  it  has  also  been  truly  said  that  the  "character  is  a 
habitus,  not  which  has  the  Ego,  but  which  the  Ego  is."  Thus  regarded,  the 
self-determination  of  the  will,  as  character,  may  be  sj^oken  of  as  ruling  over 
the  individual  volitions  and  bringing  them,  under  law,  into  right  relations 
toward  the  adopted  ends.  So  do  these  individual  volitions  themselves  be- 
come both  exj)ressive  of,  and  tributary  toward,  the  continuous  development 
of  character.  But  since  these  individual  volitions  all  have  reference  to  ends, 
either  near  or  remote,  and  all  are  connected  with  the  eneitement  of  the  af- 
fections, jiassions,  desires,  and  sentiments,  we  can  comprehend  the  possibility 
of  the  entire  mental  life  being  organized  in  accordance  with  certain  chosen 
practical  principles. 

Once  more  :  Among  these  practical  principles  there  are — as  we  have  seen 
(p.  579  f.) — certain  ones  which  are  presented  and  backed  up  with  a  peculiar 
feeling  of  obligation.  Ethical  judgments  become  commands— presenting 
themselves  to  the  will  as  maxims  requiring  allegiance,  bidding  or  forbidding 
how  one  oi([/hi  to  choose  (or  shall,  yet  freely,  will).  The  wider  import  and 
completer  justification  of  this  unique  experience  of  a  command  arising  with- 
in that  has  reference  to  a  felt  obligation,  and  to  a  freely  rendered  consent, 
does  not  concern  us  at  this  time.  We  only  notice  that  Schopenhauer's  dic- 
tum— to  say  "  ought  to  will"  is  no  better  than  to  say  "  wooden  iron  " — flies 
squarely  in  the  face  of  the  facts  of  consciousness,  as  siich.  And  wo  may  as 
well  remark  here  in  general  that  any  philosophical  theory  which  maintains  a 
similar  attitude  toward  the  descriptive  science  of  psychology  is  doomed  to 
failure  in  its  efforts  to  explain  the  world  aright.  Indeed,  it  is  eminently 
true  of  all  ethical  maxims,  that  the  maxims  themselves,  in  order  to  be 
really  maxims  must  present  themselves  in  this  very  way — namely,  as  defining 
what  ought  to  be  willed.  As  practical  they  must  be  wrought  into  life,  must 
become  jjart  of  the  history  '  of  life. 


It  is  ()l)vions  that,  in  onr  description  and  explanation  of  the 
dovohipiiKMit  of  faculty,  we  have  now  come  to  that  which  is  both 
last  and  hi^licst  and  also  most  fundamental.  With  the  phenom- 
ena of  developed  Will   we  reac^h  airaiu  the  limits  of  scientific 

'  Comp.  Volkiniiiin  :  Lolirbuch  rt.  Psychologic,  U.,  p.  4C5  f. 


I 


DEVELOPMENT    OF    CIIAltACTER  Q4M 

study.     The  problems  raised  must  be  handed  over  to  ethics  aud 
to  philosophy. 

[Most  of  the  works  to  which  we  care  to  refer  have  already  been  mentioned  at  the  close 
of  Chapters  V.,  XI.,  and  XXV.  In  addition,  however,  the  following  may  be  consulted  : 
Caltoii:  Inciuirics  into  Human  Faculty.  Paulhan  ;  L' Activity  .Mentale,  etc.  Fouillee  : 
La  Libcrte  et  le  Dotcrminismo.  (JarnitT  :  Traitc  dcs  Facult('.s  do  TAnic.  Wiesc  :  Die 
Bildung  d.  Willins.  (Juyau  :  Kducation  and  Heredity.  Martin  :  L'lCducation  du  Carac- 
t're.  Van  Velzeu  :  Ueber  d.  Geisterfrcilu  it.  Heblei  :  Klementc  eincr  philosoph.  Frei- 
hoitslehre.  Schellwien  :  Dcr  Wille  die  (juelle  d.  Hewusst.seius ;  and  the  many  other 
writings  on  Ethics  and  special  treatises  on  the  Will,  its  Freedom,  the  Law  of  Causality, 
etc.J 


CHAPTEK  XXVII. 

TYPES  AND  PKINCIPLES  OF  MENTAL  DE\^LOPMENT 

The  phenomena  of  mental  life,  whether  considered  as  con- 
sisting of  the  most  elementary  psychical  processes,  or  of  the  de- 
veloped activities  ascribed  to  various  forms  of  so-called  faculty, 
admit  of  an  indefinite  variability  ;  and  the  courses  in  develop- 
ment followed  b}^  this  life  are  correspondingly  varied.  It  is  this 
fact  which  imparts  to  every  human  being  his  psychological  in- 
dividuality ;  it  is  this  which  makes  the  life-history  of  every  in- 
dividual something  distinctly  peculiar  to  himself.  And  yet,  as 
we  have  assumed  from  the  start,  mental  phenomena  admit  of  be- 
ing classified,  described  in  general  terms,  and,  to  some  extent  at 
least,  formulated  under  general  relations  called  laws ;  otherwise 
there  could  be  no  science  of  jjsychology. 

We  have  now,  however,  briefly  to  consider  a  class  of  subjects 
which  lie  somewhat  aside  from  our  previous  inquiries,  in  two 
diflerent  directions.  Certain  individuals,  as  well  as  certain  states 
of  consciousness,  jiresent  themselves  with  marked  characteristics  1 

amounting  to  idiosjmcrasies.  Such  individuals  are  called  oddi- 
ties, monstrosities,  geniuses,  or  what  not  in  the  line  of  extreme 
variability  from  the  recognized  types.   As  examples  we  may  note  ^ 

the  musical  or  mathematical  prodigies,  the  young  who  show  un- 
accountable tendencies  to  strange  crimes,  or  the  men  and  women 
of  such  unexampled  natui'al  gifts  or  peerless  attainments  and 
character,  that  they  seem  set  apart  from  the  rest  of  their  kind.  ,. 

Moreover,   states  of  consciousness   occasionally  arise  that  ap-  || 

pear  to  differ  so  completely  from  those  of  our  nearly  universal  ' 

experience  as  to  throw  doubt  over  the  conclusions  which  psychol- 
ogy has,  in  the  past,  felt  warranted  in  basing  upon  such  experi-  \ 
ence.  Here  our  attention  may  be  called  to  the  phenomena  of 
"  double  consciousness,"  in  their  relation  to  our  conception  of 
the  nature  of  the  Ego,  of  the  authority  of  self-consciousness,  and 
of  the  identity  and  reality  of  tin;  Self.  Alike  troublesome  to  a 
normal  psychology  are  many  of  the  strange  phenomena  of  hyp- 
nosis, with  all  the  alleged  facts  of  telepathy,  claii-voyance,  and 
the   like.     In   this   direction  of  psychological   investigation   it 


GENERAL   DOCTUIXK   OF   TYPES  645 

would  bo  quite  impossible  for  us  to  g'o  with  any  tlioroug'huesK 
in  the  present  treatise.  To  pass  such  subjects  by  we  believe 
to  be  far  more  safe  and  scientific  than  to  assume  knowledge 
where  kuowledg-e  is  lackin<^  ;  or  even  to  amuse  our  readers  with 
a  chapter  or  two  of  doubtful  yet  fascinating-  conjectures.  A 
word  or  two,  however,  at  this  point  (see  §  1)  will  not  be  out  of 
]»Iace. 

But  in  another  direction  of  supplementary  discussion  we  pro- 
l)ose  to  e^o  somewhat  farther.  This  direction  may  be  described 
as  the  semi- anthropological  and  historical.  Between  infinite  in- 
dividuality and  the  most  general  doctrine  of  faculties  there  lie 
certain  considerations  which  help  us  to  grouii  together  manj'  in- 
dividuals, while  not  altering  our  general  iisychological  doctrine 
in  order  to  suit  our  grouping.  It  is  simple  matter  of  fact  that 
some  individuals  are,  from  the  beginning  of  mental  life,  more 
like  other  individuals  of  a  second  group  than  any  of  either 
group  are  like  still  a  third  possible  group.  A  is  more  like  B  than 
either  B  or  O  is  like  I)  ;  and  yet  both  B  and  C  are  more  like  D 
than  I)  is  like  JT.  Thus  we  may  arrive  at  the  justifiable  though 
confessedly  rather  vague  conception  of  "  ft/jyes  "  of  human  nature, 
to  which  larger  or  smaller  numbers  of  individuals  more  or  less 
conform.  Nor  does  this  conception  altogether  lose  its  value 
when  the  undoubted  fact  is  pointed  out  that  between  all  remote 
t3'pes  lie  interrelated  types,  less  dissimilar ;  or  even  that,  in  each 
group,  the  individuals  may  be  arranged  so  as  to  form  a  continu- 
ous line  connecting  this  particular  group  with  one  on  either  side. 
Still  further  in  somewhat  similar  direction  lies  the  conception  of 
general  principles  applying  to  all  mental  development,  and  to 
all  the  faculties  considered  as  being  interrelated  modes  of  the 
behavior  of  the  mind.  It  is  to  selected  ones  of  these  types  and 
principles  that  we  purpose  to  devote  this  concluding  chapter  of 
oiir  psychological  treatise. 

^  1.  It  is  a  hopeful  indication  of  the  increasing  interest  in  psychological 
investigation  that  so  many  Imnilreds  of  treatises  are  being  wi-itten  npon  all 
sorts  of  obscure,  abnormal,  and  pathological  psychoses.  The  candid  and 
sober  student  of  psychology  will  never  regret  this  interest  ;  much  less  will 
he  fear  or  oppose  it.  At  the  same  time,  in  our  approach  to  such  subjects  of 
investigation  we  must  preserve  carefully,  and  even  sacredly,  the  scientific 
spirit  and  the  scientific  method  of  investigation.  And  if,  on  the  one  hand, 
these  teach  us  not  to  pronounce  prematurely  against  the  possibility  of  what 
is  strange  and  unusual,  what  does  not  accord  with  accepted  theory,  it  must 
never  be  forgotten,  on  the  other  hand,  that  science  cannot  relax  its  grasp 
upon  even  its  seeming  possessions,  in  order  to  clutch  at  vagaries  or  grope 
after  ghosts.  On  the  contrary,  the  true  scientific  procedure  is  from  the 
known,  or  the  apparently  known,  to  the  stiange  and  startling.     We  can 


646       TYPK^!   AXD   PRINCIPLES   OF   MENTAL  DEVELOPMENT 

never  rightfully  be  asked  to  accept  new  theories,  or  even  alleged  new  facts  if 
they  are  particularly  difficult  to  establish  as  facts,  without  being  permitted 
to  raise  the  previous  question  as  to  how  they  will  fit  in  with  the  whole 
established  structure  of  our  recognized  experience. 

On  this  entire  subject  we  will  attempt  nothing  more  than  to  indicate  our 
conviction.  This  conviction  is,  however,  born  of  investigation  without  con- 
scious prejudice,  and  borne  out,  we  believe,  by  the  signs  of  the  times  and  by 
the  tendencies  of  modern  psychological  research.  The  exj^lanalion  of  new 
mysteries  (in  telepathy,  clairvoyance,  double  consciousness,  etc.)  is  all  to  he 
sought  and  found  by  following  clews  which  psychology  already  has  in  its  hand. 
In  fact,  there  are  no  mysteries  so  profound  and  ultimately  unassailable  as 
those  of  ordinaiy  experience.  The  direction  in  which  to  look  for  the  under- 
standing of  novelties  is  that  of  an  extension  of  those  principles  with  which 
we  are  already  familiar.  While  it  is  true  that  there  is  far  more  in  man,  as 
body  and  mind,  than  we  yet  know,  or  perhaps  even  imagine  ;  it  is  also  true 
that  in  all  the  most  abnormal  and  pathological  conditions,  as  well  as  in  the 
case  of  all  the  extremes  of  idiosyncrasy,  the  nervous  system,  the  laws  and 
history  of  mental  development,  and  the  relations  of  mind  and  body,  I'emain 
essentially  the  same.  For  examj^le,  there  is  no  perceptible  break,  or  im- 
portant gap,  in  the  line  that  may  be  drawn  from  that  "  dramatic  sundering  " 
of  the  Ego  into  two  or  more  centers  of  representation,  of  itself  to  itself,  in 
which  young  children  find  much  of  the  zest  of  their  early  plays,  and  which 
we  all  experience  so  frequently  (in  dreams,  by  day  or  by  night,  or  every 
time,  urged  on  by  conscience,  we  sit  down  to  ' '  have  it  out  with  ourselves  ") 
and  the  wildest  vagaries  of  "double  consciousness,"  or  the  most  per- 
plexing tricks  played  with  one  another  by  Ego  and  alter  Ego.  So,  too, 
to  take  another  example  :  physiological  and  experimental  psychology  are 
constantly  throwing  new  light  upon  the  incredible  sensitiveness,  in  certain 
states,  of  the  nervous  mechanism,  and  upon  the  almost  limitless  application 
of  the  jn-inciples  of  "tact,"  "suggestion,"  and  "  habit,"  within  the  whole 
realm  of  the  so-called  unconscious  or  dimly  conscious.  Comparative  psy- 
chology is  constantly  adding  new  wonders  regarding  the  achievements  of 
so-called  instinct  in  the  lower  animals  ;  heljjed  on  by  the  higher  jjowers  of 
the  microscope,  it  is  advancing  in  the  attempt  to  fathom  the  ' '  psychic  life 
of  micro-organisms."  It  is  thus  extending  the  conception  of  some  psychic 
and  teleological  principle — call  it  "  Soul,"  or  what  one  will — downward  and 
outward.  And  the  reign  of  mere  physical  exjilanation  seems  about  to  be 
followed  by  one  in  which  Psyche  shall  again  somehow  be  acknowledged  as 
supreme.  If  this  is  vague  and  figurative  language — as  indeed  it  is — it  is  not 
so  hopelessly  vague  and  purely  figurative  as  that  which  explains  apparently 
mental  phenomena  in  terms  of  physical  tendencies,  strains,  and  entities. 
And  the  lesson  for  both  physical  and  psychological  science  is  essentially  the 
same.  No  wholly  new  view  of  the  nature  of  mind,  and  of  its  relations  to 
body,  or  of  the  meaning  and  value  of  the  facts  of  consciousness,  can  possi- 
bly arise  out  of  hypnotism.  No  wholly  new  ethics  can  be  adopted  as  the  re- 
sult of  the  attempts  at  a  so-called  science  of  criminology.  Hypnotism  will 
be  explained  by  new  combinations  and  further  extensions  of  the  factors  and 
laws  of  normal  mental  life  ;  and  the  criminal  will  be  found  to  be  not  so  much 
a  "  type  "  a.s  simj^ly  a  man  essentially  like  unto  his  fellows. 


NATURE   OF   TEMPERAMENT  647 

Tlio  various  groupiug-s  of  iiulividuals  (or  "  types  "  of  beiiij,' 
and  development)  which  we  shall  now  briefly  consider  follow 
these  four  combinations  of  marks :  Temperament,  Sex,  Ag-c, 
and  Race.  llc<^ardin^  certain  aggreg-ates  of  characteristic 
qualities  we  may  therefore  sjieak  of  the  "  sanguine "  or 
"  choleric,"  of  the  "  masculine  "  or  "  feminine,"  of  the  "  infantile  " 
or  "  senile,"  of  the  Oriental  or  Anglo-Saxon  type  of  mind.  It 
must  be  confessed,  however,  that  the  data  on  which  these  classi- 
fications are  based  are,  to  a  large  extent,  luicertain  and,  to  some 
extent,  extra-psychological.  Hence  the  considerable  admixture 
of  vague  popular  impression  which  characterizes  most  treat- 
ments of  the  doctrine  of  temperament,  sex,  and  race  ;  and,  if  we 
try  to  escape  from  this  vagueness  and  become  more  definite, 
we  are  caug-ht  by  the  tendency  to  substitute  uncertain  infer- 
ences from  physical  measurements  and  from  statistics  for  le- 
g^itimate  conclusions  based  on  known  facts  of  consciousness. 
However,  this  line  of  studies  has  a  certain  value  for  scientific 
psychology. 

The  doctrine  of  Temperament  is  very  old,  persistent,  and 
widely  spread.  Bij  a  temperainent  we  understand  any  marked 
type  of  mental  constitution  and  development  due  to  inherited  cJiarac- 
teristics  of  the  hodily  oryanisrn.  These  two  principal  points  are 
therefore  emphasized  by  all  correct  use  of  the  word.  The  ag- 
gregate of  characteristic  psychical  qualities  thus  indicated  is  re- 
garded (1)  as  x^eculiarly  dependent  upon  the  bodily  basis,  and 
(2)  as  a  matter  of  original  constitiition  or  heredity.  Neverthe- 
less, on  both  these  points  our  information  is  far  from  being  sat- 
isfactory ;  and  the  various  theories  of  temperament  have  conse- 
quently differed  greatly  in  the  accounts  they  have  given  of  its 
physical  and  inherited  origin.  It  may  be  said,  liowever,  that, 
in  spite  of  all  disagreement  in  details,  both  the  foregoing  jooints 
may  be  accepted.  With  respect  to  the  first,  modern  research 
has  justly  led  us  to  regard  the  constitution  of  the  nervous  sys- 
tem as  containing,  in  a  general  way,  our  account  of  the  charac- 
teristic differences  of  temperament.  But  inasmuch  as  this  sj'^s- 
tem  cannot  be  separated  from  the  other  systems  of  bodily 
organs,  although  it  is  the  central  city  and  the  crowned  ruler  for 
them  all,  the  constitution  of  the  vaso-motor,  of  the  digestive,  and 
of  the  muscular  organs,  has  indirectly  to  do  with  the  determining 
of  every  man's  temperament.  AVithin  the  nervous  mechanism 
itself  it  is  the  constitution  of  the  end-organs  of  sense  and  of  the 
central  organs  which  is  of  prime  influence.  These  may  be  said 
to  differ  "  naturally  "  in  respect  of  their  absolute  and  relative 
sensitiveness  to  normal  stimuli,  the  rapidity  and  duration  of  re- 


G48     TYPES  a:sd  pkii^ciples  of  mental  development 

spouse  which  they  give  to  the  various  degrees  of  such  stimuli, 
:iud  the  rehitive  facilit}^  with  which  certain  combiuatious,  rather 
than  others,  are  made  within  the  central  nervous  system.  But 
the  blood  is  the  internal  stimulus  both  of  the  end-organs  (in  the 
case  of  the  eigenllcht  of  the  retina,  certain  temperature  and  other 
skin  sensations,  etc.)  and  of  the  central  organs  ;  and  the  consti- 
tution of  the  sanguineous  currents  determines  the  character  of 
this  stimulation.  This  constitution  is  itself,  in  turn,  determined 
largely  by  the  character  of  the  digestive  processes  and  their  prod- 
;icts.  Moreover,  by  these  processes  and  products  the  nervous 
system  is  directly  and  profoundlj^  afiectod  throughout  the  entire 
areas  of  the  thoracic  and  abdominal  cavities.  Looking  further 
outward,  we  observe  the  significant  connection  of  the  muscles 
with  the  nervous  system.  This  connection  works  both  ways  ; 
the  muscles  excite  to  activity  the  cerebral  centers  ;  and  these 
centers  themselves  are  largely  impotent,  with  respect  even  to  the 
knowledge  of  self  and  of  things,  except  as  they  excite  and  con- 
trol the  muscles.  In  this  complicated  fashion,  then,  both  di- 
rectly and  indirectl}^,  is  the  bodily  and  constitutional  basis  of 
temperament  to  be  considered. 

'  Our  second  consideration  (temperament  is  original  and  hered- 
itary) introduces  yet  new  and  more  profound  complications.  It 
requires  us  to  distinguish  temperament  from  character  in  the 
more  precise  meaning  of  the  latter  word.  Men's  characters 
change  ;  or,  rather,  men  change  their  characters.  But  men's 
temperaments  do  not  materially  change ;  at  least,  they  do  not 
pass  from  one  type  to  another,  as  the  man  of  bad  character  he- 
comes  %-ood,  or  y/ce '  y6;',s«.  So  we  are  accustomed  to  think  and 
say.  At  the  same  time  it  is  necessary  here  to  recall  Avhat  has  al- 
ready been  said  as  to  the  impossibility  of  our  distinguishing  be- 
tween the  two  great  classes  of  factors  which  cociperate  in  all 
mental  development.  Temperament  may,  indeed,  safely  be  said 
to  be  prominent  at  the  beginning  and  from  the  beginning  ; 
whereas  character  comes  to  view  later  and  in  a  much  more  unpre- 
dictable way,  if  indeed  we  regard  it  as  a  possible  principle  for 
scientific  classification  at  all.  On  the  other  hand,  character 
often  so  "  overlays  "  temperament  as  to  seem  to  alter  it  totally. 
Temperament  itself  is  so  subject  to  the  influence  of  environment 
as  to  seem  to  change  from  one  type  to  another  under  its  influence. 
In  sitite  of  these  admissions  the  j^n'siTasion  remains  tolerably 
firm  :  there  are  certain  original  and  iidierited  types,  or  aggregates 
of  characteristic  cpialities,  which  tend  strongly  to  remain,  and 
generally  do  remain,  ess(nitially  unchanged  throughout  the  men- 
tal life  of  the  individual.     So  that  even  where  what  we  call  char- 


I 


KINDS    OF  TEMPERAMliNT  G49 

ucter  overlays  temperament,  it  only  occrlai/s  it ;  that  is  to  say,  the 
characteristic  typical  teudeucies  to  certain  ways  of  reactiuf^  on 
stimuli,  and  of  combining-  the  effects  of  previous  reactions,  re- 
main unchanged.  Svlf-dvlo'iii'inatioii  as  reK2^ech  character  is  I'nn- 
ited  by  that  deterin'mation  of  self  which  reposes  upon  a/i  inherited 
phijsical  constitution. 

As  to  the  Kinds  of  Temperament  which  must  be  recog-nized 
there  has  been  much  dispute  ;  there  has  been  also  some  varia- 
tion in  the  employment  of  terms  to  designate  the  chosen  kinds. 
Singularly  enough,  however,  the  number  four  has  largely  pre- 
vailed ;  and  this  indicates  that  certain  grounds  for  its  preference 
really  exist.  Adopting  it,  we  mention  the  following  different 
temperamental  types  :  (1)  The  sanguine  ;  (2)  the  sentimental  (so 
Lotze  usually  called  the  "  melancholic  ") ;  (3)  the  choleric  ;  and 
(4)  the  phlegmatic.  Individuals  markedly  distinguishable  ac- 
cording to  either  one  of  these  four  types  can,  without  much  dif- 
ficulty, be  selected  from  among  any  large  number,  whatever  be 
their  sex,  age,  or  race.  Such  individuals  are  also  to  be  found  in 
all  grades  of  society  and  with  all  degrees  and  kinds  of  culture. 
It  is  not,  however,  an  altogether  fanciful  conjecture  which  con- 
nects in  g-eneral  certain  of  these  temperaments  with  one  of  the 
two  sexes,  with  the  four  principal  ages  of  life,  and  with  certain 
races  as  compared  with  other  races.  But,  in  general,  races  that 
are  low  in  the  scale  of  development  show  all  the  characteristic 
four  temperaments  in  a  less  marked  way  ;  while  the  conditions 
of  a  higher  civilization  allow  of  the  expression,  and  perhaps 
also  of  the  rise,  of  temperament  in  a  more  intense  form.  And, 
finally,  most  individuals,  even  in  the  most  highly  civiliz#i  com- 
munities, show  more  or  less  mixture  of  the  different  types. 
Even  those  who  are  called  "  moody  "  may  have  as  the  peculiarity 
of  their  constitution  that  they  pass  from  one  type  to  another  in 
a  largely  incalculable  way  ;  although  just  this  is  one  chief  char- 
acteristic of  the  sentimental  temperament. 

?  2.  The  various  words  in  use  to  characterize  the  clifTerent  temperaments 
are  highly  instructive.  Tliey  sliow  the  jjersistcnt  and  wide-sijroad  impres- 
sion that  the  lines  are  laid  down,  within  which  the  development  of  the  indi- 
vidual takes  place,  bv  some  form  of  physical  influence  that  operates  Tipon 
the  original  "make-up"  of  the  individual.  When  men  believed  in  astrology 
they  found  in  the  determining  power  of  the  planets  a  reason  why  some  were 
'•  Jovial."  others  "  Saturnine,"  and  still  others  "Mercurial,"  in  temperament. 
When  they  more  justly  recognized  the  intlnence  of  the  circulatory  and  di- 
gestive systems  over  everyone's  "temjier"  of  mind,  they  came  to  speak  of 
the  "sanguine"  (or  "  full-bloodod")  man,  of  the  "choleric"  (or  "full  of 
bile  ")  man,  of  the  melancholic  (or  "  full  of  black  bile  ")  man,  and  of  the 


650      TYPES   AXD   PRINCIPLES   OF   MENTAL   DEVELOPMENT 

phlegmatic  (or  "  full-plilegmecl ")  man.  Thus,  in  Shakespeare's  "King 
John  "  we  read  : 

•'  Or  if  that  surly  spirit,  melancholy, 
Had  baked  thy  blood  and  made  it  heavy,  thick,  which 
Else,  runs  tickling  up  and  down  the  veins." 

As  to  telluric  influences,  however  indirect,  upon  the  constitution  and  func- 
tions of  the  nervous  mechanism,  we  have  to-day  little  more  positive  infor- 
mation than  had  the  men  of  j^revious  generations.  Increase  of  knowledge 
here  is  mostly  in  the  line  of  surrendering  the  pretence  of  knowledge ;  and 
no  doctx'ine  as  to  the  exact  nature  of  the  physical  basis  of  temperament  can 
even  now  be  laid  down.  But,  as  has  been  said,  the  general  view  is  credibly 
established,  that  the  constitution  of  the  nervous  system  of  different  individ- 
uals differs  as  respects  its  susceptibility  to  the  different  forms  of  external 
and  internal  stimuli,  and  as  to  its  tendencies  to  combine  these  primary  forms 
of  reaction  in  various  ways. 

If  now  we  think  out  in  detail  the  possibilities  involved  in  the  foregoing 
differences,  we  shall  see  how  temperaments  may  come  to  exist.  For  the 
different  possible  reactions  of  the  nervous  mechanism  may  differ  (1)  as  re- 
spects the  kind  of  reaction  ;  (2)  as  respects  the  measure  of  sensitiveness 
shown  ;  (3)  as  respects  duration  at  the  time,  and  conservative  power  as  lay- 
ing the  basis  of  cerebral  habit ;  (4)  as  respects  the  rapidity  of  reproduc- 
tion ;  (5)  as  respects  completeness  of  reproduction  ;  (6)  as  respects  the  ra- 
pidity of  combination  ;  (7)  as  respects  the  kinds  of  combination  most 
favored;  but  especially  (8)  as  respects  the  characteristic  accompaniments  of 
feeling.  And  here  we  may  refer  again  to  what  was  said  respecting  the  very 
nature  of  feeling  and  of  its  cerebral  basis  (see  jd.  173  f.). 

^  3.  Although  no  agreement  exists  as  to  the  principles  of  division,  or  as 
to  the  fundamental  nature  of  the  physical  basis  of  temperaments,  almost  all 
writers  acknowledge  essentially  the  same  four.  A  modern  writer,'  approach- 
ing the  subject  from  the  scientific  point  of  view,  by  crossing  two  i)rinciples 
of  division,  derives  the  following  scheme  : 

Stronq.  Weak. 

Quick Choleric.  Sanguine. 

Slow Melancholic.         Phlegmatic. 

Thus  choleric  and  melancholic  j^ersons  are  inclined  to  strong  affections,  and 
sanguine  and  phlegmatic  persons  to  weak  affections  ;  but  the  choleric  and 
sanguine  are  quick,  while  the  melancholic  and  phlegmatic  are  slow.  It  does 
not  seem,  however,  that  the  phlegmatic,  though  slow,  are  necessarily  w-eak. 
By  substituting  the  terra  "  sentimental "  for  melancholic,  Lotze  breaks  ui) 
this  system,  but  makes  it  more  difficult  to  distinguish  between  the  sentimen- 
tal and  the  sanguine. 

In  a  somewhat  indefinite  way  we  may  declare  that  a  certain  type  of  ]ior- 

sons  is  characterized  by  lively  and  varied   excitability   and  rapid  cliaiigo, 

without  depth  and  stability  ;   and  these  may  be  called  sanguine.     Another 

type  is  scarcely  less  quick,  though  less  varied  in  reactions;  while  the  reac- 

'  Wundt  :  Physiologische  Peychologie  (secoud  ed.),  II.,  p.  345  f. 


PECULIARITIES   OF   SEX  Of)  I 

tions  are  more  enduring,  piissioiKite,  ami  dotcM-niinod,  and  the  conduct  as 
well  as  states  of  consciousness  less  subject  to  cliange.  This  type  we  may  call 
choleric.  Still  others  are  characteristically  sluggish  in  all  their  psychical 
changes  and  in  respect  of  the  movements  which  both  condition  and  express 
such  changes.  They  are  the  opposite  of  lively  and  versatile,  though  they 
may  be  either  tenacious  or  lacking  in  what  we  call  will.  To  such  the  name 
oi lildcffimttic  is  assigned.  This  leaves  a  fourth  not  easily  descril)able  type. 
It  may  be  called  the  poetic  or  artistic  temperament.  But  then  poets  and 
artists  share,  with  all  men,  in  all  kinds  of  temperament.  Nevertheless,  there; 
may  be  said  to  be  a  distinctively poe/Zc',  or — to  use  Lotze's  Mord — a  "senti- 
mental" temperament.  This  type  is  described  as  characterized  by  "special 
receptivity  for  the  feeling  of  the  value  of  all  possible  relations,"  although 
inditTerent  toward  bare  matter  of  fact.'  Persons  of  this  tyi)0  are  lively  in 
imagination,  susceptible  to  delicate  sense-impi-essions,  moody  in  feeling, 
uncertain  in  conduct. 

I  4.  Even  so  modern  a  writer  as  Wundt  agrees  with  the  jiroposal  to  ap- 
ply the  conception  of  temperament  to  orders,  families,  and  species  of  ani- 
mals, as  well  as  to  man.  The  classification  of  tyi)es  is  thus  mixed  up  with  con- 
siderations of  age  and  sex  and  race.  For  youth  may  undoubtedly  be  said  to 
be  more  "  naturally  "  sanguine  or  sentimental ;  maturity  more  choleric  ;  and 
old  age  more  phlegmatic.  The  sentimental  temperament  is  also  character- 
istically more  feminine  than  masculine  ;  the  choleric  is  more  masculine 
than  feminine.  As  to  the  j^recise  temperamental  distinctions  which  are  em- 
phasized by  the  different  principal  races,  there  is  abundant  room  for  debate  ; 
just  as  there  is  no  agreement  yet  reached  by  anthropologists  concerning  the 
division  of  mankind  among  these  races,  and  scarcely  more  agreement  in  the 
estimate  which  natives  have  put  upon  them  by  foreigners,  or  jiut  iipon  them- 
selves when  comparing  themselves  with  foreigners.  Marked  instances  of 
aggregates  of  characteristic  qualities,  which  seem  to  be  the  same  for  a  rec- 
ognized type  of  temperament  and  for  a  certain  race — considered  as  respects 
the  average  individual  of  the  race — may  perhaps  be  given  with  confidence, 
when  we  call  the  French  sanguine,  the  Germans  phlegmatic,  the  Englisli  a 
mixture  of  phlegmatic  and  choleric,  the  Japanese  sentimental.  This  would 
seem  to  accord  fairly  well  with  the  remark  that  the  choleric  and  phlegmatic 
are  temperaments  of  action ;  while  the  sanguine  and  sentimental  are  tem- 
peraments of  feeling.  But  both  sexes  and  all  races  show  examples  of  every 
form  of  distinct  temperament,  as  well  as  of  every  shade  of  mixture  possible 
among  all  four. 

The  psychological  Peculiarities  which  distinguish  the  two 
Sexes  are  scarcely  less  a  matter  of  debate  than  are  those  which 
serve  to  difference  the  four  temperaments.  Yet  the  student  of 
literature  and  history,  as  well  as  the  acute  observer  of  life  from 
the  points  of  vicAV  belonging  to  physiology  and  psychology,  can 
scarcely  doubt  the  general  justness  of  that  popular  opinion 
which  considers  the  markedly  feminine  as  differing  from  the 

'  Lotze's  doctrine  of  temperament  may  be  found,  Microcosmus,  n.,  p.  24  f.;  Medicin.  Ppychol- 
ogie,  p.  560  f.;  Outlinee  of  Psychology,  p.  137. 


t;r)2       TYPES   ATs^D   PRINCIPLES   OF   MENTAL   DEVELOPMENT 

markedly  masculine  tj'pe.  How  does  the  average  adult  woman 
differ  from  the  average  adult  man  ?  is  a  question  to  which  an  al- 
most endless  variety  of  answers  might  be  given.  But  that  there 
is  a  difference,  is  almost  universallj'  assumed  ;  and  this — we  be- 
lieve— ujDon  sufficient,  though  vague,  evidence.  Of  course,  the 
question  is  still  further  complicated  when  the  attempt  is  made  to 
tell  how  much  of  this  difference  is  matter  of  relatively  unchange- 
able sexual  constitution,  and  how  much  is  due  to  variable  phys- 
ical, social,  and  educational  differences,  i^eculiar  to  each  sex. 
The  prevalent — but  we  believe,  foolish  and  vain — proposal  to 
train  aAvaj"  all  these  differences,  or  to  change  them  by  changing 
the  environment,  is  always  ready  with  its  apjjeal  to  the  force  of 
heredity  and  the  force  of  education,  whenever  it  suits  its  pur- 
pose to  lay  the  principal  stress  upon  either  so-called  "  force." 

As  to  fundamental  physical  differences  of  sex  there  is  much, 
of  course,  which  is  obvious  enough,  and  which  can  in  some  sort 
be  estimated  and  measured.  Of  such  physical  characteristics 
some  are  more  nearly  constant,  others  are  periodic,  and  still 
others  are  epochal.  But  modern  histological  and  phj'siological 
research  is  constantly  bringing  to  light  the  minuter,  and  yet  even 
more  pervasive  and  potential,  differences.  It  would  seem  as 
though  the  investigation,  when  approached  from  this  point  of 
view,  must  result  in  the  persuasion  that,  not  only  in  respect  of 
gross  mass  and  characteristic  organs  as  a  totality"  do  males  and 
females  differ  ;  but  that  the  sexual  difference  extends  to  every  de- 
tail of  the  nervous  system,  to  the  constitution  of  the  blood,  to 
the  habits  of  metabolism,  etc.  But  even  then,  it  is  so  mingled 
with  other  differences  in  types  of  temperament,  kinds  of  charac- 
ter, habits  formed  under  the  influence  of  environment  and  bj^  ed- 
ucation, as  to  show  itself  persistently,  and  on  the  average,  and 
to  the  ordinary  observer,  only  in  its  broadest  outlines. 

It  is  to  be  hoped,  and  perhaps  it  is  very  reasonably  to  be 
expected,  that  more  detailed  observations  of  the  phenomena  of 
child-life,  of  the  changes  (both  physical  and  ]-»sychical)  which 
occur  at  the  great  climacterics,  and  more  critical  study  of  litera- 
ture, with  the  problems  of  psychology  in  view,  will  give  us,  fi- 
nally, a  scientific  psychology  of  sex.  Meanwhile,  we  are  obliged 
to  content  ourselves  with  such  rather  indefinite  generalizations 
as  everyone  supposes  himself  able  to  make  equally  well  with 
the  most  thoroughly  trained  psychologists.  Moreover,  just  at 
present  (in  this  country  especially)  the  statufi  of  woman  is  so 
uncertain  and  the  discussion  of  the  so-called  "  woman  question  " 
committed  to  such  hands,  that  it  is  difficult  to  get  even  the 
barest  physiological  data  regarded  without  prejudice  ;  and  yet 


I 


PHYSICAL   DIFFEIiENCKS   OF   SKX  Ooli 

more  difficult  to  secure  fairness  and  caudor  for  their  thorough 
scientific  discussion.  We  shall  do  little  more  in  this  place  than 
to  record  our  conviction  that  the;  sexual  tlill'crences,  on  the  i)sy- 
chological  side,  are  as  minute,  jx'rvasive,  and  influential  as  on  the 
anatomical  and  physiolog-ical  side.  AVhile  it  is  true  that  men 
and  women  are,  in  respect  of  all  psychical  faculties  and  kinds 
of  psychoses  both  equally  human  ;  it  is  also  true  that  the  char- 
acteristically feminine  is  throughout  different  from  the  charac- 
teristically masculine,  and  that  thene  differences  shade  the  entire 
mental  life  and  development  of  the  two  sexes  from  the  moment 
of  birth  (and  even  long-  before  birth)  to  the  moment  of  dissolu- 
tion. 

§  5.  Besides  the  more  obvious  organic  and  functional  diftorences  of  the 
adult  man  and  woman,  the  two  sexes  show  an  average  dift'erence  from  birth 
in  height,  weight  (especially  as  connected  with  muscular  development), 
physical  energy,  relative  proportion  and  growth  of  organs,  and  frequency  of 
pulse  and  respiration.  Among  the  difterent  races,  and  under  the  diflferent 
conditions  of  nutrition,  care,  etc.,  the  average  length  and  weight  of  infants 
difters  greatly.  But  everywhere  the  average  length  and  weight  of  the 
female  is  somewhat  less  than  that  of  the  male.  At  maturity  these  differ- 
ences are  yet  more  marked.  In  Brussels,  for  example,  the  average  length  of 
the  male  infant  compared  with  the  female  at  birth,  was  as  19j  to  19J  ;  the 
weight  as  7.05  lbs.  to  6.-i2  lbs.  The  curve  of  the  growth  of  the  two  differs, 
though  scarcely  perceptibly,  up  to  four  or  five  years  ;  while  at  puberty 
the  difference  becomes  much  more  marked.  The  relative  iiroportion  of  the 
bodily  members,  and  even  of  the  different  parts  of  the  same  bodily  mem- 
bers, differs  for  the  two  sexes.  The  relative  length  of  the  arms  and  legs  in 
the  male  is  greater  ;  the  center  of  gravity  is  higher,  the  step  is  longer.  He 
is  obviously  built  to  his  advantage  in  swift,  strong,  agile  movements.  He 
breathes  more  deeply  (and  this,  as  a  matter  of  physiological  need)  ;  he 
requires  and  consumes  more  air,  water,  and  food.  The  average  pulse  of  the 
female  is  quicker  in  about  the  same  projjortion  as  that  in  which  her  height 
is  less.  Her  blood  is  less  in  quantity,  of  lighter  specific  gravity,  and  con- 
tains fewer  red  corpuscles.  Physiologically,  she  is  more  inclined  to  be 
hypersosthetic,  to  become  subject  to  crami)ing  and  spasmodic  action  of  the 
muscles,  to  sudden  and  incalculable  secretions,  to  wide-spreading  and  cha- 
otic neural  excitements. 

It  is  in  respect,  however,  of  the  nervous  and  muscular  systems  that  the 
differences  which  are  most  important  as  laying  the  basis  for  psychological 
types  emerge.  The  average  weight  of  the  brain  of  the  two  sexes  differs 
about  as  1,424  for  the  male  to  1,272  for  the  female.  There  seems  reason  to 
believe  that  the  cerebral  differences  extend  much  more  widely  than  is 
sufficient  to  cover  gi'oss  mass.  The  claim  seems  justifiable  that  differences 
in  the  development  of  the  cerebral  convolutions  may  be  distinguished  from 
the  eighth  month,  or  even  earlier,  onward.'     The  male  develojis  not  only 

'  See  J.  Minfrazzini,  Moleschott's  Untersch.  XIU.  vi.,  p.  498  f.,  reviewed  in  Centralblatt  f. 
Physiol.,  No.  5,  1883. 


654      TYPES   AND   PllINCIPLES   OF   MENTAL   DEVELOPMENT 

au  absolutely  greater  cerebral  surface,  but  also  a  relatively  greater  growth 
of  the  jjarts  lying  in  front  of  the  central  fissure  as  compared  with  those 
lying  behind  it. 

Into  the  profound  and  all-pervasive  effect  of  those  physiological  func- 
tions of  sex  which  connect  directly  and  indirectly  with  the  cerebro-spinal 
uervous  system,  in  its  relation  to  the  sympathetic  system,  it  is  not  necessaiy 
to  enter.  We  have  already  abundantly  showed  how  the  sensations  and  feel- 
ings which  originate  in  this  way  alter  the  whole  stream  of  consciousness. 
They  extend  their  influence  even  to  the  conceptions  we  have  of  Self  and  to 
the  knowledge  we  have  of  Things.  It  might  seem  fanciful  to  assert  that 
things  are  known  as  felt  to  woman,  rather  than  as  thought  by  man  ;  but  such 
a  statement  would  by  no  means  be  wholly  devoid  of  support  from  the  facts. 

I  G.  All  our  study  hitherto  has  led  us  to  emphasize  greatly  the  influence 
upon  mental  development  of  the  constitution  and  functions  of  the  muscular 
system.  This  influence  is  extended  variously,  but  chiefly  in  two  directions. 
The  condition  and  action  of  all  the  muscles  stand  in  reciprocal  relations  to 
the  senses,  and  to  the  feelings  which  form  the  necessary  afiective  accom- 
paniment of  the  senses.  Furthermore,  the  striated  (or  so-called  "volun- 
tary ")  muscles  are  the  organs  of  the  will.  In  this  complicated  sensory- 
motor  apparatus  all  the  most  primary  foundations  of  the  intellectual  life  are 
laid.  Figuratively  speaking,  discriminating  consciousness,  as  the  essential 
function  of  intellect,  moves  about  among  this  original  chaos  of  sensory- 
motor  factors,  and  with  a  constant  focusing  and  redistribiition  of  attention, 
l^rogressively  organizes  it  into  intelligible  forms.  Moreover,  as  the  very 
l^recondition  and  also  as  the  effect  of  development,  the  conscious  control  of 
the  sensory-motor  organism  in  the  behalf  of  recognized  ends  progressively 
takes  place.  Here  again,  the  reactionary  effect  of  voluntary  control  of  the 
muscles  upon  the  characteristic  sensations  and  feelings  is  undoubtedly  very 
great.  All  this  is  only  one  particular  necessary  result  of  the  constant  inter- 
dependence of  knowledge,  feeling,  and  will,  in  the  entire  development 
of  soul-life.  Since  judgment  and  decision  are  necessarily  involved  in  the 
mental  activities  belonging  to  sensation  and  motion,  how  can  it  be  otherwise 
than  that  the  feminine  and  masculine  types  of  intellect  differ?  This  differ- 
ence probably  reaches  all  the  way  up  from  the  superior  "feeling-deftness" 
of  feminine  manifestation,  as  comj^ared  with  the  superior  tactual  discrimina- 
tion and  muscular  precision  of  man,  to  those  abstract  conceptions  of  space 
in  which  Lotze  supposes  a  distinctly  feminine  type  may  be  discovered 
(see  p.  490). 

^  7.  There  is  jirobably  good  ground  for  the  popular  impression  that  men 
and  women  dilfer  most,  upou  the  average,  in  respect  of  their  feelings,  and 
in  resiiect  of  their  ways  of  looking  at  things,  events,  and  conduct,  as  in- 
fluenced by  the  feelings.  This  distinction  of  types  also — it  is  probable — 
reaches  through  the  entire  area  of  mental  life  and  its  development.  Such  a 
distinction  seems  to  be  much  more  radical  and  far-reaching  than  are  those 
distinctions  upon  which  the  temperanKmts  are  based.  Therefore  none  of  the 
temperaments,  when  superimposed,  destroys  the  more  fundamental  type 
cliaracterizing  the  sex.  The  sanguine  woman  differs  from  the  sanguine 
man — this  is  as  true  as  that  the  choleric  woman  is  more  masculine  than 
the  average  woman,  and  the  sentimental  man  more  feminine  than  the  aver- 


CHARACTERISTICS   OF   AGE   AXD    RACE  G5o 

age  man.  In  this  sexnal  distinction  all  kinds  of  feelings  ajipear  to  share — 
notably  the  iutra-organic  and  sensuous,  but  also  the  intellectual,  sosthetical, 
and  religious. 

Space  is  lacking— even  were  this  treatise  the  fit  occasion — for  discussing 
how  men  and  women  differ  as  regards  the  so-called  "higher  faculties."  We 
cannot  forbear  remarking,  however,  that  any  such  discussion  involves  some 
sort  of  agreement  as  to  what  faculties  are  liiylier,  and  what  particular  forms 
of  the  functioning  of  any  faculty  arc  entitled  to  this  same  term.  If  the  exer- 
cise of  the  faculties  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  of  fact  and  law  is  highest, 
then  we  have  to  inquire  why  women  have  hitherto  done  so  little  relatively  for 
science  and  philosophy.  But  if  the  intuitions  and  sentiments  which  enter 
into  artistic  achievement  are  highest ;  then  we  have  to  inquire  why  they  have 
not  accomplished  more  in  art— especially,  for  example,  in  music,  where  their 
opportunity  has  been  so  great  for  generations.  If  ethical  feeling  and  con- 
duct are  highest ;  then  we  have  to  inquire  where  justice  and  magnanimity 
stand  in  the  scale  of  virtues — and  so  on,  somewhat  indefinitely.  Mani- 
festly, these  questions  extend  beyond  the  legitimate  sphere  of  descrij^tive 
psychology,  although  they  cannot  be  answered  without  a  constant  ajjpeal  to 
psychology. 

Those  psycholog-ical  types  tliat  are  characteristic  of  Apre  and 
Race  can  receive  only  the  briefest  mention  by  us.  As  to  the  en- 
tire group  of  inquiries  involved  in  the  psychology  of  the  diflerent 
races,  we  have  onl}^  scant  trustworthy  information.  The  objec- 
tive determinations  which  anthropologry  proposes — with  its  meas- 
urement of  skulls,  its  study  of  habits  of  buildint;;-,  of  implements, 
etc.,  its  division  of  ages — li'avc  any  value  only  as  it  is  possible  to 
give  them  an  accepted  psychological  interpretation.  Without 
the  scientific  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  consciousness,  as  such, 
these  data,  which  are  at  best  othj  tokens,  cannot  do  service  even 
as  tokens  of  anything  of  a  psychological  sort.  To  interpret  the 
anthropological  data  a  scientific  knowledge  of  human  conscious- 
ness, as  a  unique  life-development,  is  presupposed.  Without 
this  knowledge  such  data  may  mislead  to  almost  any  conceiv- 
able extent ;  with  this  knowledge  they  may  be  interpreted  so  as 
to  show  what  almost  infinite  varietj'-  subsists  under  the  one  hu- 
man type  of  mental  life  ;  and  they  may  also,  of  course,  expand 
our  notions  of  this  one  type  as  well  as  of  the  relations  sustained 
to  it  by  the  principal  subordinate  types. 

As  respects  the  infiuence  of  Age  upon  the  aggregate  of 
psychological  characteristics,  the  most  of  what  we  should  wish 
to  say  has  already  been  said.  For  we  have  traced  the  general 
course  of  the  development  of  mental  life,  the  formation  of 
faculty,  the  growth  of  knowledge,  the  progressive  self-deter- 
mination of  character,  the  increasing  teleology  of  mental  activ- 
ity.    This  course  of  development  is  continuous.     Nevertheless, 


656       TYPES    AND    I'lIlNClPLES    OF    MENTAL   DEVELOPMENT 

the  begiuiiiugs  of  it  iu  infancy  and  childhood  have  a  peculiar  in- 
terest and  value ;  but  they  are  also  peculiarly  difficult  to  trace. 
Out  of  the  unconscious,  somehow,  does  the  conscious  seem  to 
come  ;  the  organization  of  mentality  out  of  the  confused  and  cha- 
otic material  of  sensation  and  representation.  Science  can  never 
put  its  finger  on  any  definite  moment  and  say,  respecting  the 
truly  psychological :  "  Now  it  is,  for  the  first  time,  there !  " 
Psychological  investigation — no  matter  hoAV,  or  how  faithfully, 
conducted — cannot  describe  the  mode  in  which  elementary  facul- 
ties come  to  be,  without  implying  that  they  have  already  begun 
to  do  their  work.  But  then  this  is  not  a  disadvantage  (if  it  be, 
indeed,  a  disadvantage  at  all)  peculiar  to  psj'chology.  Every 
physical  science  has  to  assume  much  more  than  this ;  it  has  cer- 
tainly to  assume  formed  conscious  faculty  as  already  at  work ; 
its  universal  formula  is  :  In  the  heginn'mg  ivas  Hind,  already 
equipped  to  see  and  hear  and  reraemljer  and  imagine  and  think. 

In  spite  of  the  principle  of  continuity,  hoAvever,  the  influence 
of  age  may  be  broadly  distinguished  as  productive  of  psycho- 
logical types.  We  have  already  seen  how  certain  temperaments 
are  distinctive  of,  or  correspond  to,  the  several  main  divisions  of 
age.  We  have  also  seen  how  consciousness  is  profoundly  af- 
fected, especially  on  the  side  of  feeling,  at  certain  epochs  in  the 
physical  life.  And  the  study  of  the  correlative  development  of 
the  phj^sical  basis  and  of  the  changing  character  of  the  psychoses 
is  a  most  helpful  adjunct  to  the  psychologist. 

§  8.  We  must  not  be  understood  as  depreciating  the  study  of  racial  psv- 
cliology,  or  the  influence  of  anthropology  upon  iDsychology.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  spirit  of  the  narrowness  of  the  old-fashioned  introspective  psy- 
chology is  exorcised  by  the  wider  observation  of  the  ty^^ical  forms  of  mental 
development  which  the  races  show  ;  and  to  the  trained  psychologist  much 
truth  concerning  the  nature  of  mind  may  be  gained  by  the  skilful  interpre- 
tation of  anthropological  data.  At  the  same  time  it  remains  forever  true 
that  minil  can  be  interpreted  only  in  terms  of  conscioioiness ;  and  that  the  true 
interpretation  of  all  antltropological  data  can  be  gained  onh/  l>i/  pror/ressire  ptn/- 
chological  science.  Anthropology,  so-called,  will  always  remain  dependent 
upon  psychology  for  assured  knowledge  as  to  the  mental  life  of  man. 

2  y.  The  psychology  of  infancy  and  childhood  is  becoming  an  increas- 
ingly important  and  promising  branch  of  the  science.  The  attempts  to 
carry  our  knowledge  back  into  the  life  of  the  embryo  are  not  without  a  cer- 
tain value  ;  although  here,  inasmuch  as  psychology  must  found  itself  upon 
facts  of  consciousness,  as  such,  we  can  scarcely  attain  scientific  certainty. 
It  is  a  reasonable  conjecti;re  that  sensations  of  pressure,  and  motion,  and. 
perhaps  also,  of  temperature,  arise  l)efore  birth.  Some  authors  '  would  liave 
us  suppose  that  tlie  foetus  may  have  ocular  sensations  due  to  pressure  on 

>  See  BeauniB  :  Les  Sensations  internes,  p.  218  f.  and  2S0  f.    Preyer :  Jlind  of  tlie  Child,  I.  p.  2")  f. 


PRINCIPLES   OF   ALL   MENTAL   LIFE  057 

the  eyeball  and  resembling  pliosphcnos,  and  even  gustatory  sensations  oc- 
casioned by  swallowing  certain  surrounding  fluids.  ,  It  is  said  that  with  in- 
fants born  prematurely,  their  movements  seem  to  indicate  that  they  taste  the 
sugar  or  quinine  put  into  their  mouths  ;  and  that  certain  odors  are  appre- 
ciated as  disagreeable  sensations. 

All  newly  born  infants  are  deaf,  since  the  middle-ear  is  filled  at  birth 
with  a  gelatinous  mass  of  embryonic  connective  tissue.  Some  obseiTers 
think  that  the  eyes  of  the  infant — during  its  first  days  seldom  oi^en  for  any 
length  of  time — move  with  associated  and  coordinated  movements ;  others 
think  not.  No  conscious  acts  of  will  are  ajiparent  in  such  movement  until 
much  later.  Most  important  are  the  facts  that  the  reflex  irritability  of  the 
infant's  skin  is  so  inferior  to  that  of  the  adult,  and  only  approaches  it  after 
experiencing  the  effects  of  constant  cultivation  ;  and  also  that  the  entire 
muscular  apparatus  is  relatively  undeveloped.  The  significant  thing  is,  that 
nature  seems  to  have  prepared  the  newly  born  infant  with  a  relatively  large 
development  of  brain  and  of  the  more  si^ecial  organs  of  sense — made  ready 
for  the  beginnings  of  sensory-motor  experience— but  not  with  experience  al- 
ready gained  in  correspondence  to  its  merely  physical  evolution. 

It  has  for  a  long-  time  been  charg-ed  against  psychology  that 
it  is  unable  to  exhibit  any  system  of  General  Laws  or  Principles 
comparable  to  those  which  constitute  the  body  of  the  more  ad- 
vanced physical  sciences.  Or,  more  definitely  still,  it  is  alleged 
that  the  stud}^  expended  upon  the  phenomena  of  human  con- 
sciousness, from  Aristotle  to  the  present  time,  has  not  succeed- 
ed in  formulating  a  single  precise  statement,  like  that  Avhich 
I3hysics  can  give  for  the  gravitation  of  masses  or  chemistry  for  the 
"  equivalences  "  of  the  atoms.  In  some  sort,  the  student  of  psy- 
chology is  obliged  to  confess  that  the  charge  is  true.  Nor  does 
it  seem  to  be  much  less  true  in  view  of  the  attempts  of  Herbart ' 
and  others  to  give  a  mathematical  foundation  to  psycholog-ical 
principles.  To  be  sure,  the  modern  form  of  psycho-physics  is 
making  a  brave  and  partially  successful  effort  to  measure  differ- 
ent forms  of  mental  jirocesses,  and  to  state  in  precise  formulas 
the  results  of  its  measurements.  But  we  still  find  psychologists 
themselves  confessing,  explaining,  and  complaining-,  in  view  of 
the  abs(uice  of  universally  recognized  and  definitely  statable 
laws  in  the  science  of  psychology. 

And  here,  at  the  close  of  our  treatise,  we  may  return  to  the 
inquiry  with  which  it  began.  What  wonder  then  that  we  are 
asked  whether  it  is  right  to  consider  or  denominate  ps3-chology 
as  science  at  all  ?  And  if  it  be  not  by  this  time  a  "  science," 
what  claim  can  we  substantiate  why  we  should  pursue  it  longer 
in   the  hope   of   attaining   scientific  knowledge?      Psychology 

•  The  work  of  this  anther  bore  the  title.  Psychologic  als  Wissenschaft,  neu  gegriindet  anf  Er- 
fabrung,  Metapbysik,  und  Mathematik.  (1S24). 
42 


t>58      TYPES   AND   PKINCIPLES   OF   MENTAL   DEVELOPMENT 

might  indeed,  turn  the  question  with  most  invincible  force 
against  many  of  those  who  ask  it ;  it  might,  in  turn,  ask  what 
sort  of  physical  science  can  be  built  up  securely  on  perception, 
inference,  and  imagination,  helped  out  and  expressed  by  words 
and  figures,  if  we  can  have  no  knowledge  respecting  the  nat- 
ure and  valid  use  of  perceiving,  inferring,  and  image-making 
faculty  itself,  and  respecting  the  relations  in  which  the  symbols 
of  all  science  stand  to  the  only  immediately  given  data,  the 
"  states  of  consciousness,  as  such  ?  "  The  better  way,  however, 
is  that  milder  form  of  answer  which  we  have  already  given. 
There  is  science  wherever  there  are  ascertainable  facts  that  may 
be  described  and  explained  in  their  relations  to  one  another  and 
to  other  classes  of  facts.  And  who  will  venture  to  affirm  that 
the  facts  of  consciousness,  considered  as  such,  do  actually  relate 
themselves  to  one  another,  or  to  facts  of  "  brain-states,"  or  to 
what-not  other  kinds  of  facts,  in  invariable  forms  of  sequence,  as 
the  facts  of  physics  and  chemistry  stand  related  to  each  other  ? 

There  appear,  however,  to  be  certain  generalizations  pos- 
sible of  a  higher  order  than  any  which  we  have  yet  attempted. 
There  are,  it  would  seem,  certain  principles  which  belong  to  all 
development  of  the  mental  life  of  man ;  and  every  state  of  con- 
sciousness, and  every  form  of  so-called  faculty  in  every  stage  of 
its  formation,  appears  to  conform  to  these  principles.  They 
cannot,  indeed,  be  thrown  into  the  terms  of  mathematical  formu- 
las. To  attempt  this  would  be  not  to  increase  real  science,  but 
only  to  put  forward  the  pretence  of  science.  We  must,  there- 
fore, be  content  to  state  these  principles  in  the  somewhat  vague 
general  way  which  becomes  their  nature  ;  and  we  distinguish 
the  following  four :  The  principle  of  Continuity  ;  the  principle 
of  Relativity  ;  the  principle  of  Solidarity  ;  and  the  principle  of 
Teleological  Import. 

\  10.  In  what  sense  we  consider  psycliology  a  science  lias  already  been,  not 
only  defined,  but  also  illustrated  by  the  entire  course  of  our  investigation  ; 
in  what  sense  also  the  term  "  natural  science  "  may  be  applied  to  the  results 
of  psychological  investigation.  The  ascertainable  conditions  of  the  phenom- 
ena of  consciousness  are  such  as  to  place  them,  through  the  nervous  sys- 
tem with  its  end-organs  of  sense,  and  its  central  organs  as  dependent  ujion 
blood-suiii^ly,  in  connection  with  "nature"  at  large.  In  the  other  direction, 
as  it  wore,  l)y  the  expression  which  these  same  phenomena  get  through  re- 
sulting changes  of  the  motor  system,  they  are  further  placed  in  connection 
with  this  same  nature  at  large.  At  the  same  time,  the  assumption  that  the 
only  real  correlates,  or  causes,  or  knowablo  conditions  of  the  phenomena  of 
consciousness  are  brain-states,  and  that  ])syeliology  is  not  a  science  until  it 
has  ascertained  a  system  of  "  blank  unmediated  correspondences  "  between 
conscious  ])henomena  and  conjectural  brain-states,  wo  consider  quite  unwar- 


THE   PKINCirLE   OF   CONTINUITY  659 

rantable.  Nor  do  we  sj'mpathize  in  the  least  with  a  confession  of  weakness 
—for  example— because  "  psychology  is  still  in  the  condition  of  chemistry 
before  Lavoisier  ; "  '  nor  look  forward  with  the  expectation  that  soon  some 
Lavoisier  will  arise  to  rescue  it  from  its  i)resent  depressed  condition.  On 
the  contrary,  all  such  comparisons  between  the  two  classes  of  sciences  as  re- 
spects their  aims  and  their  possibilities,  seem  to  us  inept  and  misleading. 

By  the  Principle  of  Continuity  we  understand  that,  when  the 
mental  life  is  regarded  as  a  whole,  no  breaks  or  sudden  leaps  are 
found,  whether  as  between  its  factors  and  faculties,  or  as  hctween 
the  different  successive  states  and  stages  of  its  develojMnent.  Stated 
more  positively :— the  very  distinctions,  by  making-  which  the 
factors  are  differenced  and  the  so-called  faculties  defined,  in 
the  real  life  of  the  mind  shade  into  each  other;  and  the  evi- 
dences of  growth  and  progress  which  mark  the  different  parts 
of  the  life  of  consciousness,  in  each  period  of  growth  and  each 
deg-ree  of  progress,  are  such  as  connect  the  whole  into  one  proc- 
ess of  becoming-.  In  a  word,  the  very  nature  of  the  mind,  so  far 
as  science  can  observe  it,  is  seen  in  this  unbroken  vital  flow. 
Its  being-  is  in  being  just  such  an  uninterrupted  stream  of  psy- 
chic life. 

The  principle  of  continuity,  thus  vaguel}'^  expressed,  applies 
to  all  the  fundamental  factors  as  well  as  to  the  formed  faculties 
of  mental  life.  These  factors  may  indeed  be  distinguished  ;  and 
the  science  of  psychology  partly  consists  in  making  the  neces- 
sary distinctions.  By  the  very  word  "faculties"  we  mean  to 
recognize  the  different  modes  of  the  behavior  of  mind,  or  the 
distinctly  unlike  forms  of  mental  activity  and  mental  life.  At 
the  same  time  it  is  true  that  the  most  clearly  distinguishable  of 
factors  admit  of  being  continuously  connected  by  nearly,  or 
quite,  indistinguishable  links  ;  and  the  most  unlike  of  so-called 
faculties  involve,  in  the  combination  (so  to  speak)  which  they 
represent,  the  same  fundamental  processes.  Thus  we  may  pro- 
ceed from  one  facult}'  to  another,  softening  down  or  obliterating 
differences  by  interpolating  modifications  of  both,  which  tend  to 
bring  the  apparently  most  violent  oppositions  into  closer  prox- 
imity. Moreover,  every  stage  of  mental  evolution  requires  that 
it  should  be  connected  by  some  clear  recognitions,  or  other  dis- 
tinguishable traces,  in  consciousness  itself,  with  the  jireceding 
stages,  in  order  that  the  entire  evolution  may  deserve  the  title 
of  a  mental  evolution  at  all. 

It  is — in  part,  but  in  part  only — this  principle  of  continuity 
which  gives  its  unique  character  to  what  we  can  observe  of  men- 

'  Comp.  Professor  James  and  President  Schurman  in  the  Philosophical  Review,  March  and 
May,  1892. 


060      TYPES   AND   PRINCIPLES   OF   MENTAL   DEVELOPMENT 

tal  development.  In  all  forms  of  organic  physical  evolution 
(plants,  and  animals,  and  even,  of  course,  the  body  and  brain  of 
man)  the  factors  and  stages  of  the  evolution  have  some  exist- 
ence and  value  considered  hi  themselves,  as  it  were.  But  the 
case  of  mental  development  is  not  so.  Its  very  nature  as  men- 
tal, we  repeat,  consists  largely  in  this  continuity  which  allows 
no  factor,  or  faculty,  or  stage,  to  be  considered  as  having  any  be- 
ing in  itself.  Each  factor,  faculty,  and  stage  exists  for  con- 
sciousness as  in  and  of  its  own  continuously  flowing  life-move- 
ment. 

?  11.  To  illustrate  the  principle  of  continuity  as  respects  tlie  factors,  or 
more  primary  processes,  of  mental  life,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  do  more 
than  refer  to  the  entire  treatment  in  Parts  I.  and  II.  We  found,  indeed,  that 
the  different  sensations  cannot  be  considered  as  evolutions  of  one  primitive 
form,  as  the  psychical  correlate  of  the  simple  nervous  shock.  But  we  found 
also  that  this  infinite  variety  of  given  sensations  is  capable  of  being,  in  the 
case  of  several  of  the  senses,  arranged  in  so-called  "  scales,"  where  shades 
of  quality  and  degrees  of  intensity  merge  in  each  other,  so  that  the  dis- 
tinctions are  not  absolute.  Thus  of  colors  and  musical  sounds  and  sensations 
of  pressure,  we  may  form  such  a  continuous  series.  Moreover,  we  found 
that,  in  actual  experience,  some  of  the  more  primary  forms  of  sensation  ap- 
pear from  the  first  as  inextricably — so  far  as  consciousness  is  concerned — 
woven  together  ;  so  that,  for  example,  the  lines  between  tastes  and  smells, 
between  tactual  sensations  and  muscular  sensations,  and  even  between 
tactual  and  muscular  sensations,  on  the  one  hand,  and  sensations  of  color 
and  light,  on  the  other  hand,  seem  obliterated.  Thus  what  are  joopularly 
known  as  the  senses  are  found  to  be  complexes  of  different  theoretically,  but 
not  actually,  distinguishable  sensation-elements.  Advancing  further,  the  re- 
lation of  the  representative  image  to  its  sensation-original  was  investigated. 
And  here  it  was  found  that  between  any  s  (the  indubitably  se«sa;/on-oi'iginal) 
and  its  i  (the  recognizably  mo^^e-representative),  all  degrees  of  "lifelike- 
ness"  may  be  interpolated.  In  other  words,  sensations  and  their  represent- 
ative images  may  be  considered  as  arranged  in  a  continuous  scale.  With 
even  less  difficulty  is  the  continuity  recognized  which  maintains  itself  be- 
tween the  image  and  the  concept. 

Turning  to  the  aspect  of  feeling  we  meet  at  once  with  the  apparently 
irreconcilable  opposition  between  pleasure  and  pain.  Yet  even  here  a  scale 
of  degrees,  with  possible  neutral  feelings  lying  between  the  faintest  mem- 
bers of  the  two  opposed  parties,  and  especially  the  undoubted  presence  in  con- 
sciousness of  mixed  feelings,  of  some  of  which  we  can  scarcely  say  wliether 
they  are  more  like  pleasures  or  jmins,  help  to  soften  the  opposition.  More- 
over, one  reason  for  the  difficulty  experienced  in  trying  to  distinguish  the  more 
jn-imary  kinds  of  feeling  was  found  in  the  fact,  that  many  of  them  shade  into 
one  another  by  such  imperceptible  degrees.  Of  conation,  we  seemed  to  dis- 
cover that  its  continuity  is  temjioral,  and  in  the  line  of  the  perpetuation 
of  habit,  rather  than  in  the  possibility  of  having  its  diflferent  exhibitions 
arranged  in  scales  of  carefully  shaded  quality. 


THE    PIIIXCIPLE   OF    RELATIVITY  661 

?  12.  But  iloes  not  the  existence,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  men- 
tal development,  of  the  three  forms,  or  aspects,  of  psychic  facts — intellec- 
tive, alfoctive,  conative — limit,  in  an  important  way,  this  jirinciple  of  con- 
tinuity ?  Yes,  undoubtedly  ;  but  only  in  some  respects.  These  three  forms 
of  psychical  existence  are  indeed  irreducible ;  feelings  cannot  be  derived 
from  sensations  or  mental  images,  and  conations  are  specifically  unlike  feel- 
ings or  acts  of  knowledge,  as  such.  The  rather  have  we  seen  that  every  psy- 
chosis may  be  regarded  in  each  of  these  three  aspects  ;  and  that  all  actual 
experience  is  a  complex  in  which  knowledge,  feeling,  and  will,  are  involved. 
Yet  the  facts  that  each  state  of  consciousness  is  a  living  unity,  as  it  were, 
capable  of  being  regarded  upon  these  different  sides,  and  that  all  the  acts  of 
developed  mind  do  thus  reveal  themselves  as  really  intellective,  affective, 
and  conative,  are  illustrations  of  this  very  principle  of  continuity  as  lying  at 
the  base  of  mental  development.  Moreover,  in  that  manifold  complication 
of  factors  which  psychological  analysis  discloses,  we  come  upon  states  of 
con.sciousness  about  the  classification  of  which  we  may  well  be  in  doubt. 
Of  such  states  some  seem  to  lie  midway  between  intellection  and  feeling, 
others  midway  between  feeling  and  will.  For  example,  vague  intra-organio 
sensations  are  not  improperly  called  "  bodily  feelings  ; "  and  desires  and 
wishes  often  seem  almost  indistinguishable  from  deeds  of  will.  The  ambig- 
uous use  of  the  word  "  feeling  "  emphasizes  the  former  class  of  facts;  the 
twofold  division  of  human  faculties,  which  actually  includes  wishes  and  vo- 
litions under  the  same  general  category,  emphasizes  the  latter  class  of  facts. 

It  only  remains  to  notice  that  the  entire  theory  of  the  nature  and  devel- 
opment of  mental  faculty,  illustrates  and  enforces  this  same  principle  of 
continuity.  What  we  have  experience  of  with  ourselves,  what  wo  know  our- 
selves psychically  to  be,  and  to  be  doing,  is  not  described  fitly  in  terras  of 
some  single  function,  or  individual  activity  among  the  classical  number  of 
so-called  mental  faculties.  What  we  find  ourselves  to  be  doing  is  a  marvel- 
lous and  indescribable  fulness  of  active  life  ;  a  continuum,  for  the  total  ex- 
pression of  which  the  meagre  separateness  of  processes  and  faculties  seems  a 
totally  insuflScient  account. 


Closely  connected  with  the  foroiroing  principle — and,  indeed, 
in  such  a  way  that  the  two  are  interdependent — is  the  Principle 
of  Relativity.  The  statement  of  this  principle  with  which  we 
must  be  content  is  perhaps  vag-uer  than  that  which  has  been 
g-iven  to  the  principle  of  continuity.  The  word  "  relativity  "  has 
been  used  by  various  writers,  both  in  psycholog-y  and  in  other 
forms  of  science  or  in  philosophy,  to  cover  a  g-reat  variety  of 
conceptions.  And  doiibtloss  the  so-called  "  law  of  relativity,"  in 
almost  all  of  its  many  forms  of  statement,  has  been  too  fre- 
quently pushed  to  such  an  extreme  as  to  involve  an  error,  or 
even  an  absurdity.  Yet  we  have  no  other  term  which  so  well  ex- 
presses a  principle  that  seems  to  apply  to  an  almost  indefinite- 
ly great  number  of  psychological  facts  and  subordinate  laws. 
By  the  principle  of  relativity,  as  we  understand  it — negatively 


662       TYPES    AND   PRINCIPLES    OF   31EXTAL   DEVEL0P3IENT 

stated — it  is  denied  that  any  ps3'chic  factor,  or  complex  psycho- 
sis, can  exist  without  having-  its  own  definite  quality,  quantity, 
tone  of  feeling-,  value  in  combination,  and  influence  upon  simul- 
taneous or  successive  factors  and  psychoses,  determined  by  the 
relaiiofi  in  which  it  stands  to  other  factors  and  psychoses  in  the 
entire  mental  life.  Or — stated  positiveh' — everi/  indicidual  el^i- 
ment,  or  state,  or  form,  of  uoental  life  is  iciiai  it  is  only  as  relative  to 
otJter  tUrivtids,  states,  arul  forms  of  the  same  mental  life. 

The  foregoing  statement  is,  as  has  already  been  said,  con- 
fessedly va^e  ;  yet  it  seems  to  group  and  hold  together  a  vast 
number  of  very  impressive  facts  that  are  fundamental  in  all 
mental  development.  It  is  not  here  given  as  a  deduction  from  a 
metaphysical  proposition  like  that  of  Lotze  :  '"  To  be  =  to  be  re- 
lated." It  is  rather  made  as  an  induction  from  the  descriptive 
history  of  mental  life.  It  does  not  mean  simply  that  conscious- 
ness is  subject  to  change  ;  or  even  that  a  "  field  of  consciousness 
unaltered  by  change  "  would  be  a  blank — that  is,  no  conscious- 
ness at  all  rHobbes).  Much  less  does  it  mean  that  every  con- 
scious presentation  "is  essentially  nothing  but  "  a  transition  or 
diflference  (compare  Bain).  Xor  is  it  limited  to  the  formula  that 
"  our  sensations  afford  no  absolute  but  only  a  relative  measure  of 
external  impressions  "  (TV'undt).^  The  first  of  these  three  state- 
ments is  much  broader,  and  the  latter  two  are  much  more  special 
and  narrow,  than  the  principle  as  we  understand  it.  In  a  more 
concrete  form  the  principle  may  be  explained  thus :  Do  I  in- 
quire as  to  any  mental  state,  or  as  to  any  factor  in  any  mental 
state  (fixing  my  attention  upon  the  content  of  consciousness,  so 
far  as  possible,  in  its  entirety,  or  isolating  by  analytic  attention 
some  aspect  or  factor  of  the  whole) :  ^Tiat  is  it — as  respects 
quality,  quantity,  tone  of  feeling,  etc.?  Then  the  answer  must 
be,  this  individual  state,  or  factor,  is  what  it  is  in  dependence  on 
its  relations  to  other  mental  life  of  the  same  subject  of  all  states. 

Putting  the  two  foregoing  principles  together,  we  may  say, 
t}ie  true  picture  of  mental  life  is  that  of  a  continuum  of  interde- 
pendent psych^jses ;  or — if  we  may  be  so  far  metaphysical — de- 
scriptive ijsychology  ends  in  adopting  the  conception  of  a  heing  with 
a  unique  unity  of  nature  and  an  equally  unique  history  of  dei'dfip- 
ment. 

\  13.  The  psychological  doctrines  usually  inclnded  under  the  term 
"  Law  of  Relativity  "  are  .summarized  and  criticised  by  Dr.  Ward  '  under 
three  heads :  (1)  Hobbes's  celebrated  dictum,  that  "  to  have  the  same 
thought  or  feeling  always  and  not  to  think  or  feel  at  all  are  identical " 

'  In  the  flrpt  edition  of  his  Pliypiologische  Psychologie,  p.  43L 
'  Article  Peychologr,  Encyc.  Brit.,  p.  49  f. 


THE    PIMNCIPLE   OF    RELATIVITY  663 

{Idem  semper  sentire  et  -non  ^entire  nd  idem  recidunt),  is  said,  when  made  to 
api)ly  to  tlie  wliolo  field  of  consciousness,  to  "become  at  once  true  and 
trite."  But  surely  the  truth,  that  change  is  a  necessary  condition  of  all  con- 
sciousness, however  "trite,"  can  scarcely  be  too  constantly  kept  in  view  by 
the  psychologist.  Nor  do  we  consider  that  the  "constant  impressions," 
sometimes  called  "  fixed  ideas,"  which  occasionally  seize  upon  and  dominate 
the  entire  consciousness,  "  coloring  or  bewildering  everything,"  afford  any 
real  exceptions  to  the  principle.  The  questions  for  investigation  concern 
the  time-rate,  character,  and  laws  of  this  change  ;  and  on  all  these  qiiestioDs 
we  have  already  sufliciontly  shown  the  evidence  and  expressed  an  opinion. 

(2)  If  we  are  to  understand  Bain,  when  he  declares,  "  All  feeling  is 
two-sided.  .  .  .  The  state  we  have  passed  to  is  our  explicit  consciousness  ; 
the  state  we  have  passed /ro7?i  is  our  implicit  consciousness,  etc.,"  as  holding 
that  "all  presentations  are  bid  differences,"  then  we  must  dissent  from  the 
view,  as  does  Dr.  Ward.  Surely,  however,  the  latter  misstates  his  own  cause 
when  he  declares  :  "  But  in  passing  from  the  scent  of  a  rose  to  the  sound  of  a 
gong  or  a  sting  from  a  bee,  we  have  no  such  means  of  bringing  the  two  into 
relation."  Now,  in  case  of  so  abrupt  a  transition  in  the  content  and  feeling- 
tone  of  two  successive  mental  states,  the  law  of  relativity  would — as  we  un- 
derstand it — not  be  violated,  but  the  more  amply  illustrated.  The  amount 
of  our  absorption  in  the  scent  of  the  rose  would  influence  the  redistribution 
of  attention  to  the  sound  of  the  gong,  and  even  to  the  sting  of  the  bee  ;  the 
degree  of  jaain  which  the  succeeding  sensations  of  sound  or  smarting  gave 
would  be  enhanced  by  the  preceding  pleasure  ;  the  control  of  the  motor 
results  of  the  new  sensation  would  be  determined  by  the  perceptions,  etc., 
into  which  this  sensation  abruptly  broke  ;  and  so  on,  and  so  on.  Indeed, 
extreme  as  the  statement  might  seem,  the  total  content  of  consciousness  of 
any  man,  even  when  stung  by  a  bee,  is  what  it  is,  only  as  determined  by  the 
character  of  the  stream  of  consciousness,  by  the  entire  psychic  life,  into 
which  this  particular  content  falls.  (3)  The  criticism  which  Dr.  Ward  gives 
to  the  formulation  of  the  law  of  relativity  by  Wundt,  as  well  as  the  formula 
itself,  need  not  concern  us  here.  So  far  as  either  affects  the  principle  of 
relativity,  they  have  already  been  sufficiently  considered  in  the  discussion  of 
Weber's  law,  of  the  nature  of  discriminating  consciousness,  of  color  and 
other  contrast,  etc. 

'■  It  is  impossible,"  says  a  modern  writer  on  psychology,  "  to  resolve 
consciousness  into  a  series  of  simple  and  self-existent  sensations,  absolutely 
independent  of  one  another."'  '  The  same  author  applies  a  similar  "law  of 
relativity  "  to  the  feelings  and  to  the  will.  We  intend  so  to  extend  and  to 
state  the  principle  as  to  cover  every  factor  and  state  of  consciousness  ;  but 
to  do  this,  without  denying  a  real  and  positive  content  to  consciousness,  and 
without  affirming  that  the  "  mutual  relations  of  impressions  are  everything." 
On  the  one  hand,  it  is  not  time  that  "  we  cannot  have  a  presentation  X,  but 
only  the  presentation  of  the  difference  between  Y  and  Z ;  "  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  tiaie  that  every  presentation  X,  or  Y,  or  Z,  is  just  such  rather 
than  X',  or  F',  or  Z',  in  dependence  upon  the  relations  it  sustains  to  the 
whole  alphabet  of  the  mental  experience. 

I  14.  Properly  understood,  the  principle  of  the  relativity  of  psychical 

'  HOffding :  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  114. 


(564       TYPES    AND    PKINCIPLES    OF    MENTAL   DEVELOP.MENT 

phenomena  admits  of  almost  unlimited  illustration.  We  have  seen  that  the 
principle  applies  to  the  quantities  and  qualities  of  all  manner  of  sensations, 
to  the  sensation-complexes  resulting  from  their  mixture,  and  to  the  per- 
ceptions which  arise  in  the  development  of  intellect  under  the  influence  of 
sensuous  excitations.  As  respects  quantity  of  sensations,  although  Weber's 
law  cannot  be  proved  to  have  the  exactness  and  universality  of  application 
which  has  sometimes  been  claimed,  yet  the  facts  which  it  generalizes  all 
show  that  the  question,  "  how  much  "  any  sensation  is,  in  the  estimate  of 
consciousness,  depends  upon  the  relation  in  which  it  stands  to  i:)revious  sen- 
sation-experience— especially,  of  course,  to  that  most  immediately  anteced- 
ent. It  is  true,  as  Dr.  Ward  has  said,  that  "a  letter-sorter  who  identifies 
an  ounce  or  two  ounces  with  remarkable  exactness  identifies  each  for  itself 
and  not  the  first  as  half  the  second."  But  it  is  also  true  that  this  identifica- 
tion is  itself  a  complex  psychical  act  of  sensation  and  intellection  which,  as 
respects  every  factor  of  it  as  well  as  considered  in  its  entirety,  falls  under 
the  principle  of  relativity.  Change  the  relation  in  which  this  experience  of 
sensuous  quanta  and  qualia  stands  to  i:)revious  experience — for  example,  by 
fatigue  of  the  arm,  or  distraction  of  the  attention,  or  requiring  jiist  previous 
the  lifting  of  heavy  weights,  etc. — and  the  total  experience  itself  becomes 
different. 

We  have  also  seen  that  the  very  nature  of  all  our  more  complex  feelings 
and  deeds  of  will  is  such  as  to  indicate  the  importance  of  the  relations  they 
sustain  to  sensation,  to  imagination,  and  to  thinking,  as  the  accompaniment 
and  habitual  sequents  of  the  same.  But  we  should  scarcely  do  otherwise  than 
repeat  the  whole  story  of  the  analysis,  already  made,  of  the  elements  and  of 
the  progressively  complex  developments  of  mental  life,  if  we  endeavored 
fully  to  illustrate  the  principle  of  relativity.  The  word  "  faculty,"  indeed, 
represents  an  abstraction  ;  but  the  facts  of  mental  life  and  mental  develoji- 
ment  which  justify  the  abstraction  are  themselves  all  explicable  only  as 
standing  in  relation  to  each  other.  Each  psychic  reality — the  actual  state 
of  consciousness — has  its  characteristics  defined  only  while  it  exists  as  a 
complex  of  related  factors,  and  as  being  itself  a  "moment"  related  to  the 
onflowing  stream  of  consciousness.  [To  use  rather  high  and  dry  metaphysi- 
cal language  (and  this,  on  account  of  its  impressiveness)  : — What  the  indi- 
vidual phenomenon  of  consciousness  is  "in  itself"  can  be  understood  scien- 
tifically only  as  this  "in-itself-being "  is  seen  to  be  related  to  all  the 
"  other-being  "  of  the  same  so-called  Self.] 

By  tlie  Principle  of  Solidarity  we  intend  to  emphasize  all  that 
is  acconi})lished  in  mental  develo]iment,nnder  the  foresfoin.cf  two 
principles,  by  the  working"  of  habit,  in  the  widest  possible  mean- 
ing of  this  latter  word.  The  mental  life  in  its  development  is  a 
whole  in  which  the  continuity  and  relation  of  all  the  different 
factors,  aspects,  states,  and  staj2fes,  mnst  be  reoosfnized.  But 
more  than  this — to  speak  with  no  unmeaning-  figure  of  speech — 
the  effect  of  every  partial  or  eonqdcte  worl'lng  of  the  xtsycMc  mech- 
anism is  felt  upon  tJie  weal  or  the  woe  of  the  ichole  de celopvient ; 
and  this  development  necessarily  tends  toward  some  kind  of  uniji- 


THE    PRIXCIPLE   OF    SOLIDAIIITY  665 

cdtion  of  7'esulf.  To  say  this  is  scarcely  more  than  to  call  atten- 
tion to  the  truth  that  in  psychology  we  are  dealing  with  "  bio- 
logical "  i)henoinena  ;  the  being,  called  Mind,  whose  history  is 
the  subject  of  our  study,  is  a  IJfe.  Furthermore,  it  is  of  all 
known  forms  of  life  incomparably  the  most  complex,  the  most 
full,  at  first,  of  iindefined  possibilities. 

In  the  study  of  mental  develo]nnent  we  recognize  the  gi'eat 
l)lasticity,  both  organic  and  also  strictlj^  psychical,  of  the  begin- 
nings ;  but  we  recognize  also  that  the  lines  along  which  the  de- 
velopment proceeds  become,  although  perhaps  more  numerous 
even  than  the  early  promise  warranted  us  in  expecting,  yet  con- 
stantly more  legibly  and  rigidly  drawn.  For  the  term  "  habit  " 
seems  to  apply  to  the  development  of  every  mental  faculty ;  and 
the  influence  of  what  we  call  habit  is  felt  in  every  mental  act. 
We  have  thus  to  recognize  habits  of  sensation  and  habits  of 
feeling,  and  as  well,  haliits  of  reproductive  image-making  and 
habits  of  conscious  discrimination  ;  while  the  all-powerful  move- 
ment of  attention,  with  its  constant  focusing  and  redistributing 
of  psychic  energy,  falls  under  the  law  of  habit.  Of  course,  then, 
all  the  complex  developed  faculties  of  perception,  imagination, 
thought,  emotion,  and  desire,  are  understood  to  exemplify  the 
same  law.  "While  the  very  seats  of  passive  and  active  voluntarj- 
habit  are  thought  to  be  in  the  association  of  ideas  and  in  deeds 
of  will  resulting  in  conduct,  of  the  real  origin  and  nature  of 
this  universal  dominion  of  habit  we  can — to  speak  the  truth — 
give  little  or  no  account ;  or  rather,  all  our  attempted  account- 
ing for  it  is,  at  last,  only  a  restatement  of  the  facts.  This  is  true 
whether  we  vaguely  talk  of  mental  tendencies  and  aptitudes  as 
siibconscious  qualifications  of  an  entity  called  mind  ;  or  yet  more 
vaguely  talk  of  tendencies,  and  strains,  and  potencies  as  belong- 
ing to  the  substance  (the  protoplasm,  or  "  psychic  "  nerve-cells) 
of  the  brain. 

The  principal  classes  of  facts  which  state,  without  accounting 
for,  the  law  of  habit  are  the  following  :  (1)  Every  form  of  psy- 
cho-physical or  more  piirely  psychical  activit}' — the  more  simple 
and  fundamental  as  well  as  the  more  complex  and  highly  devel- 
oped— having  once  occurred  is  more  likely  to  occur  ngain.  The 
degree  of  likelihood  of  the  recurrence  of  any  particular  activity 
can  be  only  doubtfully  measured  according  to  the  frequency  of 
its  repetition,  its  relation  to  other  habitual  forms  of  action,  its 
fitness  in  the  sj'stem  of  the  prevalent  "  disposition,"  etc.,  etc. 
(2)  Habitual  forms  of  activity — that  is,  tlios(^  actually  repeated 
with  frequency — are  regularly  (but  not  always)  characterized  (a) 
by  a  lack  of  painful  feelings  of  difficulty  or  by  positive  feelings 


666       TYPES   AND   PRINCIPLES   OF   MENTAL   DEVELOPMENT 

of  ease.  They  emerge  in  tlie  stream  of  consciousness  witlioiit 
agitating-  its  current.  Some  liabits,  however,  like  the  habitual 
indulgence  of  certain  emotions  and  passions,  are  of  their  very 
nature  frequently  recurring  agitations  of  this  current,  (b)  Di- 
minishing of  conscious  attention,  and  of  the  hesitation  and  du- 
bitation,  which  such  attention  often  occasions,  characterizes 
in  general  our  habitual  forms  of  mental  activity.  But  here  we 
may  also  speak,  with  equal  correctness,  of  the  habit  of  con- 
scious attention,  habit  of  hesitation,  habit  of  giving  one's  self  the 
pause  before  decision  or  action,  (c)  Prompt  and  accurate  move- 
ment in  general  belongs  to  all  those  forms  of  habitual  activity 
which  allow  of  expression  in  movement.  This  promptness  is 
connected  with  the  lapsing  of  the  necessity  to  think  how  to  act, 
or  even  to  call  up  in  consciousness  any  mental  image  of  the 
movement  as  it  is  to  be  accomplished,  (d)  In  cases  where  the 
degree  of  almost  or  quite  complete  unconsciousness  does  not 
characterize  the  preparation  and  execution  of  an  habitual  act, 
the  psychical  series  which  leads  up  to  and  issues  in  the  act  is 
ordinarily  much  condensed. 

(3)  An  important  feature  of  all  habits  is  determined  by  the 
relation  in  which  they  stand  to  that  side  of  consciousness  which 
we  have  called  the  AVill,  as  developed,  self-determining  conation. 
A  look  at  this  feature  seems  to  justify  again  the  division  of  our 
habits  into  two  classes — namely,  the  habits  vie  have  (as  adopted, 
so  to  speak,  by  act  of  will)  and  the  habits  which  have  us  (sub- 
jected to  themselves,  as  it  were).  Yet  this  division  is  by  no 
means  fixed  and  absolute,  as  we  have  already  had  abundant  oc- 
casion to  remark. 

Finally,  the  bearing  of  this  universal  law  of  habit  on  the  sol- 
idarity of  mental  development  is  now  obvious.  Habit  is  in 
itself  a  partial  reduction  to  order  of  the  group  of  phenomena 
within  which  it  "holds,"  or  "reigns,"  as  we  expressively  say. 
But,  further,  as  certain  individual  psycho-physical  and  practical 
activities  cannot  take  place  simultaneously,  on  account  of  their 
opposed  character  or  on  account  of  the  limitations  of  conscious- 
ness, so  is  it  with  habits  of  activity.  Interferences  of  habit  must 
be  settled  by  domination  of  the  stronger,  by  "  survival  of  the  fit- 
test ; "  or  the  decision  between  the  contestants  must  be  made  by 
conscious  deeds  of  will,  persistently  ]>ut  forth  for  an  end,  and  on(> 
habit  thus  enforced  and  furthered  to  the  diminishing  of  the  other  ; 
or  perhaps  a  new  habit  persistently  formed.  Thus  in  the  devel- 
opment of  mental  life  a  sort  of  liierarchy  of  habits  is  necessarily 
formed.  Whether  those  voluntarily  adopted  in  view  of  some  sies- 
thetical  or  ethical  ideal,  and  enforced  by  sentiment,  or  those 


THE   ORGANIC   BASIS   OF   IIA15IT  G67 

more  passively  oxperiouced  as  arisino:  out  of  the  senses  and  emo- 
tions, regularly  prevail ;  in  any  event,  a  sort  of  unitij  of  iiieniul 
life  must  resnlt  from  tlw  irork'ni[f  if  t/ii.s  2^rina'ple.  Here,  as 
everywhere  in  the  realm  of  vital  i)henomena,  more  than  a  certain 
amount  of  confusion  and  uncci'tainty  is  intolerable.  The  princi- 
ple of  solidarity  must  prevail. 

^  15.  The  biological  and  oi-ganic  basis  of  habit  lias  alreailv  been  illus- 
trated in  treating  of  the  cerebral  conditions  of  the  reproductive  imagina- 
tion (p.  241  f.).  Eveiytliing  about  the  infant  indicates  a  mobile,  flexible, 
changeable  condition  of  the  bodily  organs  ;  and  an  especially  massive  de- 
veloi)ment  of  the  cerebral  nervous  system  with  plastic  and  mouldable  tissue 
in  great  abundance  as  compared  with  any  uses  to  wliich  such  tissue  has  al- 
ready been  put.  The  metabolic  activities  of  the  infant  are  mucli  more  pro- 
nounced than  are  those  cf  the  adult.  Its  rapid  heart-beat,  frequent  respira- 
tion, higher  temiierature,  large  relative  size  of  the  heart  and  organs  of  sense, 
are  indications  pointing  in  the  same  direction.  At  the  other  extreme,  stands 
the  much  diminished  metabolism,  the  hardened  tissue  with  its  loss  of 
plasticity  and  aeqtiired  tendencies  to  function  only  in  definite  ways,  which 
are  characteristic  of  old  age.  That  infancy  and  youth  are  formative  periods, 
that  habits  of  all  sorts  are  tlien  in  the  process  of  forming,  but  that  new  ways 
of  living  and  acting  cannot  easily  be  assumed  or  reasonably  expected  in  later 
life,  and  that  every  adnlt  is  a  being  of  formed  habits  (oven  if  it  be  the  one 
hal)it  of  fickleness  and  incalculable  conduct  which  is  chiefly  characteristic) 
— to  .say  all  this  is  to  spe.ak  trutli  so  trite  that  it  scarcely  wins  attention.  To 
illustrate  this  truth  completely,  and  especially  to  enforce  it  as  bearing  on 
conduct  and  character,  would  carry  us  again  over  the  entire  areas  already 
traversed. 

^  16.  We  shall  therefore  make  no  further  attempt  to  enforce  this  uni- 
versally admitted  law  of  habit.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  it  is  found  jireva- 
lent  everywhere  ;  and  that  everything  which  is  done  by  every  human  being, 
who  has  well  entered  on  a  course  of  development,  illustrates  the  law.  The 
way  we  walk  and  stand  and  sit  and  tallc  and  write  and  eat  and  work  and 
play ;  and  as  well  the  way  we  perceive,  wliether  with  or  without  carefnl  at- 
tention, and  the  way  we  imagine  and  think  and  feol  and  desire — all  come 
under  the  dominion  of  habit.  Nor  do  we  fail  to  illustrate  this  principle  as 
truly  when  choosing,  with  much  high  thought  and  painstaking  emotion,  our 
profession  in  life  or  our  religion,  as  whenhalf-consciously  winding  our  watch 
in  mid-day  because  we  are  clianging  our  clothing  at  an  unaccustomed  liour, 
or  standing  and  wondering  in  the  etlbrt  to  unlock  some  door  with  the  wrong 
key,  becaiise  this  one  of  our  bunch  of  keys  has  been  habitually  connected 
with  trains  of  thought  such  as  we  are  now  following. 

The  degrees  of  unconscious  skill  acquired,  the  amount  of  conscious  at- 
tention still  required,  the  duration  and  strength  of  the  power,  of  the  habit, 
the  I'ange  of  activities  covered  by  it,  the  relation  in  which  it  stands  to  the 
comjilex  activities  of  knowledge,  feeling,  and  willing,  vary  indefinitely  with 
different  persons  and  diflerent  classes  of  habits.  Thus  we  find  the  juggler 
Houdin  testifying  that  after  thirty  years  of  cessation  from  practice,  though 
he  had  "  scarcely  once  touched  the  balls  during  that  period,  he  could  still 


668       TYPES    AND    PRINCIPLES    OF    MENTAL    DEVELOPMENT 

manage  to  read  with  ease  while  keeping  three  balls  in  the  air  at  once."  ' 
On  the  other  hand,  we  encounter  frequent  instances  where  some  supreme 
choice,  as  in  certain  cases  of  moral  reform*  or  of  religious  conversion,  seems 
to  reverse  with  a  single  shock  the  habitual  currents  of  thought,  feeling,  and 
will,  as  they  have  been  flowing  for  many  years.  And  yet  even  in  the  man- 
ner of  this  reversal,  as  has  already  been  said,  the  general  principle  of  habit 
vindicates  itself. 

It  is  "with  no  view  to  provoke  metaphysical  or  theological 
discussion  that  we  call  attention  to  the  fact  of  the  Teleological 
Import  of  all  mental  development.  No  science  of  the  life  of  the 
mind  is  possible  without  recognizing-  the  presence  of  final  piir- 
pose  in  the  collocation  and  arrangement  Avliich  the  phenomena 
come  to  have,  as  the  stream  of  consciousness  flows  on.  It  may 
be  that  in  saying  this  we  are  only  enunciating  what  is  the  self- 
conscious  and  intellectual  way  of  the  developed  mind  for  regard- 
ing its  own  development — the  wa}^  the  Self,  as  it  were,  seems  to 
itself.  The  ultimate  nature  and  ground  of  the  seeming  does  not 
now  concern  us.  What  does  concern  us  is  that,  Avherever  the 
phenomena  of  consciousness  become  objects  of  knowledge,  and 
so  the  beginnings  of  a  science  of  mental  life  are  made  possible, 
there  these  phenomena  appear  ordering  themselves  so  as  to  at- 
tain practical  ends.  Activity  fo  some  purpose  is  the  ruling  prin- 
ciple of  mental  develox>ment.  The  self-conscious,  intelligent, 
adoption  of  a  plan,  and  selection  of  means  for  its  pursuit,  is 
distinctive  of  the  acme  of  man's  development.  The  more  com- 
prehensive this  plan,  and  the  wiser  the  selection  of  means,  the 
higher  is  the  standing  of  the  individual  in  the  scale  of  intel- 
lectual development.  But  ends  suggested  by  festhetical  and 
ethical  sentiment  seem  adapted  to  control  large  spheres  of  hu- 
man activity  ;  and  the  latter  especially,  from  the  very  nature  of 
the  mandate  with  which  it  sanctions  the  end  that  promises  its 
owai  satisfaction,  has  at  least  a  sort  of  phenomenal  supremacy. 
But  meanwhile  the  principles  of  continuity,  of  relativity,  and  of 
conscious  and  unconscious  habit,  forbid  that  any  consciously  ac- 
cepted end  should  be  isolated,  as  it  were,  from  the  entire  life 
both  bodily  and  psychical.  And  when  we  regard  the  working  of 
all  of  those  principles,  in  every  detail  of  mental  development,  avo 
l)ecome  aware  that  the  import  of  final  puri)ose  in  the  mental  life 
extends  far  beyond  the  conscious  adoption  of  ends  on  our  own 
part.  In  other  words,  the  stream  of  consciousness  ai>pears  not 
so  much  as  a  current  flowing  we  know  not  whence  ncn-  whither  ; 
but  rather  as  a  current  designed  from  the  beginning,  both  as  re- 

'  AutobioRraphy  as  cited  by  Carpenter  :  Mental  Plij'siology,  p.  217  f.;  andJmnes  :  The  Principles 
of  Psychology,  L,  p.  117. 


TELEOLOGY    OF    MENTAL    LIFE  CGi) 

spocts  its  observable  surface  and  its  hidden  depths — partly  self- 
ilirec'ted  aud  partly  impelled  by  hidden  forces — to  the  lit  per- 
formance of  a  certain  work.  13nt  what  that  work  most  fit  is,  if 
any  snch  there  be,  scientific  psyclndog-y  does  not  investi<^ate. 

In  fine,  a  combination  of  all  these  principles,  as  they  appear 
in  their  actual  operation,  secures  for  every  so-called  stream  of 
consciousness  that  continuity,  related  action,  solidarity  of  char- 
acter, and  that  intelli<;'ible  import  as  judged  by  the  light  of  ends 
and  ideals,  which  are  necessary  to  the  history  of  what  Ave  call  a 
Soul,  or  a  Mind. 


INDEX 


Abstraction,  process  of,  in  ideation,  282  f. 

After-images,  I'M ;  as  distinguished  from 
ideas,  3o7  f. 

Allen,  Grant,  on  conditions  of  pleasure-pain, 
11)2. 

Analysis,  process  of,  in  all  intellection, 
3',):i  f. 

Anger,  as  pleasure-pain,  201  ;  as  an  emotion, 
5;vS,  548,  553. 

Appetites,  the,  59G  f. 

Archer,  William,  on  psychology  of  acting, 
418,  548  {uute). 

Aristotle,  on  the  feeling  of  pleasure,  203 ; 
laws  of  as.5ociation,  274  f. ;  dictum  of,  474  ; 
categories  of,  487  f. 

Arnold,  Mattliew,  on  feeling,  558. 

Aronsohn,  on  sensations  of  smell,  100  {)ioie). 

Art,  sensory  illusions  in,  374  f.;  dependence 
of,  on  creative  imagination,  415  f.,  419  f. , 
424 ;  cognitions  of,  512 ;  the  emotions  in, 
548,  555. 

Assimilation,  as  intellectual  process,  303  f. 

Association,  of  primary  feelings,  20'.)  f.  ;  of 
ideas,  263  f.,  2(58  ;  contiguity,  as  the  law 
of,  2()8  f.  ;  subordinate  laws  of,  274  f. ; 
special  cases  of,  279 ;  in  the  synthesis  of 
memory,  393. 

Associational  School,  the  English,  103  f., 
26(5. 

Attention,  as  belonging  to  all  consciousness, 
33,  61  f. ,  04 ;  and  primary,  61  f.  ;  ))hysio- 
logical  conditions  of,  65  ;  distribution  of, 
69  f.  ;  rise  and  fall  of,  71  f.  ;  rhythm  in, 
72  f.  ;  relation  of,  to  intellect,  75  f.;  as  ad- 
justment, 77  f.  ;  relation  of,  to  feeling,  78 
f.;  and  to  conation,  83  f.,  213  £,  366  ;  as  a 
"  deed  of  will,"  84  ;  effect  of,  in  perception, 
366  f . ;  and  in  memory,  394  f . 

B.VGEnoT,  on  emotion  of  conviction,  516. 

Bain,  on  neutral  feelings,  189  ;  conditions  of 
pleasure-pain,  192 ;  on  the  emotions,  554, 
597  (note) ;  on  principle  of  relativity, 
663  f. 

Baldwin,  on  nature  of  feeling,  165  (riote)  ; 
motor  consciousness,  214  ;  and  feeling  of 
effort,  222  f. ;  on  reproduction,  3S2 ;  on 
feeling  of  ritness,  568  {note). 

Balzac,  imagination  of,  419  ;  on  anger,  553. 

Baxt,  on  speed  of  consciousness,  43  f. 

Beauni.s,  on  reaetion-time,  08  ;  on  muscular 
sensibility,  117  ;  conditions  of  pleasure- 
pains,  19o,  201  f. 

Beautiful,  the,  feeling  of,  569  f.  ;  kinds  of, 
575  f . 

Belief,  as  entering  into  cognition,  512  f. , 
517  f. 


Beneke,  on  problem  of  psychology,  9 ;  his 
method,  26. 

Bergson,  on  intensity  of  sensation,  131 
(notr). 

Berkeley,  his  theory  of  vision,  357  f. ;  on  ab- 
stract ideas,  442  f. 

Binet,  on  muscular  effects  of  attention,  73  ; 
psychic  life  of  micro-organisms,  84 ;  on 
Weber's  experiment,  15() ;  discernment  of 
amount  by  children,  299 ;  on  nature  of 
perception,  320;  on  memory,  380;  and 
the  conception  of  Self,  527  {note'). 

Bliss,  on  cliauges  of  attention,  73  (note). 

Blix,  on  sensations  of  j)ain,  190  (?iote). 

Body,  tactual  picture  of  the,  325  f .  ;  orient- 
ing of,  33S  ;  developed  i)en'ej)tiou  of,  339. 

Bosancpiet,  on  conception,  445;  nature  of 
the  copula,  450  (nutt) ;  and  of  reasoning, 
482. 

Bouillier,  on  retention  of  ideas,  383  f. 

Bourget,  on  youthful  imagination,  419. 

Brain,  as  involved  in  attention,  67  f. ;  pro- 
cesses of,  in  sensation,  98  f.  ;  and  in  feel- 
ing, 175  f. ;  aiul  conation,  217  f . ;  as  sen- 
sory-motor, 22S  ;  in  intellection,  291  f. 

Brentano,  on  nature  of  consciousness,  34 
{note)  ;  and  judgment,  308  (note). 

Brillat-Savarin,  on  perceptions  of  taste,  329 
(note). 

Browning,  on  teleologv  of  pain,  558. 

Briickner,  on  organ  of  hearing,  104  (note). 

Byasson,  on  waste  of  brain-tissue,  68. 

Cabanis,  on  sexual  emotion,  597  (note). 

Canals,  the  .semi-rireular,  use  in  perception  ,~ 
of  position,  158  ;  and  of  sound,  331  f.  ;  in  ^ 
illusions  of  giddiness,  37;i  f. 

Caj)pie,  Dr.,  on  causation  of  sleep,  47  (note). 

Categories,  the,  nature  of,  487  f . ,  490  f . ;  doc- 
trine of,  409  f. 

Cattell,  on  grasp  of  consciousness,  40,  272 ; 
distinction  of  color-tones,  130. 

Cause,  the  conception  of,  475  f. ,  500  f., 
505  f.  ;  law  of  causation,  503  f. 

Character,  meanings  of  word,  638  f.  ;  forma- 
tion of,  639;  conception  of,  (i41  f. 

Choice,  phenomena  of,  621  f.  ;  factors  in, 
622  f. 

Classification,  434  f.  (and  see  Thought  and 
Reasoning). 

Cognition,  as  consciousness  of  resemblance 
and  difference,  296  f. 

Color,  sensations  of,  105  f.  ;  theories  of,  106 
f.  ;  complementary,  108  f.  ;  pure  or  satu- 
rated, 109. 

Color-audition,  1.59  f. 

Color-blindness,  123  f. 


672 


INDEX 


Comparison,  as  intellectual,  302  £.,  304  ;  es-  | 
sential  to  thinking,  432  f.,  435  f.  ;  condi- 
tions of,  435  f. 

Conation,  as  related  to  attention,  83  f .  ;  as 
primary   datum  of  consciousness,  211  f.  ;  ' 
relation  of,  to  movement,  212  f.  ;  physio- 
logical conditions  of,  2lGf.  ;  psychological 
expression  of,  219  f.  ;  influence  of,  in  per-  , 
ception,  340  f. ,  3G7  f. 

Conception,  nature  of,  437  f.,  443  f.  ;  as  de- 
pendent on  ideation,  339  f.  ;  kinds  of, 
441  f. 

Consciousness,  definition  of,  2,  29  f.;  as  ob- 
ject of  knowledge,  4  f.,  32  f..  523  f.  ;  prob- 
lem of,  1(5  f.  ;  observation  of,  direct,  16  f.  ; 
various  uses  of  the  word,  31  f.  ;  attention 
necessary  to,  33  f.,  (54  f.  ;  as  discriminat- 
ing, 34  f .  ;  state  of,  35  f . ;  unity  in  variety 
of,  37  f.  ;  fields  of,  39  f.,  41  f.  ;  circuit  of, 
40  f.,  254 ;  speed  of,  42  f.  ;  character  of, 
46,  523  f.  ;  physical  conditions  of,  46  f .  ; 
as  cjiiphcjioyaoLon,  47 ;  as  conative  and 
active,  214,  290  f .  ;  limitations  of,  258  f . ; 
of  similarity,  293  f.  ;  of  difference,  294  f.  ; 
of  self-activity  in  willing,  635  f. 

Contiguity,  as  the  law  of  the  association  of 
ideas,  268  1,  275  f. ;  in  space  and  time, 
277  f. 

Continuity,  principle  of,  659  f . 

Corti,  organ  of,  104. 

Cudworth,  on  nature  of  will,  214. 

Curiosity,  as  an  emotion,  540  f .  ;  as  a  senti- 
ment of  intellect,  566  f . 

Darwin,  on  physiology  of  the  emotions, 
558  f . 

Deduction,  nature  of,  478  f .  (see  also  Reason- 
ing). 

Delage,  on  sensations  of  position,  158  (note). 

DelbcEuf,  on  memorv  in  dreams,  386 ;  and 
the  conception  of  Self,  529. 

Desires,  the,  nature  of,  (501  f.  ;  development 
of,  ()05  f.  ;  kinds  of,  606  f. 

Dietze,  on  grasp  of  consciousness,  40  (note). 

Differentiation,  as  intellectual  process,  303 
f.,  447  f.  ;  judgments  of,  447  f. 

Discrimination,  as  belonging  to  all  conscious- 
ness, 34  £.,  172  f.,  288  f.  ;  as  applied  to 
several  objects,  40  f. ,  7(5,  299;  dependent 
on  attention,  75  f.  ;  threshold  of,  137  f.  ; 
of  skin-sensations,  152  f.  ;  of  vi.sual  areas, 
153  f.  ;  as  consciousness  of  difference, 
294  f . 

Dittes,  on  memory,  380  (note). 

Donaldson,  on  brain-centers  of  smell,  100 
{7iole). 

Donders,  on  effect  of  accommodation,  356  ; 
and  will  reaction-time,  625. 

Doubt,  relation  of,  to  clear  memory,  402. 

Dreams,  412  f.  (and  passun  under  Ideas, 
Ideation,  Imagination,  and  Memory). 

Dunan,  on  skin-perceptions,  341  (note). 

Dwelshauer,  on  nature  of  attention,  66  f. 
(yiote). 

Ear,  as  organ  of  sound,  103,  135  f.  ;  struct- 
ure of  the  inner,  103  f. ;  sensitiveness  of, 
135  f. 

Ebbinghans,  on  rhvthm  of  attention,  72  f.  ; 
laws  of  reproduction,  272,  273,  292,  406  f. 

Egger,  on  memory  of  sensations,  392  f. 

Ego  (see  Self). 


Eifjenlicht^  of  retina,  109. 

Emotions,  the  development  of,  .534  f.,  .537  f., 
544  f.  ;  bodily  basis  of,  .535  f.,  546  f.  ;  the 
''mixed,"  536  f.,  5.')4 ;  how  different 
from  sentiments,  542  f.  ;  effect  of,  on 
ideation,  550  f.  ;  teleology  of,  557  f. 

Empiricists,  the,  325  f. 

End-organs,  of  smell.  99  f.  ;  of  taste,  101  f.  ; 
of  sound,  104  f.  ;  of  light  and  color,  108  f.  ; 
of  the  skin,  111  1.  ;  of  the  muscles,  116  f. 

Enthymeme,  nature  of,  466  f.  (and  note), 
473. 

Everett,  Professor,  on  creative  imagination, 
411,  422. 

Exuer,  on  sensations  of  sound,  103  (note). 

Eye,  structure  of,  108  f.,  154;  sensations 
of,  109  f.,  3.54  f.  ;  sensations  of  position 
of,  1.53  f. ,  354  f.  ;  activity  of,  in  vision, 
354  f. 

Faculties,  the  mental,  meaning  of  term, 
49  f.,  317  f.  ;  previous  doctrine  of,  51  f.  ; 
variety  of,  53  f.  ;  three-fold  classification 
of,  57  f.,  59  f.  ;  development  of,  317  f. 

Fancy, distinguished  from  imagination,  421  f. 

Fear,  as  an  emotion,  538  f. ,  549. 

Fechner,  law  of,  136  f.  ;  on  nature  of  mem- 
ory-images, 249  (note)  ;  and  of  the  emo- 
tions, 548. 

Feeling,  nature  of,  19  f.,  162  f. ;  relation  to 
attention,  78  f.  ;  history  of  psvchologv  of, 
163  f.  ;  kin-rls  of,  167  f.,  182  f.  ;  quantity 
of,  1(59  f.,  193  ;  conditions  of ,  171  f.  :_^phy- 
sical  basis  of,  173  f.  ;  of  Self,  175  f.  ; 
so-called  "  common  feeling,"  185  f.  ;  time- 
rate  of,  186  f.,  203  f.,  205;  as  pleasure- 
pain,  188  f.  ;  rhythm  of,  203  f.  ;  diffusion 
of,  209  f.  ;  association  of,  209  f.  ;  relation 
of,  to  knowledge,  511  f .  ;  the  asthetical, 
572  f.  ;  the  ethical,  .579  f.  ;  of  the  ought, 
.580  f.  ;  of  approbation,  581  f. 

Feeling  of  effort,  nature  of,  221  f. 

Feelings,  the,  classification  of,  179  f.  ;  the 
sensuous,  183  f.,  197  f.  ;  of  relation,  199  f.  ; 
effect  of,  in  perception,  365  f. 

Fere,  on  dynamometric  force,  48,  2'2^>,  231 . 

Fortlage,  on  sensory-motor  experience,  117 
(note)  ;  and  synthesis  in  judgment,  308. 

Fouillee,  on  feeling  of  energ}-,  223  ;  on  prin- 
ciple of  contiguity,  268. 

Freedom  of  the  will,  632  f.  ;  consciousness 
of,  636  f . 

Galton,  on  reproduction  of  ideas,  285. 

Gellc,  on  perceptions  of  sound,  331  (note^. 

Generalization,  433  f.  (and  see  Thought  and 
Reasoning). 

George,  on  self-consciousness,  35  ;  nature  of 
time,  498  (note). 

Gerdy,  on  nature  of  sensation,  94. 

Gothe,  on  self-knowledge,  20,  572;  sensu- 
ous feelings,  185 ;  on  the  influence  of 
names,  .529  ;  on  instinct,  .599. 

Goldscheider,  on  speed  of  temperature-sen- 
sations, 43  ;  on  joint-sensations,  118  ;  feel- 
ings of  pain,  190  (note). 

Gowcrs,  on  brain  as  sensory-motor,  228. 

Grief,  as  an  emotion,  539. 

Grinthuisen,  on  imagination  in  dreams, 
413. 

Guyau,  on  assthetical  sentiment,  572 
(note'). 


INDKX 


ot:} 


H  vcKEL,  on  construction  of  space-concep- 
tions, 4'.l3  {note). 

Ilalluoiiiationis,  of  perception,  S70  f. 

ilHinilton,  Sir  VV^illiiim,  on  niitiiro  of  con- 
sciousness, ill  ;  ju";i>!>  of  consciousnc.>is, 
40;  use  of  word  conation,  214  ;  and  word 
idea,  2o4  (note). 

Hartsen,  on  nature  of  conscionsness,  MS 
(note);  and  sentiment  of  trutli,  5(>(; 
(note). 

Havcraft,  character  of  tastable  substances, 

ib-i. 

Hearing,  perceptions  of,  330  f. 

Hpj^cI,  on  nature  of  judgment,  4',')'.). 

Hclmholtz,  on  vacillation  of  attention,  71  f.  ; 
on  mechanism  of  sound,  K'4  ;  theory  of 
colors,  107  f.  ;  limits  of  pitch,  r.':{;  on 
contrast,  127;  sensations  of  accommoda- 
tion, oOO  f . 

Hcnsen,  on  organ  of  sound,  104. 

Herhart,  on  problem  of  psychology.  '.• ;  his 
method,  ~(» ;  on  tlie  mental  faculties,  52 ; 
theory  of  feeling,  Kl'.t;  on  reaction  of 
ideiis,  25.5  f.  ;  nature  of  tlesire,  60o. 

Hering,  on  temperature-sensations,  114; 
phj'siologicai  conditions  of  memory,  24o. 

Hodgson,  on  nature  of  psychology,  1 1  f. 

lloffding,  on  changes  of  feeling,  ^>o;  cona- 
tion as  active,  214;  laws  of  association, 
27S ;  on  the  emotions,  554  f.  ;  and  the 
nature  of  will,  (111  f.,  (i27. 

Hofi'raann,  E.  T.  A.,  on  musical  feeling,  185 

I  folmgren,  on  retinal  images,  353. 
H<iropter,  nature  of,  359  f.  (and  imtr). 
Horwicz,  on  sensations  of  taste,  102  ;  nature 

of  feeling,   177   {note);  on  conceiition  of 

cause,  505  {nott). 
Hume,  on  laws  of  association,  274  f. 
Hj'att,  Professor  A.,  on  influence  of  feeling 

in  scientific  observation,  511  {note). 
Hypothesis,  use  of,  in  all  reasoning,  481. 

Idkas,  the  so-called  "fixed,"  81,  262,  637; 
jjrimary  representative,  237  f.;  physiolog- 
ical conditions  of,  241  f.  ;  intensity  of, 
■^45  f.  ;  life-likene.ss  of,  246  f.  ;  of  the 
feelings,  251  f . ;  fusion  and  inhibition  t>f, 
356  f.  ;  spontaneity  of,  251)  f.  ;  association 
of.  2(53  f.,275  f.  ;  the  "freeing"  of,  264  f., 

281  f.  ;  series  of,  265  f.  ;  furtherance  Jind 
hindering  of,  2()()  f.  ;  condensation  of  se- 
ries of,  270  f . ;  formation  of  the  ' '  abstract," 

282  f.,  442  f. 

Id^-ation,  process  of,  258  f .,  273  f . ;  associa- 
tion in,  2(i3  £.,  268  f.  ;  connection  of  lan- 
guage with,  273  f.,  275  f.  ;  teleology  of,  286 
f.  ;  necessary  to  perception,  322  f. 

Identity,  principle  of,  482  f. 

Illusions,  of  perception,  IJiO  f.  ;  of  motion, 
:i73  f. 

Image,  the  mental,  nature  of,  3:!5  f. ,  244  f.; 
meaning  of  term,  2:]~ ;  the  after-image, 
237  f.;  fading  of  the,  .238  f. ,  250;  spontane- 
ous recurrence  of,  25lt  f. ,  413;  rendering 
schematic  of,  282  f. 

Imagination,  effect  of,  on  s';>,ht,  3<i4  f.  ;  as 
representative  faculty,  :)77  f.,  408  f.,  411 
f.;  as  creative,  410  f.,  414  f. ;  as  subject  to 
tliought,  413  f.  ;  limits  of,  415  f.  ;  ilepen- 
dence  on  feeling  and  will,  418  f.  ;  kinds  of, 
420  f.  ;  the  practical,  421  f.;  the  scientific, 


422  f. ;  the  artistic,  424  f.  ;  in  ethics  and 
religion,  4211 ;  development  of,  426  f. 

ImpulscH,  tiie,  nature  of,  5'J(t  f.,  5'.t2  f.  ;  de- 
velopment of,  503  f.  ;  classification  of, 
','M  f. 

Induction,  as  method  in  psychology,  24  f.  ; 
nature  of,  as  reasoning,  478  f.  (see  also 
Iteasonins;). 

Instincts,  the,  nature  of,  591  f.,  597  f . ;  of 
the  lower  animals,  5119  L  ;  explanations  of, 
5119  f. 

Intellect,  as  related  to  attention,  75  f. ;  as 
essentially  judgment,  30(1  f.,  4:!0;  relation 
of,  to  imagination,  409,  413,  416  f.,  564  f.; 
"  proper,"  430  f.  ;  sentiments  belonging 
to.  5(>4  f. 

Intellection,  nature  of  the  primary,  28S  f., 
431  ;  physiological  conditions  of,  291  f.  ; 
analysis  of,  29; i ;  as  consciousness  of  re- 
semblance an<l  ditlcrence,  296  f.  ;  as  re- 
lated to  ideation,  MOl  f. 

Introspection,  as  method  in  psychologj",  15 
f.,  18  f. 

Jackson,  Hioiilim;.';,  on  brain  as  sensory- 
motor,  228. 
Jahn,  on  musical  feeling,  185  {>iotr). 
James,  Professor  William,  on  consciousness, 
o8  f.  :  on     adjustment  of    attention,    7S  ; 
on     "  extensity "    of     sensations.     144; 
theory   of    perception,    154,    320,   325    f. . 
337;    ou    feeling   of    eflbrt,    221    f.   (and 
i      note) ;     physiological    conditions     of    re- 
!      production,  267  ;    on  time-consciousness, 
i      311    {notf)  ;  on   memory,    399  {note)  ;    on 
reasoning,    470   f. ;    and   knowledge,    508, 
519  ()iotf)  ;  on  the  emotions,  ,554  f. 
Janet,  M.  Paul,  on  nature  of  memory,  389. 
Jastrow,  on  Weber's  law,  137  ;  on  dreams  of 

the  blind,  3.S4  {note). 
Jealousy,  as  an  emotion,  541. 
I  Jevons,  on  extension  and  intension  of  con- 
cepts, 445. 
Joints,  sensations  of,  117  f. 
Joulxrt,  on  poetic  imagination,  425. 
Joy,  as  an  emotion,  5:)9  f. 
Judgment,  nature   of  rudimentary,  306  f., 
437  f.  ;  and  of  the  logical,  437  f.,  445  f.  ;  as 
I      related  to  reasoning,  438  f..  445  f.,  4Ci3  f.  ; 
I      and  involving  synthesis,  446  f.;  forms  of, 
447  f.  ;  potencies  of,  453  f. 

Kant,  on  chvssification  of  faculty.  .59;  im- 
I      agination  in  mathematics,  410,  474  ;  logi- 
I      cal  (lift/iin  of,  474;  on  distinction  of  emo- 
tions and  passions,  560 ;  and  feeling  of  the 
I      sublime,  577. 

I  Kaulech,  on  nature  of  sensation,  95  (note). 

Knowledge,    through    rccognitive    memory, 

401  ;    tlirougli    reasoning    from    groumls, 

I      4()7  f.,  479  f.,  518  f.;  growth  of,  479  f..  .508, 

516  f. ;  nature  of,  as  a  development,  508  f., 

.518  f. ;  influence  of  feeling  in,  511,  ,567; 

I      kinds  of,  516  f. ;  the  immediate,  517  f.;  of 

i      things,  519  f.  ;  and  of  Self,  .520  f.  ;  desire 

I      of,  .567  f. 

Krohn,  Dr  ,  on  grasp  of  tactual  conscious- 

ne-s,  40  („<-te\ 
Kusamaul,  on  fading  of  memorj^-image,  3S.5. 

I  Lanoe,   on    rhythm  of  attention,   72   (and 
1      7iote).  "  -     ,    \^\\''y^'^''^Y 


(;74 


INDKX 


liangle.v,  on  energy  of  light-waves,  109  {noir). 

Language,  depenilent  on  ideation,  273,  277  ; 
relation  of.  to  thought,  379  f.,  4-2«  f.,  452  f.. 
450  f.  ;  and  to  memory,  3SS,  o90  f. ,  400  f . ; 
origin  of,  455  f. 

Lazarus,  on  formation  of  concepts,  459. 

Le  Coutc,  on  sight,  154  (7wtc). 

Lehmann,  on  fading  of  memory -image,  239. 

Leibnitz,  on  reasoning  among  animals,  465  ; 
logical  dictum  of,  474  ;  on  reason  in  man, 
470. 

Life,  the  mental,  mo.st  general  forms  of,  29  f ., 
0.5  f .  ;  elements  of.  91  f.,  ol7  f .  ;  develop- 
ment of,  317  f.,  007  f. 

Light,  sensations  of.  105  f.,  109  f.,  138  f.; 
j)henomena  of  contrast  in,  127  ;  quotient  of 
sensitiveness  to,  loVt. 

Lipps,  on  association  of  ideas,  27S  ;  on  be- 
lief, in  cognition,  519  {note). 

Local  Signs,  as  sensation-complexes,  141  f. ; 
existence  and  use  of,  1.54  f . ;  of  the  skin, 
1.55  f. ;  of  the  eye,  1.5(;  f.,  348  f.,  352  f., 
Lotze's  theory  of,  1.57  (and  note). 

Localization,  of  cerebral  function,  in  sensa- 
tion, 98  ;  of  sensation-complexes,  144  f ., 
322  f.  ;  the  finer,  by  touch,  337  f . 

Logic,  relation  of,  to  psychology,  428  f .,  4.50    Number,  formation  of  concept  of,  499  f 
f .  ;   psychological  meaning  of  its  terms, 
450  f . 

Lombard,  on  effects  of  fatigue,  74  (note). 

Lotze,  theory  of  local  signs,  1.57  (ond  note) ; 
on  nature  of  feeling,  189,  192,  197  ;  inten- 
sity of  ideas,  247  f.  ;  on  nature  of  judg- 
ment, 307 ;  origin  of  language,  4.50 ;  on 
space-perception  of  women,  490  ;  on  tem 
perament,  (m1  . 

Ludicrous,  feeling  of  the,  .577  f . 


lated  to  conation,  212  ;  as  reflex,  217  f.  :  ati 

automatic  in  conation,  217  ;  kinds  of,  224 

f . ;   impulsive  and  instinctive,  ::30  f .  ;  of 

eyes  in  vision,  3.54  f. ;  illusions  of,  373  f .  ; 

as  a  category,  499  f. 
MuUer-Lyer,    on    visual     illusions,    372    f. 

(note). 
Miinsterberg,  on  qualitj'  of  sensation,  121  ; 

reproduction  of  ideas,  274,   391  ;  perce})- 

tions  of  sound,  331  f . ;  and  of  sight,  3.55  ; 

on  nature  of  will,  019,  025  f. 
Muscles,  sensations  of,   115  f . ;   relation  of 

the  striated,  to  attention,  213  f . ;  of  the 

eye,  ia  vision,  3.54  f. 
Music,  sensations  in.  103  f.,  128  f.  ;  scale  in, 

128  f.  ;   feelings  excited  by,  170,  18.5,  198  ; 

office  of  imagination  in,  424  f . 

Nativists,  the,  325  f. 

Natorp,  on  jisychology,  .3  (note)  ;  nature  of 
consciousness,  33  (note). 

Naville,  on  will.  307. 

Nervous  System,  as  condition  of  conscious- 
ness. 40  f .  ;  integrity  of,  in  attention,  tu  f.  ; 
as  related  to  fusion  of  sensations,  142  f. 

Nichols,  on  nature  of  pam,  114  (note). 


Ob.iect.  formation  of  the  external,  321  f. 
Orschansky,  on  feeling  of  effort,  224  (note). 


Pain,  jihysical  conditions  of,  177,  190,  193 
f.  ;  relation  of,  to  intensity  of  sensation, 
194  f . 

Passions,  the.  development  of,  .535  f . ;  as 
>\     distinguished  from  emotions,  5.59  f . 

Panlhan,  on  nature  of  psychic  facts.  9  ; 


Mantegazza,  on  expression  of  the  emo- 
tions, .549  (note). 

Martius,  Gotz,  on  reaction  and  attention,  73 
(note). 

Maudsley.  on  nature  of  psychology,  15. 

Measurement,  in  psycholosj',  39  f .,  133 ;  of 
quantit}^  of  sensations,  131  f. ;  of  distance, 
by  the  eye,  371  f . 

Medem,  on  psychology  as  exact  science,  99 
(vote). 

Memory,  phj'siological  conditions  of,  242  f ., 
384  f . ;  images  of,  249  f . ;  as  faculty,  377  ^. ; 
as  recognitive.  377  f.,  397  f  '.  401 ;  as  reten- 
tive. 38.)  f . ;  in  perception,  :!85  f .  ;  of  words, 
390  f.,  400;  cultivation  of,  402  f.,  405  ; 
kinds  of,  402  f. 

^Merkel,  on  reaction  with  choice,  625. 


Method,  in  jisycliology,  its  kinds,  14  f.;  in-    Physiognomy,  548  f. 


teleology  in  ideation,  287,  393  ;  and  the  nat- 
ure of  judgment,  3C8  ;  on  systematic  le- 
production,  393 ;  and  nature  of  will, 
012. 

Payot,  on  conditions  of  pleasure-pain,  192. 

Perception  bv  the  Senses,  basis  of,  144  f .  ; 
nature  of,  318  f.,  :-,W  f.,  308  f .,  419  f.  ;  use 
of  the  word,  319  f.;  problem  of,  321  f.  : 
theory  of,  325  f..  308  f.  ;  as  intuition  of 
space.  333  f.  ;  of  sulidity  of  bodies,  344  f.  ; 
data  of  visual.  o4S  f..  302  f.  ;  influence  of 
feeling  in.  304  f.  ;  as  the  solution  of  a  prob- 
lem. 307  f. ,  388  f.  ;  principles  of,  308  f.; 
illusions  in,  K70  f.  ;  dependent  on  memory, 
388  f .  ;  and  in;agination,  419  f. 

Perspective,  niatheniatical  and  psj'cholog- 
ical,  301  f. 

Pliilosoiihy,  relations  of.  to  psychology,  12. 


trospcctive,  15  f.,  18  f.  ;  indirect  observa- 
tion, 20  f.  ;  experimental.  22  f. ;  the  induc- 
tive. 24  f. ;  the  genetic,  25  f . 

iliddle  Term,  the,  use  of,  in  reasoning,  407. 

Mill.  .lanics,  on  neutral  feelings,  189. 

Mill,  .1.  S.,  on  nature  of  abstract  ideas,  443  ; 
and  of  reasoning.  482. 

Mind,  laws  of  the  development  of,  644  f., 
t>57  f.,  608  f.  (see  also  Self ,  And  Life,  the 
Mental). 

.\rijiii„nm  visihlle,  38,  153  f. 

MncmonicB,  405  f. 

Mohr,  nature  of  consciousness,  3.5  (note,). 

Mosso,  on  physiology  of  the  emotions,  538  f. 

Motion,  as  necessaiv  to  perception,  142  f . ; 
sensations  of,  147  f.,  340  f.,  352  f.  ;  us  re- 


Fleasure,  contlitions  of.  190  f.  ;  nature  of. 
1".H  f.  ;  relation  of.  to  intensity  of  sensa- 
tion. 194  t.  :  of  rhythm.  20(5  f . " 

Pleasure-pains,  as  belonging  to  feeling.  107, 
177  f..  188  f..  200  f.  ;  as  dependent  on  in- 
tensity. 194  f.  ;  as  absolute.  201  f.  ;  oscilla- 
tions of,  205  f.  ;  office  of,  in  perception. 
340  f. 

Porter,  on  nature  of  consciousness,  31. 

Presentations  of  Sense,  origin  and  dcvelop- 
m.nt  of.  321  f.,  ::27  f.,  334  f..  340  f.  ; 
through  smell  and  taste,  327  f.  ;  of  sound. 
330  f.  ;  of  sight.  34S  f.  ;  influence  of  iii<>- 
tion  upon.  3.53  f.  ;  the  illusory.  370. 

Pressure,  sensations  of,  111  f  .  loS  f.  ;  quo- 
tient of  sensitiveness  of,  138  £. 


INDEX 


C76 


Preyer,  on  random  automatic  movements, 
~29 ;  and  imitative  movements,  'S.'A  f.  ; 
on  discernment  of  ditVerence,  '-i'M  ;  j)ercep- 
tionsof  sounds,  •'>'-'>'l  ;  and  of  siglit,  o'yi  i.  ; 
on  idea  of  cause,  505  f. 

Priinuin  coij/iituin,  tlie,  ;i09  f. 

Psycliolo^y,  dcHuition  of,  1  f .  ;  as  science, 
2  f.,  11  f.,  15  f.  ;  sphere  of,  :5  f.  ;  problem 
of,  T  f.  ;  relations  of,  10  f.  ;  to  philosophy, 
I'J  ;  metliod  in,  14  f..  24  f.  ;  data  of,  10  L  ; 
sources  of,  21  f.  ;  experiment  in,  22  f.  ; 
divisions  of,  20. 

Psyc/iosis,  meaning  of  term,  4. 

Rauikk,  on  psychology,  4  ;  on  nature  of  sen- 
sation, ',15 ;  i)rinciple  of  contiguity,  2(58 
(iio/t)  ;  on  desire,  004  (note). 

Reaction-time,  as  influenced  by  attention, 
()S,  72  f.,  ;{',(l  ;  in  fading  of  memory-image, 
2o'.) ;  in  discernment,  3(37,  293,  391 ;  and 
in  choice,  025  f. 

Reasoning,  nature  of,  4M7  f. ,  402  f.  ;  related 
to  conception,  4:iS  f.,  4(>4  f.  ;  among  the 
lower  animals,  405  f.  ;  as  solution  of  a 
problem,  407  f.  ;  kinds  of,  471  f.  ;  the 
mathematical,  474  ;  inductive  and  deduc- 
tive, 478  f.  ;  underlying  principles  of,  4S2 
f.  ;  influence  of  feeling  on,  4^0. 

Recognition,  as  essential  U>  memory,  377  f.,  ' 
381  f.,  397  f. 

Recollection,  394  f.  (and  see  Reproduction  i 
and  Memor3').  i 

Relativity,  principle  of  organic,  125  f .  ;  as  j 
applied  to  circuit  of  consciousness,  254  ;  as  I 
belonging  to  all  mental  life,  001  f.  , 

Representation,  nature  of  image  in,  235  f.  ; 
spontaneous  reproduction  in,  200  f.,  400  f.  ;  . 
the  laws  of,  2(!S,  274  f  ;  series  of  ideas  in, 
271  f.  ;  similarity  and  contrast  in,  274  f.  ; 
general  faculty  of,  370  f. ,  41 9  f.  ; 

Reproduction,  spontaneous,  300  f.,  285  f.  ;  i 
physiological  conditions  of,  307  f.,  381  f.,  | 
3S7  f  ;  of  ideas  in  series,  270  f. ,  285  f.  ;  | 
relation  of,  to  language,  373,  3S8,  400  ;  in  ; 
all  memory,  381,  3S7  f.  ;  laws  of,  3S4  f.        ] 

Retina,  structure  of,  108  f.  ;  inertia  of,  | 
130  f.  ;  use  in  vision,  354  f.  ! 

Ribot,  on  nature  of  psychology,  0  ;  on  atten- 
tion, 75,  81  ;  and  fixed  ideas,  SI  (iii>t<-). 

Richot,  on  conception  of  Self,  527. 

Right,  nature  of  the  conception  of,  582  f . 

Rittmeyer,  on  perceptions  of  taste,  101  j 
(ni)tt'),  j 

Robertson,  Professor  Croom,  on  philosophy 
and  psychology,  13. 

Romanes,  on  power  of  animals  to  count.  299  ;  ' 
and  on  their  language,  458  ;  and  reasoning, 
400. 

Romicn,  on  sensations  of  smell,  100. 

Rouws«i)u,  influence  of,  on  psychology  of  feel- 
ing, 103  f.  ' 
..^uegg,  on  conditions  of  feeling,  200  (note). 

Sachs,  on  norvc-cndings  in  muscles,  110, 

Santlus,  on  the  impulse^,  001  (//o^^). 

Schilfer,  K.  L.,  on  perceptions  of  sound, 
332.  -■  I 

Schiff,  on  physiology  of  pain,  191 . 

Schopenhauer,  on  madness  and  memory,  | 
392 ;  on  imagination,  408  ;  and  ffisthetical  ' 
feeling,  573.  I 

Science,   influence  of  feelings  in,  199  f.,  511 


(and  nolc)\  reasoning   in,  474  f.,  478  f,; 
cognitions  of,  511  f. 
Scottish  School,  their  theory  of  perception, 

Scripture,  on  association  of  ideas,  279  {nolt). 

Self,  bodily  feeling  of,  175  f.,  525  f. ;  cogni- 
tion of,  521  f, ,  525  f.;  formation  of  the 
concepti<)n  of,  527  f.,  531  f. ;  as  unitary 
being,  .531  f . ;  as  "pure"  bein^,  533. 

Self-coiiBciousness,  distinguished  from  con- 
sciousness, 29  f.,  530  f.;  as  feeling,  175  f., 
530  f.;  development  of,  531,  535  f.;  stages 
of,  525  f. 

Sensation,  nature  of,  89  f.,  92  f. ,  143  f.;  the 
so-called  "simple,"  91  f . ;  mechanism  of, 
97  f.;  quality  of,  130  f.,  124  f.;  modify hig 
conditions  of,  123  f. ;  quantity  of,  131  f.  ; 
limits  of,  134  f.;  "  dynamogenetic  "  value 
of,  329. 

Sensation-complexes,  141  f.;  extensity  of, 
143  f.,  322;  development  of,  147  f.  ;  sjia- 
cial  series  of,  322  f. 

Sensations,  the,  cla.sscs  of,  90  f.,  119,  1.59  1; 
of  smell,  99  f.;  of  taste,  100  f.;  of  souikI, 
103  f.,  128  f.;  light  and  color,  105  f.,  145 
f.;  of  the  skin,  110  f.,  152  f. ;  of  temfx-ra- 
ture.  111  f. ;  of  j)ressure.  111  f.,  152  f . ; 
mu.scnlar,  115  f, ,  145  f. ;  of  the  joints, 
117  f. ;  the  organic,  118  f.;  number  of, 
131  f. ;  as  basis  of  perception,  141  f. ;  mas- 
.siveiiess  of,  143  f.,  352  f. ;  so-called 
"pure,"  145  f. ;  of  motion,  147  f.,  334  f. , 
340  f.,  352;  of  position,  150  f.,  1.57  f,, 
334  f.;  fusion  of,  1.53  f. 

Senses,  the,  <.)0  f.,  119.  159  f.;  the  "geomet- 
rical," 131,  322  f,,  347. 

Sentiments,  the,  formation  of,  535  f.,  542  f., 
561  f.;  how  diflercnt  from  emotions,  542  f., 
501  f . ;  classes  of,  502 ;  bodily  basis  of, 
503  f.;  the  intellectual,  504  f.;  relation  of, 
to  imagination,  507  f. ;  the  Ksthetical, 
.5<i9  f.;  the  ethical,  579  f. ;  the  egoistic  and 
altruistic,  585  f. 

Seth,  Professor,  on  philosophy  and  p.sychol- 
ogy,  13. 

Sex,  peculiarities  of,  051  f. 

Sight,  formation  of  field  of,  323  f  ,  348  f., 
359  f.;  development  of,  348  f.,  3.56  f. ;  bi- 
nocular, 350  f. ;  stereoscopic,  357;  "dou- 
ble," 359  f.,  373  f.;  secondary  helps  to,  301 
f. ;  suggestion  and  imagination  in,  304  f. ; 
illusions  of,  370  f. 

Similarity,  as  principle  of  association,  274  f . ; 
consciousness  of,  393  f.,  447  f.;  judgments 
of,  447  f . 

Smell,  sensations  of,  99  f, ;  end-organs  of, 
99  f.;  pr'rcej)tions  of,  327  f. 

Sound,  sensations  of,  102  f. ;  classes  c>f, 
102  f. ;  character  of  the  musical,  1031, 
129;  entotic,  102  f.,  330;  varying  condi- 
tions of,  12;?  f. 

Space,  formation  of  conception  of,  321  f., 
487  f.,  492  f. ;  perceptions  of,  by  touch, 
332  f.;  and  by  sight,  348  1,  3.50  1;  us  a. 
category,  487  ;  known  as  "  empty,"  492  f. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  on  nature  of  sensation, 
94  ;  view  of  feeling,  170,  297,  538  ;  and  of 
association,  300 ;  of  discrimination  as 
feeling,  397 ;  on  nature  of  perce{)tion, 
320  ;  physiology  of  the  emotions,  .558  1 

Sufficient  Reason,  principle  of,  4821,  484  1, 
.500  f . 


676 


INDEX 


Strieker,  on  imagination  and  motor  con- 
sciousness, 4U'. 

Striimpell,  on  processes  of  ideation,  262 
(note);  and  nature  of  conception,  440  f. ; 
on  grades  of  ideation.  457  (note). 

Stump f,  on  attention,  17,  81  ;  theorj'  of  per- 
ception. 154. 

Sujjgestion,  of  ideas,  263,  410  f. ;  effect  of,  in 
(iiscernment,  2t)7  ;  and  on  sight,  364  f. 

Sully,  on  attention,  77,  8U  ;  quality  and 
(juaiicity  in  sensation,  121  ;  on  conation, 
:.'14  ;  on  spontaneous  reproduction,  261  ;  on 
assimilation,  oU4,  oU5 ;  consciousness  of 
time,  312;  on  nature  of  perception,  320, 
i;2i' ;  on  recollection,  395;  and  creative 
imagination,  41(5;  on  rational  belief,  515; 
on  ajsthetical  feeling,  573 ;  and  feeling  of 
the  ludicrous,  577  f. 

Syllogism,  nature  of,  467  f.,  473  f.  ;  figures 
"of,  473  f.,  477  ;  law  of,  473  f. 

Sympathy,  as  an  emotion,  541  f.  ;  the  senti- 
ment of,  580  f. 

Tact,  nature  of,  521  f. 

Taine,  on  niiuunui/i  nudibile,  38  ;  and  nat- 
ure of  perception,  320. 

Taste,  sensations  of;  100  f.  ;  end-organs  of, 
101  f .  ;  kinds  of,  101  f .  ;  perceptions  of, 
327  f . 

Teleology,  in  processes  of  ideation.  286  f.  ; 
and  creative  imagination,  415  f.  ;  of  the 
emotions,  557  f.  ;  of  all  mental  life,  66S  f. 

Temperament,  effect  of,  on  association,  280  ; 
doctrine  of,  647  f.  ;  kinds  of,  640  f. 

Temperature,  sensations  of.  111  f.,  113  f. 

Thomson,  on  nature  of  the  enthymeme,  473 
(note). 

Thought,  as  representative  faculty,  377  f., 
433  f.  ;  but  not  mere  imagination,  378  f., 
415  f.  ;  relation  of  language  to,  379  f.,  452 
f .  ;  psychological  nature  of,  428  f . ,  431  f. , 
435  f.,  467  f. 

Time,  formation  of  conception  of,  495  f.  ; 
known  as  "  empty,"  497  f .  ;  as  a  category, 
408  f. 

Time-consciousness,  nature  of.  309  f.,  497  f.  ; 
development  of,  312  f. ,  495  f. 

Tones,  nature  of,  103;  pitch  of,  103  f.,  123 
f.  ;  deafness  to,  123. 

Touch,  sensations  of,  112  f .  ;  formation  of 
the  field  of.  323  f .  ;  322  f.  ;  .space-percep- 
tions by,  332  f .  ;  connection  of,  with  sight, 
3.58  f. 

Trendelenburg,  on  motion  as  a  category,  500. 

TurnbuU,  experiments  in  sound,  123. 

Tyii<lall,on  scientific  use  oi  imagination,  424. 


IJl.RK'i,  on  memory,  330. 
Urbantschitsch,  on  oscLllations  of  attention, 
72  {jioU). 

ViEKOKDT,  on  measurement  of  minute  in- 
tervals, 43. 

Vision  (see  Sight). 

Volition,  definition  of,  613;  difTercnt  kinds 
of,  614  f.  (.s.e  also  Will). 

Volkmann  (vun  \'olkmar),  on  induction  in 
psychology,  24  (»o^)  ;  on  sensation,  94; 
nature  of  ideas.  248  ;  on  spontaneous  rejiro- 
duction  of  ideas,  261  (iiote)  ;  and  imagina- 
tion, 409  f.  ;  on  reasoning,  466  (note)  ;  on 
the  influence  of  names,  5:.9  f.;  reciinoeal 
influence  of  the  emotions,  555 ;  on  nature 
of  desires,  603. 

Volkmann,  A.  W.,  on  Weber's  law,  139, 

Von  Kries,  on  number  of  color  sensations, 
122. 

Waller,  on  feeling  of  effort,  222  [note). 

Ward,  Dr.,  on  jisvchDlogy,  3  ;  on  feeling,  19, 
167  ;  on  number  of  faculties,  60  (itate)  ;  on 
attention,  63  ;  "  extensity  "  of  sensations, 
144  ;  nature  of  ideas,  249  ;  on  judgment, 
307  ;  on  perception,  320,  325 ;  nature  of 
thinkmg,  431  ;  on  conception  of  cause, 
592 ;  and  of  self,  532  ;  on  nature  of  desire, 
591  ;  on  principle  of  relativity.  662  f. 

Weber,  E.  H.,  on  temperature,  114;  law  of, 
133  f.  ;  "  sensation  circles  "  of,  1.52  f.  ;  on 
perception  of  weight,  343;  muscular  sense 
of  the  eye,  361. 

Will,  as  active  in  attention,  84  f.  ;  use  of  the 
word,  699  f.,  ((19  ;  development  of,  615  f. , 
deliberation  in,  ()17  f.,  622;  exercising 
choice,  622  f.  ;  as  decision,  624  f.  ;  freedom 
of,  (i27'  f.  ;  032  f. ;  formation  of  plan  by, 
62S  f . 

Wolfe,  on  discrimination  of  pitch.  78. 

Wunderli,  on  sensations  of  touch,  343. 

Wundt,  on  nature  of  jisychology,  12  f. ;  on 
classification  of  faculty,  59  ;  reaction  with 
expectation,  ()8 ;  theory  of  colors,  1(16  f. 
{note)  ;  on  contra.'^t,  1;;7  ;  on  mental  feel- 
ings, 189  ;  and  pleasure-pain,  195  f.  ;  on 
nature  of  perception,  319  (iiotc) ;  and  tem- 
perament, 650  1;  on  principle  of  relativ- 
ity, 663  f. 

YotiNG,  theory  of  color-sensation,  107  f. 

ZimiEX,  on  neutral  feelings,  189  (note)  ;  and 
intensity  of  ideas,  245. 


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